I posted a lament last week ("I See Now that this Will Never End") to the effect that, despite my best (past) efforts, certain well-meaning people keep perpetuating out rumors, hoaxes, and outright falsehoods with which other well-meaning people clutter their inboxes, and that I have grown tired (temporarily so, I imagine) of always being the one with the bucket of ice water. So I let the latest one go ("REMEMBER: Cell Phone Numbers Go Public next month. REMINDER.... all cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing Companies and you will start to receive sale calls") and hope that maybe someone else would be the spoilsport for once.
Someone stepped up to the plate, and a correcting message was in the inbox this ante meridiem. Here it is, in its entirety:
- This rumor is false. Go to http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/cell411.asp for more information.
Well, that certainly hits the nail on the head. But I would have been inclined to be a little less, um, brusque. You know, sort of soften the blow a bit (the originator of the false message, after all, is a woman of A Certain Age, and obviously thinks she's being helpful). And I doubt that I would have hit the Reply All button, preferring to keep my corrective advice private and then leave it to the misguided party to notify his or her recipients. But that's me.
No denying this gets the job done, I guess.
But if I were still a betting man, I would put money on the expectation that the correspondent in question will, before the New Year is very far along, be sending out another "helpful" message to friends and acquaintances both hither and yon.
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