It's a hoax, folks...

To all my well-meaning and otherwise, very intelligent friends:

If you think that the email forward you are sending me is a hoax, but you’re sending it anyway, just in case, I’ll let you in on a little secret: It’s a hoax.

There is absolutely no way that Microsoft, were it even possible to track, would give out a nickel to every apple-cheeked kid who sent an email forward. Think about it. Microsoft did not get where it is today by thinking about the little guy, especially the stupid little guy.

Nor will that cute little baby, who apparently has cancer, ever benefit from your sending that email to everyone you know. In fact, I can almost guarantee that the kid in that picture is now a thriving teenager given how long ago I first started getting these emails.

I will find out about viruses on my own, but thanks for your concern. I tend not to open emails with attachments that I don’t recognise so you can quit warning me about that. And you know that one you guys send me twice a year about the file that has infected my windows system? Yeah, that file is supposed to be there. Chill Winston…

That girl with the red hair who keeps going missing? I bet she’s just fine. Perhaps next time, before sending me a missing child’s photo, you might consider that for such a cross-country scheme to be effective, some details about the child last known whereabouts, height, weight, eye-colour etc, might be helpful. Yup, you guessed it, it’s a hoax.

Enough about microwaves. Water isn’t going to spontaneously leap from the glass and boil in your hands when it somehow becomes superheated in the microwave. An old lady never killed her poodle by trying to dry it off in one of those contraptions. Use a microwave safe dish, even if it’s plastic, and you’ll be fine, super evil plastic particles aren’t going to infiltrate your food.

Oh yeah, and your cell phone isn’t going to blow up a gas station, and please don’t try to perform CPR on yourself by coughing vigorously (although it doesn’t matter, you’ve only got a few seconds before you’re going to pass out anyway.)

And as far as I know, no matter how noble the cause, internet email petitions have no binding legal authority whatsoever. So why bother?

In short, any email that ends with the phrase "please send this to everyone you know" or something of the sort, is always a hoax. Seriously, if you had something really important to tell your friend about, would you ever say, oh and send this to everyone in your inbox? I have never sent on something like that, and never will, so you might as well not bother sending it to me in the first place because the hoax stops here. But beyond that, you just shouldn’t send it to anyone in the first place. It’s a hoax. Always. Every single time. Your wasting all of our time by sending it, and your giving gratification to some whack-job who gets satisfaction from seeing how far an email chain will go (never understood that actually, why not just keep a box of tissues by the bed?).

Thanks!

David J. Ford