But if my mother saw that, she would say that’s a lesson I would most likely learn the hard way when the hobo followed me home and robbed me of everything valuable on the left side of my house, but I live several states away and she hasn’t made any plans to visit. That, however, has not hampered her need to cultivate her perennial terror output, which certainly was the case when she got email and some unnamed person—who would someday pay the price by being unprepared to answer sex-ed questions from her five-year-old—taught her where the “send” button was.
Since the advent of the combination of letters “FWD,” my mother has resurrected her quest to expose all hidden dangers in the world, large and small, lest they pop up at some unexpected time in the form of perhaps a cellphone charger and expose themselves as the instruments of death that they are.
Or, for that matter, as people named Karen.
So when my sister called me to warn of the dangers that lie within Women Named Karen, it was clear my mother had a direct connection to it.
And there it was when I checked my email: “FWD: FWD: FWD: FWD: FWD: PLEASE READ,” which in email code means “Forecasting World Destruction,” and the more times it’s repeated in the subject, the more times the world has the potential to be destroyed. It was a signal from my mother, flashing like a beacon in the middle of a dangerous and about to be decimated world sea.
Although my mother has never sent her kids any tips on life’s essentials, such as “There’s a thing called an egg and a sperm,” “Make sure to drink lots of milk to prevent bone loss,” “Boobs or kids: Pick one and go with it, because you can’t have both,” or “It’s too bad that you went to the doctor to see if you were turning albino, because we go gray everywhere, especially in parts where your colorist charges extra,” her call to nurture has never deviated from its chosen path.
As I soon as I opened the email, I was warned, “We received a call last week from the 809 area code. The woman left a message that said, ‘Hey, this is Karen. Sorry I missed you—get back to me quickly. I have something important to tell you.’ Then she repeated a phone number beginning with 809. We did not respond.”
To set the record straight, my mother did not receive a call from Karen, nor did anyone she knows, but whoever Karen called originally in 1998 typed up this Forecasting World Destruction email and sent it out into the abyss. It then took an Oregon Trail’s worth of wormholes and then a hop on string theory during its path of destiny to finally reach my mother, who then found it terrifying enough to spread even further after reading the first use of the word coupling “DO NOT,” which began the email.
Now, it turns out that if you were curious enough to call Karen back, you’d just opened up a world of hurt for yourself, which never would have happened if you had a mother like mine. Because if your mother had valued Karen’s phone call far and above, say, “No one ever tells you this, but when you turn forty, your uterus will stage a coup that you can only fight with Vicodin, so ask your doctor for it NOW,” you would have already known that Karen’s area code—“809, 284, AND 876”—is located in the Dominican Republic. Even if you just call and say, “Hi, Karen, this is Carol Notaro, and I know you don’t have an important message for me but I put you on my prayer chain anyway!” you will apparently be charged $2,425 per minute.
YES, YOU WILL, because your careless mother neglected to tell you that your local phone company will not get involved and will tell you that they are simply providing the billing, and, just like that, you are out $2,425 per minute. Isn’t that scary? Wouldn’t you trade a hug to have the equivalent of your mortgage payment back? Apparently fifteen people on my mother’s email “CC: Ponzi scheme” thought it was frightening enough to keep passing it on like an open herpes sore until it finally got to me. In fact, it is so alarming that the email itself pleads for the reader to send it on.
I mean, how many times have people teetered on the precipice of calling 809? Countless. Countless. In fact, there are people who have to stop themselves from doing it right now. And if you loved someone, you would have the same response my mother did (“Oh! That’s terrible! Animals!”) and immediately click the Forecasting World Destruction button, as soon as you added the names of everyone you play bingo with, go to church with, or have ever asked for a casserole recipe. Of course it seems odd that Karen coincidentally only seems to call when she knows no one will answer and then slips back into the inky, evil shadows of the Dominican Republic Area Code Scam, but that’s how those people work! Who is Karen, the answer begs? Does she know when you are sleeping? Does she know when you’re awake? Does she know if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness’ sake?
And if that wasn’t terrifying enough, another ball of fright was headed my way when my mother sent me the “FWD: FWD: FWD: FWD: FWD: MAKE SURE YOUR DAUGHTERS KNOW! & EVERYONE ELSE” email, which included a note that “This was written by a guy from KVLY-TV in Fargo. This is true. Scary!”
Because if that confirmation doesn’t ink this stamp of Bill O’Reilly’s approval, I don’t know what would.
