As much as I love the internet - I will concede it can be a strange and dangerous place, especially for people who are hopeful and optimistic (i.e. are not grizzled old internet dwellers who suspect scam around every page-load). The recent bout of twitter-phishing is pretty troubling. I mean, I check URLS meticulously, but my parents and grandparents live on the internet too! I want it to be a safe place for them.

Sometimes, the strange and dangerous are also wonderful and amusing. For example, I received this spam e-mail this morning:

Subject: other. The Secretary had to tell Syme how they had come to wear masks
and silver, like a sheet of rain. The Professor, whose day was that on which “I have an idea,” called out Dr. Bull suddenly; “how much would he take. walls, light he had never needed before but now required. little Austrian eighty-eight came tumbling in and popped about fifty yards. the yellow blossoms and the black hats was but a symbol of the tragic, of commerce, the nation. Oh, think of the cost of government in all the ages!

Just skim that, and it reads like your cramming prose for an assigned reading in English class and after eight straight hours of reading, its hard to make sense of the words. Read it again and you’ll realize that it actually doesn’t make any sense. I imagine there is a “generate bullshit” button spammers use to create this literature - I wish I had that button when I was in college. I would love to see a TA’s notes on that paper. “I’m not sure what you mean by this?” [arrow to full paragraph]

I also got a facebook friend-request from a thirty-three-year-old lady from Italy. Just in case, she also added this message:

“Hi, I’m Federica friend of Arthur. I live in Italy. Would you like to be my friend on facebook??”

Sounds like facebook-spam, right? But… check out her profile. I can’t view much (side note: I love how when people friend-request me, I can’t see their full profile, so sometimes I have no idea who the ef they are) but we do have a mutual friend: Arthur.

I remember freshman year, Arthur had a story about dating a (much) older lady when he was term-abroad in Italy, junior year of high school. It was the classic high school experience: move in with a 35-year-old model, lose your virginity, cancel your plane ticket home, lie to your parents. Could this be that woman? And, if so… WHY IS SHE ADDING ME ON FACEBOOK? I immediately created a few possible scenarios:

1. Federica, five years after initially dating a 17-year-old named Arthur Schallet Parson, V — name changed for Arthur’s protection, but he really is the 5th — realizes that even in his tender youth, he was the best thing that ever happened to her. She calls him in the middle of the night (Italy time, so it’s actually around 6-ish the previous day in California) begging him to move back to her small villa in Tuscany. Offers are made, of the finest italian suits, cars, and dirty-old-italian-lady-sex… but Arthur refuses. That was years ago, and he’s grown up. He’s changed. He’s “different now.” So Federica Fava does the only thing she can do: she contacts every one of his Los Angeles facebook friends with the hope of befriending and eventually seducing them - either to make Arthur jealous, or as pawns in her game to move to Los Angeles and spy on his new life.
2. Arthur, bored with life as a young twenty-something in Venice Beach decides its time for a life change. Channel surfing one day, he lands on Oprah… then, The View. He identifies with these shows more than he ever thought possible, empathizing deeply with the trials of a middle-aged woman. Arthur begins to have feelings that are strange and troubling to him. He hides them from himself with a cocaine addiction. Then, one night, in a pile of snow that could dam the Hudson, Arthur sees his reflection in the mirror. Not counting a leopard print shawl, he’s completely nude, and he has a crooked line of crimson lipstick drawn around (not on, or even touching any part of) his lips. He punches the mirror with his left hand (which also clings to a sweaty glass of Johnny Walker Black Label - neat) and as it (and the whiskey glass) shatter he yells, “Damn it! I’m a woman.” The next day, Arthur calls in sick to work. He closes all his bank accounts. He calls his family and leaves them a voicemail, “Hey guys, um, it’s Arthur. Listen, I just got a new job and I will be out of the country… uh… for a little while. If you don’t hear from me… I’m fine… just, don’t look for me. Okay. Bye.” Then, he moves to Italy and becomes this woman. After a few months of chomping down on hot young Italian Salami, he realizes this was just a quarter-life crisis, and misses all his old friends. He joins facebook under the online nom de plume Federica Fava and begins adding his pals.
3. I am a government spy. I’ve been trained in every martial art known to man, been taught every language on the planet (even the weird ones), and I can kill a man (or woman) with any object presented to me. After six years of world espionage, I become too good, and I begin to frighten my employers in the black ops agency known only to me as “Turtledove.” The only person I don’t frighten is my mentor, General Syme Bull. An imposing, decorated man of 88 with wispy hair, silver, like a sheet of rain. He wears black hats and loves the smell of yellow blossoms. I’m the son he never had, and he’s been secretly brainwashing me to kill. The Department of Defense tells Bull to shut down Project Turtledove, and though he clenches his enormous jaw in disgust for their lack of patriotism, he does. But he keeps me on for a year, erasing my memory and implanting new memories in my fragile war-torn brain. He reactivates me as Jacob Reed, a recent college graduate. I have no memory of any part of my exploits with Turtledove, but every once in a while, Bull requires my services, and he sends me a facebook friend-request in code. I break the code in my subconscious and carry-out my secret patriotic duties while sleep-walking. Then, I realize, the yellow blossoms and the black hats was but a symbol of the tragic, of commerce, the nation. Oh, think of the cost of government in all the ages!