Curmudgeon # 2

I get those e-mails which bring some kind of schmaltzy, sentimental, semi-religious message. Often the sender of the e-mail will urge me to forward the message to 5, 7, or 10 (you name the number) other folks, with the promise that if I so do: “something good will happen to me”

Holy baloney!  I want to throw up when I get such e-mails.  They ignite my inner “old curmudgeon”.  I venture to guess that they also annoy younger curmudgeons.

This is why those messages get under my skin.

1.       They never specify details of the “good” which will come my way.  That supposed “good” could be anything from my dealing with an in-growing toenail, to my discovery of a cure for (let’s say) pancreatic cancer.

2.      Something good happens to me every day.  It happens even when I refuse to forward the “message”. Once in a while something bad happens to me, as is the experience of all people.

3.      I wonder how this system of “something good will happen” worked before e-mails and the internet!

4.      As a christian believer I am taught to be a faithful disciple of Jesus “come what may”.  Christians do not live on a basis of luck or good fortune.  Rather, we aspire and work to be those who, like Jesus, are people of compassion for the poor, and daily practitioners of the arts of forgiveness and reconciliation.

5.      “Good luck” dear folks.  That, and “bad luck”,  will come your way regardless of e-mail messages.