Feature

Tall Tales & Emails

Munaiba Salam

INBOX (18). I stared at it incredulously. I could have sworn I checked my email three hours ago and it said 'Inbox (0)'. 18. Unbelievable. I opened it with curiousity to find a mail from my cousin, one from some random lottery competition, and the rest...forward mails!! I took one look at that incriminating three-letter abbreviation fwd and I immediately started selecting each one of those infuriating emails to delete it. Was I a teeny bit curious as to what may have been the contents of those mails? No. I absolutely was not. Nor was I interested in scrolling down a million pages to find a ridiculous story that threatened me to send it to another ten friends.

Forwarding mails is a kind of disease that exists only among certain people, whose rise in population is increasingly disturbing. They receive an email, and because it warns you that your love life will be cursed lest you forward it to at least 20 people, they forward it to another 40 unfortunate people, whose love life, bless their souls, is already taking its last breath. Of course forwarding funny or interesting pictures, jokes or videos to your friends, who forward it to their friends etc, was the initial idea. But since we are only human, we tend to get a little wacky after a while. And so here are, to the best of my judgment, the top five forward mail categories, that irk me and the sane people of this country, to the bones and the marrow within.

Fwd: Case 1: The Pious Duty
These mails usually have a subject that reads, “Fwd: If you love ALLAH then...” You should immediately realize that this one's from someone who obviously feels his previous sins will be washed away with the click of the send button as opposed to saying his compulsory prayers five times a day. So if you feel a slight pang of guilt after deleting it, I suggest you go say your prayers or read a verse from the Quran. I guarantee a good feeling.

Fwd: Case 2: The Quest to find True Love
These mails are stuffed with phony, soapy love stories, at the end of which, the number of people you forward the mail to, is directly proportionate to whether your crush will look at you, call you, ask you out or kiss you. Just do not be surprised or disappointed to see your crush walking around with your best friend tomorrow. You can always go home and forward some more mails…

Fwd: Case 3: Fear of the Dark
This will consist of some brutal murder story of someone innocent, whose not-so-innocent soul is still wandering around watching your every move, including that of forwarding her sad story to your friends, otherwise of course she's going to get you tonight…muhuhahaha. If for some reason you do not believe it, then you get to read what had happened to those unfortunate people who were daft enough not to forward it.

Fwd: Case 4: Idiotic Curiosity
This is my personal favourite. Something will be missing or strange about the email and the only way you can apparently find out is to forward it! Not only that, you have to hit the alt-F8 button for the extra surprise or the missing picture or cooler yet, to see the name of your crush on the screen. Exciting huh? There are so many people who'd actually do it.

Fwd: Case 5: Humanitarian Obligations
Here's the one that's difficult to turn against. The child who had an accident; the parents who are begging you to forward it with your name and country and serial number at the bottom so that for each name they get a dollar or pound for the treatment from some rich foundation. I myself have signed my name in a couple of them. God knows whether it was worth a penny. Nevertheless it remains one of the very few forward mails I simply can't delete in a second. Humanitarian obligations indeed.

Just for the sake of it, I googled 'forward mails'. Titles like, “How to Forward Emails as Attachment Intelligently”, “4 Easy Ways to Forward Emails” and “How Forwarding Emails can Increase Spam” popped up! Not to mention interesting ones like “Don't Forward Hoaxes” and “How to Clean Up Emails before Forwarding them”! I get the feeling they tell you somewhat what I told you, only more diplomatically. Then again I only receive the bizarre ones, so you really cannot blame my skepticism. Imagine if all those mails I deleted were true, then I am definitely on my way to Hell, my love life is permanently cursed since my crush will never ever look at me and of course tomorrow night the soul of Kathy will come and strangle me, while I am still wondering why hitting the alt-F8 key is not doing me any good. Tragic.

(Student of IUB)