Tips From Bernie

Do people get poorer as the week progresses? Fatter? Do their penises shrivel up? These seem to the only reasons I can think of to explain the upward trend of solutions to such problems showing up in my Spam Box as Friday approaches. Shopping deals decline - 12 today vs. 26 yesterday – and get-your-hands-on-cash-quick-schemes increase; within the last 24 hours, there were exactly 25 websites that want to help me lower my debt, give me instant cash and credit cards, and offer six figure income for sitting on my ass.

Bankbeaters asked “Are creditors taking advantage of you?” – as if you, the deadbeat, are the victim and the company from which you pur… stole goods and services is the criminal. Whatever happened to PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY?? Back to Bankbeaters. They claim that they re “THE Official Debt Relief Experts,” which might come as some surprise to Debtrescue, which also has the same slogan.

From the Will People Ever Learn Department, one email went all Bernie Madoff on me promising “37 checks in the mail per month: Hi (my email here), Years ago if someone had told me that I could make $85,000 online I never would have believed them.” Wonder how many unemployed, deluded and generally bereft targets believe him now.

I can get up to $1,500 in one hour, “Credit checks? Nope!” which eliminates several hurdles whereby intense scrutiny is applied to my assets and liabilities. Speaking of assets, the come-on from Luke Kirchner; “You don’t have to get out of bed to make $1,000 per week,” needs to move to Nevada with the other Role Playing ads.

Four emails let me know that “singles want to meet” me, which is a change from the FinallyFoundYou person who’d been looking for me yesterday who may or may not be single. Now that it’s Thursday, we’re narrowing it down to singles. Are you that desperate? And here, I’m still happily married.

Which brings me to my final highlighted Spam of the Day; an urgent one as designated by two exclamation points alongside the purported sender: Beauty.com. “This is some material for you,” said the subject line - the whiff of a grammatically-challenged foreigner about it. Curious to see what some of this material was, I opened it to find a picture of red capsules identified as Dr. MaXman Penis Enlarger Pills. “This is some material,” I thought to myself.

Years ago, when the first wave of these tantalizing penis-augmentation guarantees streamed into my AOL, I replied, “No thanks. My penis is big enough already.” It was then I realized there was no talking to a robot. My spam inbox became engorged almost immediately.