Chain Letters

Back when MySpace was still a thing, I remember seeing bulletins every day about various things you had to do in order to not die. I mean, between reposting a poorly-punctuated threat to avoid Samara from The Ring, a jumble of random asterisks to avoid Bloody Mary, and a story about children who thought they were fine but died to avoid La Llorona, not-dying was basically a full-time gig. There was one day (oh, high school) when I posted a very-angry bulletin calling for the ceasing of what I called Repost-or-Die (or ROD) bulletins, though I'm fairly sure no one read that because right after that there was a gruesome prom story on a bulletin that demanded I posted it to ten friends. 

I actually forgot about ROD bulletins because thankfully my friends/associates are mature enough not to post suck poppycock, and usually people on YouTube are too busy advertising their $7,000,000/day work-from-home jobs to bother telling people about their impending doom or destiny. But a couple of days ago, I saw one on YouTube. There it was, the shiny promise of a kiss from the love of my life if I reposted the message on ten friends' channels and pressed F5. 

Lol. Sux, bro. I'm married.

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But today, I was trying to remember the word "e-mail chain" and it triggered the memory of my first chain letter. It was in the mail. Stamp, envelope, paper, the whole nine yards. Being the diligent eight-year-old that I was, I immediately asked my mom if she would give me ten stamps and envelopes, etc, so that I could send it on, and was in the process of trying to remember if I even knew ten people's addressees when my mom groaned and told me not to pass it on. At the time, I was incensed at the unfairness. I had received it! I was supposed to pass it on! We were going to make it in the Guinness Book of World Records! I had an OBLIGATION. But my mom held out, smart woman that she was. I didn't send on the letter. I BROKE THE CHAIN.

In ten years, my kids are going to receive their first chain letters. They're probably going to be on FutureBook or whatever the kids are into those days. And they're going to marvel at the concept of wasting perfectly good paper--and perfectly good stamps, which I fully anticipate will cost $2.00 a domestic stamp then--on something they can forward in half a second. 

And I am going to laugh, and then turn off the lights, and put them in front of the mirror, and tell them the story of Bloody Mary.