Ok so today I open my e-mail, and the usual suspects are ready and waiting. A few forwarded jokes and "pass this on" e-mails from my mom. 30 posts from my local freecycle board, wanted:wicker basket, to offer;loveable cat. 15 credit offers, and those pesky "help me deposit half a million dollars in to your account from Uganda" e-mails.
If you are unaware of these "scam" e-mails, please let me enlighten you. Strangers send e-mails stating that they or their client have loads of money in some account overseas, and they need your help to empty the account before they, the government of their country, seizes it and it is lost forever. Sometimes, the stranger claims to be a U.S. citizen or soldier. Sometimes they are attorneys. but in all cases, they are cons. These are just in my in box, I won't even get in to the tons of crap and filth that pops up in the spam folder, disguised as friendly "long time no see" e-mails.
When I got my first computer ,that I could surf the net on, I spent day after day signing up for all the free stuff on line ads I saw. I was determined to get in on this wonderful new way to get samples, coupons, and enter contests that I could have never entered before. I was going to make out like a bandit. Day after day my inbox got fuller and fuller, in one of those e-mails I was going to find the link that would free me from the working class forever, because I knew that all the time I put in was going to pay off. I received so many e-mails from the people that bought my address from those sites, that I had to change my e-mail address, because unsubscribing did no good. The only thing I got was annoyed.
How could this be? All the sites i visited, were they all scams? How could something truly be free if you have to subscribe to 5 other offers, and spend $100 to qualify for the chance to get the free books? How could the Internet be subject to this kind of deceit? I rarely got the coupons, and hardly ever found free samples in my mail box (they were suppose to over flow from it) and I never won the free trip, or got the cash that was promised to the luck winner. I played all the on line scratch off games, and entered all the contests I could find, but still I was taken. This shift in attitude took almost 6 months, I was sure that if I stuck to it my pay off would just have to come.
So it took a little while for me to wise up, but I did. I spent all my spare time searching for the free stuff, that I lost out on the really good free stuff, like sunshine, fresh air, and the best of all a long walk with my daughter and our dog. So now when I open my mail, I expect that the only thing that truly is free is the mail, and the occasional great find on freecycle. The best things in life are free, but only if you truley know what the best things are!