This Week's Column

Coffee Talk

July 15, 2008

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On July 11, Starbucks officially released the first part of the list of approximately 600 company-owned stores that would be closing as a result of their coffee being overpriced. Of course, Starbucks is blaming this minor downfall on the economy, but that is probably because the economy refused to pay five dollars for a latte, too. If Starbucks would have asked me for help, I would have begun with the joke, "Hey, better latte than never, right?'" but somehow I was not consulted during any step of the company's deterioration...

According to the company's website, "Much thought and consideration was given to each location, because we know the impact this has on our dedicated partners, customers and the communities where we operate." This means that a Starbucks' customer may lose the location that he or she loves and will now actually have to cross the street to go to a different Starbucks location. I cannot wait to receive spam e-mails about this...

I know I have complained about spam e-mails before, but now it is getting ridiculous. One tactic I have noticed lately is sending an e-mail that is dated in the year 2038 so that it will automatically appear at the top of the recipients' e-mail boxes. Am I supposed to think, "Oh wow, this message is from thirty years into the future! It must be important!" Or, better yet, am I supposed to wait thirty years before I read it? These spam senders should know that if I read an e-mail from the year 2038, I will be throwing off the entire time continuum of the world. Don't they show Back to the Future at spam orientation? Truly what bothers me -- as a human being -- is how every spam message I receive does not make any grammatical or logical sense. I don't see how it is effective to send a message with an incomprehensible title and then a jumbled set of letters as its body text. As I type this column, the following e-mail literally just hit my box:

Dear Friend, How are you today? Hope all is well with you and your family? I hope this mail meets you in a perfect condition. I am using this opportunity to thank you for your great effort to our unfinished transfer of fund into your account due to one reason or the other best known to you. But I want to inform you that I have successfully transferred the fund out of my bank to someone else account who was capable of assisting me in this great venture through the help of the diplomat i told you about. Due to your effort, sincerity,courage and trustworthiness' you showed at the course of the transaction I want to compensate you and show my gratitude to you with the sum of $750,000.

The e-mail then continues to tell me how I can collect this sum of money. I give this spam credit for almost using a little bit of proper grammar, but when I read this message, am I supposed to assume that maybe I got hit in the head with a brick last night and simply don't remember helping in the venture outlined above? When I read these types of e-mails, I picture them being written by people who live in torture chambers that have witty signs on their walls like, "When all else fails, scam." I just decided to send the following message back to the person who sent me the e-mail above:

Thank you so much for helping me with this opportunity. I am a big fool and so I am a big fan of your work. I cannot wait to read your anthology when it is released at a later date. Maybe we can celebrate it being published by going to a Starbucks that is about to close down. I think the $750,000 you are giving me should pay for at least three scones...

But I digress.