Dear Chain Letter Sender

Someone sends me a chain letter. I reply.

Text reads:

Subject: This is freaky

This is freaky!!!! But ......:)

Supposedly The Phone Will Ring Right After You Do This.

Just read the little stories and think of a wish as you scroll all the way to the bottom. There is a message there then make your wish. No attachment on this one.

Stories........ I'm 13 years old, and I wished that my dad would come home from the army, because he'd been having problems with his heart and right leg. It was 2:53 p.m. When I made my wish. At 3:07 p.m.(14 minutes later), the doorbell rang, and there my Dad was, luggage and all!!

I'm Katie and I'm 20 and I've been having trouble in my job and on the verge of quitting. I made a simple wish that my boss would get a new job. That was at 1:35 and at 2:55 there was an announcement that he was promoted and was leaving for another city. Believe me...this really works!!!

My name is Ann and I am 45 years of age. I had always been single and had been hoping to get into a nice, loving relationship for any years. While kind of daydreaming (and right after receiving this email) I wished that a quality person would finally come into my life. That was at 9:10 AM on a Tuesday. At 9:55 AM a FedEx delivery man came into my office. He was cute, polite and could not stop smiling at me. He started coming back almost everyday (even without packages) and asked me out a week later. We married 6 months later and now have been happily married for 2 years. What a great email it was!!

Just scroll down to the end, but while you do, think of a wish. Make your wish when you have completed scrolling. Whatever age you are, is the number of minutes it will take for your wish to come true (ex. you are 25 years old, it will take 25 minutes for your wish to come true)

However, if you don't send this to 5 people in 5 minutes, you will have bad luck for years!! Go for it!!!

STOP!!!

Congratulations!!!

Your wish will now come true in your age minutes. Now follow this carefully....it can be very rewarding!!!! If you send this to 10 more people, other than the 5 that you already have to send to, something major that you've been wanting will happen.

Kelly

---Ends.---

I reply.

Text reads:

Dear Kelly,

Thank you for your not at all guilt-tripping, fear-exploiting email. Where most people would probably hit the ‘reply all’ key to tell not just you, but every single person who has so far played a part in this email arriving in their inbox, to strongly consider going and fucking themselves with the largest blunt object at hand, I’m not most internet idiots.

Alas, I am an idiot in one sense – I ignored your warning. Like a stubborn child who thinks he knows better, I sneered at it and hit ‘Mark as Spam’. And so, this reply is somewhat an apology – having restored it to its rightful place in my Primary Inbox and Starred and Highlighted as “Crucially Important DO NOT DELETE”, I want to say you were right.

First of all, I want to say that your chain letter holds much, much power. It practically drips with the bad luck of Ancient, Dark Magicks Now Forgotten by Man – in fact its power is so considerable, so life-impactingly terrible, that the surplus of bad luck attached to it retroactively went back in time and affected most of my life before the moment I opened this email.

How was I to know that that horrifying, unbroken 18-year dry spell of No Sex At All that I went through just after my first birthday could be tracked down (or perhaps forward?) to the moment I hit the ‘spam’ button? This goes double for my string of failed relationships up until this moment. Lots of people might try to explain away this as “purely coincidental” and “a part of life” and even “because also you’re an insensitive moron” but I think we both know why this unerring string of bad luck has ruined my life: the Dark, mystical and ill-fated Convocations and Shadow Magic of the Gods of Unforwarded Chain Mail, who know no mercy and shew no forgiveness.

You know, unless I was horrifically cruel to a variety of small, defenceless kittens in a past life. I dunno, maybe I like squished their eyes out with a stick or something.

However, given the prevailing climate of viral media – where people will forward the entire planet a picture of a dress just to argue pointlessly about what colour it is – you really need to up your game.

In our modern age of ubiquitous social media it is very difficult for old artforms like this to compete against the vapid garbage that gets spread around faster than measles at Disneyland, or Government bailout money at an SABC Board Meeting.

We see death, disease and war on the news every day. People have become desensitised to these old passive chain letter threats. You need to ramp up the guilt. You need to ramp up the fear. You need to up the ante, elevate the stakes: give the people something to lose, something to fear, and you’ll see millions of shares.

Well, that, or just put a spelling mistake in the Subject line.

And so, I’ve taken the liberty to rewrite your email to be more contemporary.

--- Chain Letter 2.0 ---

Dear Kelly

This is freaky, but…..

Suppose your entire family will be murdered by Ebola-infected ISIS extremists while global warming drowns every person you’ve ever loved in a sea of blood and oil if you ignore this email?

Just read the little stories and think of a wish as you scroll all the way to the bottom. There is a message there then make your wish. No attachment on this one.

Stories........ I'm 13 years old, and I wished that my dad would come home from the army, because he'd been having problems with his heart and right leg. It was 2:53 p.m when I ignored this email. At 3:07 p.m.(14 minutes later), the doorbell rang, and there my Dad was, in a coffin, his head on stake with the words “I never loved you, you whore disappointment” smeared on my favourite dress in his blood and excrement. Then I got beheaded by ISIS, roughly ten minutes after I succumbed to the dreaded Ebola virus.

I'm Katie and I'm 20 and I've been having trouble in my job and on the verge of quitting. I made a simple wish that my boss would get a new job. I ignored this email and then immediately contracted Ebola and smallpox, which before now was widely believed to have been completely eradicated. Not only that, but my boss fired me and hired ISIS agents in their place. Their first job was to be behead my children. Believe me...this really works!!!

