dear beloved

i recently opened up a new google email address to use for registering on news websites and so on. the first time i checked the mailbox i was amazed to see that within hours of creating the new address i had already received my first spam email. it was from a mrs. joy bongo of south africa letting me know that i had won the lottery, a cool 20 million rand. more and more of these emails kept flooding in. now, a week later, there are 40 such mails in the google spam folder and a dozen more in my inbox.

the good thing about this sort of spam is it's often hilarious. i especially like the catchy subject lines on the emails I received like "let's do it", "i need your very assistance", "concealed proposal from russian lady", and "sincerest greetings from miss angel edward!!!!".

i took a quick look through and found a lot of lottery winnings, overseas investment offers, and lost next of kins. oddly enough a lot of the lottery mails listed croydon, london as an address which stood out against the usual ivory coast, ghana, and south african mails. sadly, nigeria was in the minority despite being infamous for having started the scam. my weekly winnings/offerings was in the range of US$200m- not a bad reward for opening up a random gmail account.

of them all by far the best story was below:

"I live in Thamesmead-London, United Kingdom with my children. My late husband was a loving, caring and hardworking businessman who died unfortunately In a ghastly auto crash. Before the sudden death of my beloved husband, and father of my daughters, my late husband intended to establish a business
in the united states of America with the sum of $30 million united states dollars, but unfortunately he died before this proposed venture. Following his death, his family members insisted that I am not entitled to his property (Assets and money)
since I am a woman and my offspring's all girls as I do not have a male child for my husband. Well, according to some barbaric traditional laws here in Thamesmead-London, (Europe) which doesn't permit a woman to inherit a man's property,
as they are expected by tradition to take over the management of his business and other properties including myself who automatically becomes a wife to one of his immediate brothers."

thamesmead, a truly barbaric society.