Forward this message: Stop sending those chain e-mails

 Editor's note: Beginning Monday, June 8, 2009, Kerry Dougherty's columns will be available only in The Virginian-Pilot newspaper. Read more about this decision.

Let me begin by saying that I don't want to hurt your feelings.

Honest.

While I never worry about offending public officials, I do try to avoid beating up on friends.

But let's face it, we all have homeboys who need new hobbies. I'm talking about our buddies who are hunched over their computers all day, forwarding all manner of detritus to the rest of us.

It never occurs to them that before they began their siege of cyberspace, their names in our inbox made us happy.

No more. Now we're filled with dread because every message begins the same way: FWD.

Which brings us to the most obnoxious of all cybercrap: chain e-mails. You know, those superstitious offerings that promise good fortune if the recipient just follows directions that are no more complicated than an IRS form.

I got one last week.

And it hit me.

These things must work. I mean, why would smart people keep passing them around if they didn't? All along I thought these chain-mailers were pests when they were just trying to help.

If I'd stop being such a cynic and join in the forwarding fun, I could be rich and beautiful and blissfully happy - like them. So I decided to forward the darn thing and see what happened. This one featured a winsome Hummel-like picture of two little angels pushing a sled full of presents with snow gently falling.

So sweet. So bucolic. Yet so wintry.

The merry message beneath said I needed only to think about a wish while reading a series of short inspirational success stories and it would come true.

In "age minutes." For the uninitiated, age minutes work this way: If you're 20, the wish comes true in 20 minutes. Me, I'd have to wait a little longer.

Best of all, if I forwarded this message to 10 others, something that I've been wanting would come my way.

As a sign that my luck was about to change, my phone would ring within an hour.

I like to think I have lots of friends. But when I tried to think of 10 who would welcome an angels-pushing-a-sled-in-the-snow message from me, I couldn't think of a single one.

Except maybe the person who sent it to me, and I wasn't sure the magic would work if I shipped it back. So, I forwarded it to the six members of my book club and four relatives.

Did I mention it was 1 a.m.?

When the proper age minutes passed, I ran to the mirror. My heart sunk. I didn't look a thing like Angelina Jolie. The phone never rang that night, either.

The next morning, it occurred to me that my luck - or at least my mood - would change if I could convince folks to stop filling my mailbox with garbage.

So, if you think I could possibly be writing this column about you...

I am.

Now stop.

Kerry Dougherty, (757) 446-2306, kerry.dougherty@cox.net

Editor's note: Beginning Monday, June 8, 2009, Kerry Dougherty's columns will be available only in The Virginian-Pilot newspaper. Read more about this decision.http://hamptonroads.com/2009/06/new-philosophy-blogs-and-columns 

Editor's note: Beginning Monday, June 8, 2009, Kerry Dougherty's columns will be available only in The Virginian-Pilot newspaper. Read more about this decision.http://hamptonroads.com/2009/06/new-philosophy-blogs-and-columns