My name is Ann and I am 45 years of age. I had always been single and had been hoping to get into a nice, loving relationship for any years. While kind of daydreaming (and right after receiving this email) I wished that a quality person would finally come into my life. That was at 9:10 AM on a Tuesday. At 9:55 AM a FedEx delivery man came into my office. He was cute, polite and could not stop smiling at me. He started coming back almost every day (even without packages) and asked me out a week later. We married 6 months later and now have been happily married for 2 years. However, right now he is holding a machete against my neck and forcing me to write this. Having tricked me into thinking true love exists, he wishes to show me the error of having ignored this chain email. Allahu Ackbar PS my children have ebola and got autism from vaccines.

Just scroll down to the end, but while you do, think of a wish. Make your wish when you have completed scrolling. Whatever age you are, is the number of minutes it will take for your wish to come true (ex. you are 25 years old, it will take 25 minutes for your wish to come true)

However, if you don't send this to 5 people in 5 minutes, you will have bad luck for years AND DIE A VIRGIN IN AN ISIS TERROR DEN WHILE WATCHING EVERY HUMAN BEING YOU’VE EVER PASSED IN THE STREET SUFFER A PAINFUL AND POINTLESS DEATH. Go for it!!!

STOP!!!

Congratulations!!!

Your wish will now come true in your age minutes. Now follow this carefully....it can be very rewarding!!!! If you send this to 10 more people, other than the 5 that you already have to send to, something major that you've been wanting will happen.

Matthew

---

Please immediately send this email back to me so that I know you haven’t been beheaded.

In the meantime, I’, going to visit a Sangoma who promises me that, by just drinking his secret magic potion every night before bed, burning a special herb to chase away the Tokoloshe, and sleeping with a secret rock of the ancestors under my pillow, I should be clear of bad luck, financial troubles and relationship woes by Sunday.

That should go really well with the massive penis he promised I’d have.

Yours sincerely and apologetically,

Internaut, believer in lost dark gods, soon to be 18-incher

Matthew de Klerk

Name changed because people will know who I'm talking about if I use her name.
Jen.

Not that you know her of courseWINKWINK

Dear Nigerian lawyer overseeing my dead unknown relative's will

A kindly lawyer in Benin informs me that my recently-dead uncle has left me millions of dollars. I bite.

Text reads:

Dear Klerk.

I am Advocate David Amaugo. A personal attorney to Eng. Michael H. Klerk (my client), from your country who was Director of engineering consultant here in Republic of Benin. On the 5th of March,2010, my client lost his life as a result of Brain cancer, at Benin Medical Center. Since the death of my Client, i have been unsuccessful in locating the relatives until now, so i decide to contact you and need your urgent Assistance to present you to the bank so that the proceed of my client's fund valued about $10,7M (Ten Million Seven Hundred Thousand United Dollars.) can be paid Into Your Bank Account immediately before the funds will be confiscated by the Bank here.

After reading this message, reply me with your direct mobile telephone number... Your full address...Your age....and your occupation so that i can send further details to you for better understanding and also tell you how we can legally proceed the claim. Upon the fund transfer into your bank account both of us will share it 50% for you 50% for me. All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us see this transaction through.

I am waiting your urgent response.

Yous sincerely,

Barrister David A

---Ends---

I reply.

Text reads:

Dear Barrister David,

I was heartbroken and yet grateful for your caring, kind-hearted and obviously not exploitative email. It’s a true tragedy that old Uncle Mike has passed away – to tell the truth, I never really knew him (not at all, not even that he existed, to be honest) and although we had our obvious differences (for example, our surnames) I always thought that if I’d just gotten to know him better, like what his favourite colour is, what his hopes and dreams and fears were, or even who the hell he is, we’d have gotten on famously.

Honestly, though, I was expecting this email. Just last week my best friend Eric got an email informing him that his unknown uncle in Nigeria had died of cancer, and the week before that it was my other good friend Jess. For years now, all my friends, family and work colleges have had to go through the difficult and harrowing process of getting an email from an East African Lawyer telling them of their unknown relative’s demise at the hand of dreaded cancer. Since I was a young boy, I’ve been 100% certain that, somewhere in the world, there is a family member I’ve never met who will die of brain cancer and will me, his last remaining relative, his millions. It was only a matter of time before my poor unknown uncle Mikey met this exact fate.

Of course, some idiots I know on the internet are trying to convince me that this is a scam – perhaps in a blackhearted attempt to take Uncle Mike’s millions for themselves, the soulless fucks. But we have to ask ourselves – if this is a scam, then how come you’re an experienced, trusted lawyer in possession of an internationally recognised degree that qualifies you to deal with the difficult intricacies of international inheritance laws and the complicated string of transnational tax policies that govern the transfer of wealth across national barriers?

If this is an attempt to “empty my entire bank account and leave me in crippling debt”, as these imbecilic nonbelievers claim, then how come you’re such a good, kind-hearted person who would move hell and high water just to fulfil the last will and testament of a lonely dying man. I mean, what kind of low-life, scum-eating, piece of shit, soulless asshat would take advantage of the trauma of the loss of a loved one in an exploitative, black-hearted attempt to cash in on someone’s lack of internet savvy and ruin their lives by plunging them into dire financial straits? Obviously not you.

Please find attached to this email all my personal banking details, three signed and police certified copies of my passport, identity, several telephone and utilities bills going back several few months, and my original birth certificate. No, not a copy – the original. It was tough forcing this physical copy of it into the internet, but if you can track down one man’s sole surviving relative across nearly 5000 miles, well, what is a little digital-physical barrier in comparison?

My best wishes. Please let me know as soon as you can send me the money. I’m writing a book about why Geocentrism is real and how vaccines cause autism and I desperately need money to fund my lifestyle while I cherrypick articles and discredited hack “research” to present as proof of my theories.

Yours sincerely,

Anti-vaxxer, Soothsayer, your loving friend and co-inheritor,

Matthew Klerk

Thank you, Eskom

A thank you letter to Eskom, from yours truly.

And here is a link to the story mentioned in the text.