A lady from our church e:mailed me tonight. Her story has touched my heart.
I’m writing this with tears in my eyes.I made a quick trip to Madrid Spain on a short vacation unfortunately i got mugged at the park of hotel where i stayed,worse of it was that my bags, cash, mobile phone and credit cards were all stolen at GUNPOINT leaving me penniless right now.It’s was a horrible experience for me and i need help flying back home,the authorities are not being 100% supportive but the good thing is that i still have my passport.I need some cash to settle my billsand get on flight back home. please let me know if you can help.I’m freaked out at the moment..
But after that touching story, it gives one a moment to pause and reflect as one reaches for that third hanky.
There are a few things wrong with this… (takes deep breath)… (1) I can’t see this lady with tears in her eyes and e:mailing me, (2) I’m surprised that she would turn to me since we’re not like best buds or anything and she could at least have bothered with an opening salutation like “Dear Lemur”, (3) this lady wouldn’t make a quick trip to the store without fanfare and the idea of a trip to Europe without even a little attention-whoring is fishy, (4) she doesn’t do “short vacations”, (5) she uses regular punctuation and used to be a teacher, (6) she violated grammar in an obscene way with the at park of hotel part, so refer to #5 again, please (7) “worse of it was” is so unusual that I’d expect bestiality charges brought against her before I expected that grammar, (8) nobody in the US says “mobile phone” anymore, (9) she couldn’t have been robbed at gunpoint because all of the European gun control laws have ensured that no firearms-related crime is even possible there, (10) vanishingly few Americans use “penniless” in speech, (11) as much as she likes to talk I think that stating that it was a horrible experience is a waste of breath even for her, (12) you ought to think it over before flying her right home as there’s some positives to leaving her there, (13) the authorities not being 100% supportive doesn’t make sense because after about 30 minutes of listening to her talk would be enough for them to think of the negatives to leaving her there, (14) that they stole everything but her passport makes no sense unless she carried it stuffed in the crack of her ass, (15) asking me for the cash to settle her bills neglects to take into account the curdled milk of human kindness, (16) grammar, again, and this time I must wonder if only illiterate people get mugged, (17) it is not clear how I’m supposed to help if all I know is that she’s staying in a hotel, she has no ID, and is being held by unsupportive authorities without a mobile phone, and lastly, (18) her freak level varies between “kindergarten” and “PMS” so I’m not sure any descriptor has much meaning.
So her account was hacked, huh?
I called and left a message on her answering machine to that effect last night. Truth be told, this lady reeeeeeeeally likes to talk. (Yes, she can be reeeeeeeeally annoying, too, but she has a good sense of humor and is generally a nice person despite her annoying traits.) If it were truly from her she would have been mentioning people by name in her message and asking for prayer, not money. She and her husband have two married sons and a married daughter to call upon if they were actually in trouble.
And hopefully, CW, you realized I was going for the not-quite-true-to-life snark, not a real depiction of her.
Hmmm…maybe she’s being held by Spanish terrorists who are trying to raise money and thought kidnapping an American woman and forcing her to send emails asking for money to help her out would be one way of filling their coffers, and she sent the email to you knowing you would become suspicious and might figure out the real predicament she’s in and subsequently alert the authorities who would then rescue the poor woman from the mean old terrorists who are holding her at gunpoint.
Or not.
Hmmm….if she is as annoying as you make her out to be, and she is actually being held for ransom, then there’s a chance this becomes a female version of “The Ransom Of Red Chief.”
An excellent takedown of spam.
“…there’s a chance this becomes a female version of “The Ransom Of Red Chief.”
Good point, CF.
Uh-oh!
No post since the 24th/25th? Or did I miss something…?
Something tells me the situation has changed….
* McGoo slowly kneels down on creaky aching knees and – balancing precariously on his two grizzled, wobbly knees – intones,
“Dear Sky-Bugger above, He who fucks with us all from time to time (can you give me a halleluiah!), would You please, please stop fucking with my buddy LK, so that he can resume generating world-class snark, great art, and neat techno-articles! He’s had plenty of pain. Try bestowing some on that utter numbnut presently occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Thank you, and up your too!” *