I was looking at a spam message I got today telling me how I could make money sending spam. I always come to the conclusion that someone must be responding to these spam marketing ploys, or otherwise the spammers would eventually give up. But, who are these people? How do we find them so we can smash their cable modems to pieces?

Then I remembered an old roommate. He had gotten one of those chain letter moneymaking scheme type letters in the mail (the forbearers of the reams of spam we are lucky enough to get today). He figured he had found his goldmine. The basic premise was as follows: You send a check for however much money to a mailing list company to receive a large list of viable mailing addresses (suckers like yourself), and you address a letter to all these sucke…err…people. You tell then to create a letter much like the one you just sent them (and had received yourself). There is a list of four or five names at the top of this letter (yours included on this list). The recipients are to remove the last name (and address) on the list, and affix theirs. They then send a dollar to every one on this list, and then send out this letter to the (suckers) list of addresses that they have been lucky enough to purchase from the same company you did. Then you sit back and watch the money roll on in.

There are many flaws and basically offensive things about this mail scam…err scheme..err business, but the most amazing part of this story is that my roommate never sent the list of five their dollars. His whole money making scheme was based on the idea that people would be fair and reasonable, and send the five on the list a dollar, and if people did so, and propagated the list, they, just like the person on the list before them, would make a great fortune. However, he himself wouldn’t even send the damn five dollars. I tried to argue this point to him, but he just couldn’t see it.

In the end, he received just one dollar in the mail, and one person looked up his phone number via his address and asked him if actually made any money with this scheme.

However, if each of you sends me one dollar, and then tells all your friends and relatives to send me one dollar, I will guarantee that I will make money. Also, if I receive a dollar from you, you will no longer receive any spam, your penis will grow three inches, and your breasts will become larger and more supple.