DanMargarita.com

I say this because I have recently found myself being deluged by “chain” emails. These are sent by friends and are generally well-intentioned posts that promise to bring me good luck should I forward this to others. Unfortunately, they usually then conclude with some kind of warning, i.e. “Send this to five people and you’ll have good luck within two weeks. Send it to ten people and you’ll have good luck within a week. Send it to 15 people and you will become the master of all time and space tomorrow” before concluding with “If you fail to forward this…YOU WILL DIE A HORRIBLE DEATH!!!...Yours, Ted & Linda.”

I admit, I forwarded some of these when I first went online and received them, and yet I’m still waiting to wake up next to Catherine Zeta-Jones some morning. So much for my wish coming true.

It’s my fault for not informing people that I make a practice on not forwarding chain emails and make a point to do the unthinkable…delete them. I do this for a couple of reasons: First, I am wary of the potential to pass along computer viruses and since these have been going around for years to thousands of people, surely something was picked up along the way and I don’t want to spread it to others. Second, if I fail to reply to one, which is also always requested, and then reply another, I feel like I’ve slighted the first party. Thus, if I make it a policy not to pass any along, I’ve slighted everyone…wait…I mean, I’ve slighted everyone equally. No matter how I put it, it sounds terrible.

One of the first sentences in a chain email usually is “This is true!” Since this has been going around for years and comes to you 10,000-hand, there’s no way to verify it.

Of course, chain letters have been going on for eons. No one knows who started them or when, and with the advent of the Internet, it just provides another medium from which to spread them. I am not aware if previous technologies were subject to becoming a transmitter of “chain” mail upon their invention. For all I know there were chain telegrams way back when. Perhaps Abraham Lincoln would have lived another 40 years if he had indeed, passed along such a telegram.

“Mary, I’m just gonna run out and forward this telegram.”

“Oh, Abe! Do it tomorrow! We’re late for the theater!”

I imagine a chain telegram started out pretty much the same as any “chain” mail in any technological form, with provisions for the particular technology built into the system.

“THIS STORY IS TRUE STOP SEND THIS TO FIVE PEOPLE STOP”

The technology before that could’ve been used, I suppose.

“Send out five more carrier pigeons and you will have good luck in a fortnight.”

Of course the technology of the time would have to be mobile so the earliest form of message technology could not have been used.

“Send this cave wall to five people…”

One aspect of chain mail that most people don’t appear to consider is that chain letters of any sort almost seem to ignore the idea of a deity of any type. If you think someone’s destiny relies upon whether he or she passes along an email, aren’t you discounting the notion God’s planned destiny for us? Is one’s fate determined not by God but by whether or not they forward such an email? On the other hand, you could say that God was the first to pass along a chain letter.

“Moses, send these Ten Commandments to five people and in two weeks you’ll have good luck…”

Naturally, he would’ve ended it with “Failure to pass along these Commandments will result in boils and a plague of locusts.”

So, if you sent me a chain email and I didn’t reply, please don’t take it personally. I’m not afraid to walk under a ladder, provided no one is standing on the ladder, or open umbrella indoors, especially of the ceiling is leaking.

I’ve never been overly superstitious, knock on wood.