FWD:

Okay, it's Monday, the roads are still slick and winter has settled in for a long, comfortable stay. Therefore, I'm allowing myself the luxury of dragging out a pet peeve.

E-mail that starts with FWD: that comes from someone who never bothers to send anything else.

*Duck*

It shouldn't bother me, but it does. I, as a general rule, don't mass-forward anything. Generally, if I forward something, it's to the one or two people to whom it might matter. Or it's fun and interactive. Or it's a one-time lapse in sanity. And I'll hide your e-mail address.

I'm a cynic by nature, which means I don't believe in good or bad luck. I don't believe in coincidences either (for an entirely different reason). I don't believe that Microsoft or AOL or anyone else is going to give me money for forwarding an e-mail. I'm in marketing - if they were going to do it, the industry press would be all over it. There are bad people and bad stuff in the world, and I like to stay informed, but I prefer to get my news from reputable news agencies (okay, I'm willing to debate the word "reputable") rather than some person, usually Anonymous, who claims to know of a sister's, friend's, cousin's, grandmother's, aunt's, niece's, cousin's, friend of a friend who had x, y or z happen to them. Target is still not a French-owned company. I've been to the corporate headquarters in MN (okay, just the outside, but still ....). Shampoo is not going to give me cancer. Nigerians are not going to magically give me money by cashing a check for them or giving them my bank information.If a bank with whom I've never had an account contacts me about needing me to update my account information, it's a phishing scam. I am not an activist. I have quiet moments of outrage, contemplation and activism, but they are generally either a) generated by someone I know (as in directly) or b) my own philosophies and beliefs - not by a forwarded e-mail started by who knows who. I am paranoid by nature, which means I drive with my car doors locked, don't talk to strangers and run in the opposite direction from strange men (or try to). I shred my mail. I don't mail anything important from my mailbox. And so on ...

If I've heard from you once in the last year (whether via Christmas card or e-mail or phone or anything else), I am not talking to you. If I know the names of your last two kids, it's all okay. If you know that I moved thousands of miles and had a kid this year, you're probably okay (that lets anyone reading this off the hook, so you can all stop worrying if I'm posting to you ... in reality no one who does any of this even knows I blog). UNLESS ... you send me hundreds of FWD messages. Then I might have to think of something equally as annoying. Like signing you up for all those sweepstakes offers out there. :)

Okay, rant over. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.