Ben’s Diary: I’m Not Sure If This Spam Email Is Supposed To Make Me Hungry Or Horny

Dear Diary,

I’m not sure if this spam email is supposed to make me hungry or horny.

Confession: I’m a weirdo who likes to read everything that gets caught in my spam filter. It’s actually a lot of fun for me. It’s a great exercise in remembering that I’m a (relatively) sane, well-adjusted human being. Seriously, the shit that gets sent to me is downright baffling. I’m not talking about the normal smattering of spam, the dick growth pills, the warlord bank deposits, and the offers for computer colonic cleanses. I’m talking about the bat-shit crackpots that send me direct emails and rambling nonsense, their words staggering paragraphs of diarrhea seemingly without coherent or rational thought.

Those manifestos to insanity are filtered from my mailbox every day.  I get conspiracy theories about the Illuminati controlling food production, links to articles claiming to have found proof in newspaper headlines that Obama is going to be abducted by aliens, and invitations from Thomas Edison and Issac Newton to join their secret society of international geniuses. And those were all this week.

Normally it’s pretty clear what the intent of the spam message is, whether it’s cult recruitment or just raising general awareness for the pressing issues of life in alternate dimensions.  But every now and then I get one that I just can’t wrap my brain around.

Late last night, Gmail filtered away a one line message from an email account sender self-identified as “Howard”.  I don’t know Howard.  I don’t know anyone named Howard. But here Howard is in my inbox.  Howard is a pretty confident dude.  He doesn’t fuck around with last names.  He self-segments himself in that same rarefied air as single name stars like Madonna and Prince.  And based on his avant-garde art, he might be justified in doing so.  Here’s what he sent me:

Ben,
She mixed the dough with sour cream. 😉

That was it! No link. No phishing attempt. No request for help with inheritance. Nothing but my name, a pronoun sans antecedent, a reference to sour cream, and a wink emoji.  WHAT THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THAT, HOWARD?

That email is going to haunt my dreams. I literally cannot stop thinking about it.  It’s derailed my entire day.  I was going to write a diary entry on work meetings, but I had to cancel that entry AND a work meeting so I could just sit this puddle of existential crisis. WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL ME, HOWARD? I have so, so many thoughts about this, and so, so many questions. Let’s just hit the first three or we’ll be here for the rest of our lives.

1.) Is this trying to sell me sour cream? If so, Howard may have missed his target audience here. I’m like really, really lactose intolerant. Sour cream and I haven’t had a mouth to mouth in YEARS.  One glob of that shit that would have me bombarding the porcelain throne with a thunderstorm of brown rain. My sister used to eat sour cream right out of the container with a spoon. That’s fucking DISGUSTING. The thought of doing that is giving me gas. There is no instance in time in which sour cream is a product I’m seeking.

2.) Who is “she” and what is she mixing? Seriously, define your fucking pronouns, Howard.  That’s creative writing 101 level shit. You can’t just introduce an unnamed character into my life without any background. I need details, Howard! Is she young, old, fat, skinny, bald?  WHAT? And what kind of dough is she making? My mind is endlessly racing trying to figure that out. There are so many amazing foods that start in utero as dough.  Are we talking cookies? Pizza? Cinnamon rolls?  A quick search told me that sour cream is often used in dough for pies, pastries, and pierogies. WAS THIS GOOGLE SEARCH SET UP BY THE ILLUMINATI IN RESPONSE TO MY AFFINITY FOR ALLITERATION? My spam mail has taught me everything is a conspiracy. We must dig deeper! WE MUST KNOW WHO “SHE” IS. “SHE” CONTROLS THE DOUGH. Diary, I’m losing it.

3.) Seriously, why can’t I shake the feeling that this is sexual? My gut keeps screaming this is a weird sex thing. Dough, cream, wink emoji… the pieces are there.  Howard, I need you to be honest here.  Are you a pervert? Is that all this is? The polluted fantasies of a pervert spammer? I don’t want to believe that’s the case, but dude… WHAT’S WITH THE WINK FACE? There’s nothing about baking dough that screams out, “THROW A FUCKING WINK AT ‘EM”.  Are you trying to arouse me?  Are you? Because it’s not working, Howard.  It’s just not doing it for me. I’m not mad though.  No really, I’m not!  Don’t look so sad, Howard.  Give me another wink ya big ole’ creep, you!

I don’t think I’m ever going to know what the purpose of this spam email was, and that’s something I have to live with for the rest of my life. There’s probably a lesson in that somewhere, a moral about ignoring the supercilious specters of sanity seeking spammers, or about letting go of tiny bullshit moments in your life that don’t matter.  But damn it, Diary, I don’t have time for parable lessons right now. I’M STILL TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHO IS MIXING THAT DAMN DOUGH.

Later Diary!

Ben