This Week's Rant:

CHAIN LETTERS

We've met online, or you know me offline, or you like my page/stories/brand of shampoo etc. We get along fine. Heck, I even like you. Then you sound the death knell for whatever relationship we may have had going:

YOU SEND ME A CHAIN LETTER.

Good move, Einstein. What kind of idiot are you? Because, to tell the truth, my opinion of anyone's IQ, even that of near and dear bosom buddies, goes down a full fifty points when I find a chain letter in my in-box which has their name stamped on the top of it.

GROW UP. Get with the program. There are no

A) real make-money-fast schemes
B) sick kids who'll get money for every e-mail address
C) people who steal kidneys in hotel rooms
D) magical romance/luck/success charms
E) viruses that'll wipe out your computer, poison your dog, and run away with your wife if you so much as look at a piece of mail

Chain mail makes me violently sick. It's pure ignorant superstition, and I won't stand for it! If I see that ASCII of Tweety-Bird or have to read "Dear God I'm Only 17" one more time, you'll going to have to pay my keyboard-cleaning fee! Here's where my reputation for "nigh-saintly patience" cracks right in half: I have a standard policy of calmly, coldly humiliating anyone who sends me one in front of the entire mailing list -- not out of vindictiveness, but in hopes of stopping said piece of chain mail before it spreads any further. If you send me one, and I like you and it seems kinda cute, you might get off easy...until you send me a second chain mail. Then your fanny is toast, bay-bee.

I don't care if you sent it because it's cute, or because it has a funny joke (yeah, right!). I don't care if you love Leonardo DiCaprio. I don't care if you think you'll get lung cancer if you don't pass if along to twenty people. Don't make me one of those twenty people. I'll start saying nasty things about you on #fictalk. I mean it. Get the Big Book Of Urban Legends, bookmark one of the major virus-announcement sites, and do try to learn the difference between reality and fantasy, okay?

Or I might just have to put a hex on you. Booga booga booga.


About The Ranter: Contrary to popular opinion, Kelly "Kielle"
Newcomb can be a real cranky, cantankerous b*tch when she feels like it.