My BFFs: Pat Boone and Yassir’s Widow

Pat Boone called today.

I was delighted to hear he was still alive and I had so many questions for him. I couldn’t ask any, though, because he was robocalling me with a taped message about next week’s primary.

And, in spite of his comment about me and other seniors (SENIORS????), I listened to a lot of the spiel. Because, when it comes to good advice about the Tenth Congressional District, nobody knows the issues like Pat Boone.

I’ve received about 50 robocalls in the past two weeks; poorly scripted recordings of various politicians and (mostly) local celebs seeking my vote in the February primaries. I am, of course, the second-most important voter in my home and very popular among the ruling class, so it’s easy to understand all these calls to my office and cell numbers.

Similarly, I get regular e-mails from lonely women who plead with me to meet them and make their lives complete. Former ministers of distant lands beg for my aid in reconnecting them to their fortunes. Bankers offer me millions of dollars in mortgages, home equity lines and subordinated mortgage-backed Obama futures. (Highly discounted since last year!!!) I have already bankrupted several nations by winning all their lotteries.

Did I mention the drugs? Oh, yeah. All kinds of drugs. Drugs for arthritis, heart palpitations, toe cancer and the always popular erectile dysfunction. It’s amazing that CVS is still in business, what with the lower prices and top quality competition on the internet.

And every time I read one of these e-mails, the same question comes to mind. Who ARE these people?

Not the people sending the e-mails or making the robocalls. Clearly, they are running a business and, somehow, they are making money at it. If they weren’t making money, they’d stop. That’s the beauty of capitalism, if you’re not running AIG.

The real question is about the people who actually respond to this stuff. Who are they and why are they allowed to operate motor vehicles, take out mortgages and screen my baggage?

I’m thinking about the guy who just got a message with the headline, Hapy Birtday from a Freind, and opened the email to find an offer for low-cost V*I*A*G*A*R*A* or Lovitera. And this same somebody said to himself,

“Hah, look at that. It’s not a birthday card after all. They tricked me into looking at this ad for medicines they can’t even spell……But, wow, look at those prices. Where’s my Visa????”

Before there was an internet, I received 2-3 international letters each year, handwritten, on onionskin paper, with a return address of…..can you guess?????…..yep, Nigeria. The former minister of mining or a widow whose husband was killed by an evil cabal or…didn’t matter, really. They were all the same.

They were desperate and, of all the millions of people in the United States, I was the one they were counting on to help them reclaim their vast fortunes. If only I would show them I was truly trutwothy, sinsere and finacialy reponsible. It was quite a burden for me to shoulder, but that’s why they knew I was the only one for the job.

I am the widow of the former mining director, president, secretary of the ministry, Yassir Arafat (really) and I must call upon you in a matter of great urgency and discreetion….

Ah, classic literature. Decades go by but the text is eternal, along with the misspellings. Are the misspellings a part of the plan, placed intentionally to seem more sinseare? This might be the case, based on the number of scams that include great typos, like an urgent message from Chase Bank addressed to me as a valuable costumer.

So who is it that thinks Yassir Arafat’s widow is really searching the globe and landing on them? There must be people who think they’ve just won the lottery, but how can they be that dumb and still know how to work a computer?

You probably delete these emails and hang up on the robocalls. You probably think you know all kinds of people who are everyday Americans, just like you, with common sense and a bit of street smarts. You probably think you’re like most other people, even people who disagree with you on some political issue, and that most other Americans are pretty much like you.

You are so kidding yourself.