Don't Worry 'Bout Me

I’ve been on the road much of the summer with my dog-and-pony show and failed to jettison the spam that’s clogging my e-mail. Here's what I missed:

• Someone is trying to find me, and if I subscribe to MyLife.com or Classmates.com or some other pixelated clothesline for only $11.95 per month, I can find out who it is. I’m fairly confident it won’t be Debi Havins or Debbie Woolley or any of the other cute girls I had a crush on back when. My luck, it’ll be Rusty McFarland, the junior high bully who wants to kick my ass again.

• Someone worries my Rusty McFarland isn’t big enough. They claim they have a pill that will increase it by three, four, even five inches.

• Someone worries my Rusty McFarland isn’t “rock hard” and wants me to order Viagra NOW! They say the women in my life will thank me for it, which means they know little or nothing about the women in my life.

• Someone in Canada assumes my Rusty McFarland is rocking along just fine but worries I'm paying as much as $10 per pill to get it that way. They want to sell me Viagra for $3.95 per pill. That's a savings of more than SIX DOLLARS per pill, they inform me, as if I don't own a calculator.

• Someone wants to sell me Cialis for pretty much the same reason and same price. They don't mention the women in my life but warn that using Cialis occasionally causes sudden vision loss, ringing in my ears, chest pain, irregular heartbeat, seizures, fainting and four hours of unimaginable suffering and embarrassment, at which point I should visit my physician, wearing a raincoat, I assume.

• Someone wants me to buy Prozac and Lipitor and Nexium for myself and Heartz heartworm pills for the small dog I don’t have.

• Someone out there wants me to attend a seminar in Orlando that will give me the industry-standard tools, online resources, curriculum, and certification programs to unlock students’ creative potential and empower them with advanced digital communication skills. I don’t want to unlock any of these things. I want students to put down their damn phones and work on grasping the difference between a noun and a verb.

• Someone wants to thank me for supporting legislation that saved hundreds of thousands of jobs. They also want me to give them $25 — more if I can afford it and if I love America.

• Someone wants to remind me it’s time for ethics control and says it’s time for me to commit to the cause by sending them $25 now and maybe $25 each month. In return, they will send me an autographed photo and a membership card.

• Someone is offering me another membership in their exclusive loyalty club, where I’ll be treated like royalty and earn club points that can be redeemed for FREE casino credits.

• Someone wants me to visit her website. Her name is Trish. She is offering me a chance to peek in, night and day, as she and her friends loll and frolic around the "sorority house" in their skivvies.

• Trish has a friend. She has a website too. Her social life is a lot more interesting, more ambitious than Trish's. She wants my money too — for antibiotics, no doubt.

• Neither Trish nor her friend nor any of the others have convinced me that what they’re offering is worth my time or money, although I might consider the heartworm pills when I get a small dog. I intend to name him "Rusty."