Fwd:

I'm not a fan of the forwards that appear in my inbox from time to time. Every once and again, if I'm feeling particularly bored, I'll open one up, just to see if it's anything worth laughing at. Usually it isn't.

A couple days ago I got one from Mom. The subject line screamed at me in bold caps: URGENT! URGENT! I'm not sure that I reached the correct level of alarm necessary for an e-mail of that magnitude, but I was at work when I opened it, so that could have had something to do with my reaction. It went on to explain that there's a forward going around with a picture of Osama Bin Laden in it that will cause a devastating effect to one's computer if it is downloaded.

Um... Wouldn't it be that the only reason the devastating software was downloaded was because we, as a society, are still naive enough to open these forwards? Well I'm putting a stop to it. Right now.

From this moment on, whenever I see that an e-mail has been forwarded to me, I will delete it. Without opening it. I don't care what it's about. I don't care if it says I'll have bad luck if I don't send it to 8,413 of my closest friends. I don't care if the internet judges me and claims that I don't love Jesus if I don't pass the e-mail along. I don't care if there's even the off possibility that I could get a $50 gift certificate to Applebee's.

And I don't care who it's from. I don't care if it's from my best friend. I don't care if it's from my worst enemy. I don't care if it's from my sweet grandmother. I view forwards as a waste of everyone's time and an insult to everyone's intelligence.

I realize that so many people out there complain that they never hear from people anymore. And they go on to complain that the only times they do hear from their once close family and/or friends are the times when they receive these forwards in their inbox. And yes, I realize that there is some merit to the argument that those forwarders send out those forwards not as an annoyance, but as a way to let someone know that they're thinking of them.

But I ask you, would it really take that much longer to compose an actual e-mail that simply said "Hey, just wanted to let you know I'm thinking about you." There probably should have been a question mark at the end of that last sentence, but that statement confused me. Telling someone you're thinking of them isn't really a question. I wasn't sure what to do there. Pssh... and I wanna be a writer...

Anyway, aside from that bit of rambling after the fact, it only took me a few seconds to write that sentence. Then you move your hand from the keyboard, move the mouse and click send, and BAM you've sent a simple, personal e-mail. One that you didn't receive from a thousand people before you. One that you didn't need to send to 25 others at the same time. And there's a good chance that you actually made someone's day, instead of making someone roll their eyes and huff in ingratitude.