Seven Years Bad Luck

I got a chain letter today. I had really hoped that with the decline of physical post, chain letters would vanish. I used to get them a lot in elementary school. In third grade a classmate got a letter that informed her she would go bald and her teeth would fall out if she didn’t send the letter to 15 people within 24 hours. If she didn’t send it to at least five people within three days, an old gypsy curse bound into the letter would activate . . . and she would die.

I was one of the lucky recipients of this little bundle of joy. Of course, I freaked, just like the other 15 girls in Mrs. Kreplotnik’s class who received the letter. I went straight home and tried to think of someone to send it to. I only knew a few fourth graders, and I wasn’t going to send it to my little sister and her friends in Kindergarten. They couldn’t even read, and I didn’t want the blood of fifteen five-year-olds on my hands. I went home and asked my mom for a bunch of paper and the address book for our church congregation. For some reason, she seemed opposed to threatening a bunch of church ladies with a gypsy curse of death. When I wouldn’t calm down, she finally got through to me by explaining that the curse wasn’t even real, since the idea that the Romany people cursed anybody was just a racist myth.

It was an empowering moment. Screw that, I thought. I’m not going to die just because some dumb letter told me to. I burned the letter. (My mom didn’t appreciate that I did it in the kitchen, badly scorching one of her best plates.) I went and told my friends the next day that I was going to break the chain. Three days went by, and lo and behold, I’m still here. Take that, racist fakey gypsy letter.

I used to think that chain letters were a conspiracy by the Postal Service to ensure job security for letter carriers, especially in the frightening face of the advent of (bum bum BUM!) e-mail. But with the rise of the net came the e-commerce boom, and the Postal Service no longer has to rely on such dirty tactics, since packages from eBay cost a lot more to ship than letters.

However, just like rust on a car’s engine, digital parasites have plagued e-mail since its inception. Remember that letter from Bill Gates promising you a thousand bucks if you forwarded the message to as many people as possible because he was testing new tracking software? Remember the apocalyptic claims of virus warnings in the late ’90s, when a computer virus would melt your hard drive, give you syphilis, unbalance your checkbook, make you forget to pay your rent, and steal your grandma’s wheelchair? As if those weren’t bad enough, electronic chain mail hit the scene, with threats just as inane as the promises of some guy in Nigeria who wants to give me twelve million bucks.

In the letter I just got here, your threats are categorized by your zodiac sign. Lucky me– I’m right on the cusp, so I had to read two astonishingly vague yet accurate descriptions of my personality:

GEMINI - The Chatterbox (May 21 - June 20) Smart and witty. Outgoing, very chatty. Lively, energetic. Adaptable But needs to express themselves. Argumentative and outspoken. Like change. Versatile. Busy, sometimes nervous and tense. Gossips. May seem superficial or inconsistent. Beautiful physically and mentally. 5 years of bad luck if you do not forward.

CANCER - The Protector (June 21 - July 22)
Moody, emotional. May be shy. Very loving and caring. Pretty/handsome. Excellent partners for life. Protective. Inventive and imaginative. Cautious. Touchy-feely kind of person. Needs love from others. Easily hurt, but sympathetic. 16 years of bad luck if you do not forward.

Because this information was on Criss Angel’s show (which, it goes without saying, vouches for its authenticity) evil luck was inflicted on my by my zodiac sign. Oh no! What will I do! I’m right between Gemini and Cancer! Does this mean I’m gonna get 21 years of bad luck? OH NO!! How can I be saved???

Oh. Look, here it is:

Send away!!~ Ready .. set……….. GO!
1-3 people= 1 minute of luck
4-7 people= 1 hour of luck
8-12 people = 1 day of luck
13-17 People = 1 week of luck
18-22 people = 1 month of luck
23-27 people = 3 Months of luck
28-32 people = 7 months of luck
33-37 people = 1 year of luck

meh. BALETED.

I think the thing that really bothers me about digital chain mail is that, as annoying as the old-fashioned kind was, it at least took some effort to send. You had to hand write, type, or at least print every single letter you sent. And back in the dot-matrix and inkjet days, printing usually took twice as long as just writing it out. There was at least some evidence that the curse had power. It could take a couple of hours for a kid to copy a letter by hand, carefully matching the exact format of the chain letter. Shoot, I was more exacting in reproducing chain letters for my friends than I ever was writing “I will not talk in class” five gajillion times for my teachers.

Now with the click of a button and a flicker over to your address book, you can spam everyone you know to death in less than five seconds. How is that supposed to have any efficacy? The electronic medium has diluted the power of the curse, people. I can go “BALETED” and it’s gone– no trace it was ever there. And my mom can’t yell at me for burning stuff indoors. Win-win.

Some thought the advent of the digital age would banish all doubt and misinformation from the world, but one of the funnest parts of the Internet is its function as an instant gratification rumor mill. You can get misinformation out there quicker than you can say “snopes,” and then skeptics get to feel good about themselves when they can show something just ain’t right. I’ll admit it– I’m a debunking junkie.

So I defy you, evil curses of the zodiac that lurk in the belly of my inbox! Bring it! You have no power over me. It is you who should fear the mighty strength of my index finger upon the mouse, not I who will fear your trite and flimsily mass-copied words.

Neener, neener.