It turns out that people at truck stops and Walmarts will follow you and ask you what kind of perfume you are wearing, then offer you that very perfume at a bargain-basement price. According to the Guy From KVLY-TV in Fargo, the men will stand between parked cars and ask you to sniff the perfume they are selling, and if you haven’t already sensed the danger of a man standing between parked cars (must share a common ancestor with the Van People), when you sniff the perfume, you’ll pass out.
BECAUSE IT IS ETHER! And then you will be pickpocketed as you lie helpless on the asphalt of a discount retailer, and hopefully your fall will be strategic enough that you’ll miss both the puddle of Bud Light upchuck and the dirty diaper from the baby whose parents are trying to sell her by the entrance.
According to email legend, this has happened in the parking lots of Big Lots, as well, and although I’m not going to comment about why I’m not sure thinning the herd is all that bad of an idea, I will say that, if there are people game for the sniff test moments before spending six bucks on sweatpants at Walmart, there is an audience for this, if anyone can capture it on film. Not to mention that if any of these centers of commerce are regular destinations—not ones visited under duress or during a kidnapping scenario—whatever scent you throw on your body bears the notes of embalming fluid or gasoline, anyway, and if spending a dollar less on it in a parking lot from a guy who has missing teeth and facial scabs is even remotely a good idea to you, then you deserve to land in that diaper and have your wallet plundered for the six dollars plus change that was in it.
Then, almost as if my mother got them in a “Violence Against Women” bundle, like independent film stations on cable, four came in quick succession like a meteor shower:
1. “FWD: FWD: FWD: FWD: Must know about*77” (I think this one originated at the same moment hominids split off from apes, because it took me two minutes to scroll past all the “FWD”s):
I knew about the red light on cars, but not the *77. It was about 1:00 P.M. in the afternoon, and Lauren was driving to visit a friend. An UNMARKED police car pulled up behind her and put his lights on. Lauren dialed *77 and the police came immediately. The police pulled the guy from the car and tackled him to the ground. The man was a convicted rapist and wanted for other crimes, including previous Impersonating an Officer charges.
2. “FWD: FWD: FWD: DO NOT open the door for a crying baby”:
Someone just told me that her friend heard a crying baby on her porch the night before last, and she called the police because it was late and she thought it was weird. The police told her “Whatever you do, DO NOT open the door.”
The lady then said that it sounded like the baby had crawled near a window, and she was worried that it would crawl to the street and get run over. The policeman told her that they think a serial killer has a baby’s cry recorded and uses it to coax women out of their homes thinking that someone dropped off a baby.
3. “FWD: Rea
d—important”:
THE RECENT TRAGEDY OF A YOUNG WOMAN BEING KIDNAPPED AND EVENTUALLY KILLED, AFTER SHE HAD REPEATEDLY GIVEN THE KIDNAPPER A WRONG PIN TO HER ATM CARD. IF SHE KNEW THE METHOD BELOW, SHE COULD HAVE BEEN SAVED. SO I THINK IT IS IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO LET YOU KNOW.
IF YOU SHOULD EVER BE FORCED BY A ROBBER TO WITHDRAW MONEY FROM AN ATM MACHINE, YOU CAN NOTIFY THE POLICE BY ENTERING YOUR PIN # IN REVERSE. FOR EXAMPLE, IF YOUR PIN NUMBER IS 1234, THEN YOU WOULD PUT IN 4321. THIS INFORMATION WAS RECENTLY BROADCASTED ON FOX TV.
4. “FWD: FWD: FWD: FWD: FWD: NOT TEA PARTY RELATED” (I swear I am not making that title up):
The first thing men look for in a potential victim is hairstyle. They are most likely to go after a woman with a ponytail, bun, braid or other hairstyle that can easily be grabbed. They are also likely to go after a woman with long hair. Women with short hair are not common targets. Men are most likely to attack & rape in the early morning, between 5:00a.m. and 8:30a.m., and will not rape women carrying umbrellas.
The time had come. Even though I had replied to my mother after each and every Forecasting World Destruction bulletin, telling her they were all hoaxes, she kept sending them, one after another. Finally, I felt I had no choice but to call her.
“Mom,” I began. “Thank you for sending me the emails to remind me of all the grisly ways I could potentially die.”
“No problem,” she said simply. “That’s my job.”
“Well,” I said hesitantly, “I think that it’s great that now we all know how to punch out the taillights of cars and wave our hands through the hole while we’re being held hostage in the trunk of a car by a man who plans to use our skulls as soup bowls, but the emails you are sending us aren’t true.”
“What do you mean? Of course they’re true,” my mother insisted. “They wouldn’t be able to send them around if they weren’t true.”
“Mom, remember when I was in my twenties and there was a time period of about four to six, possibly seven, years when you were very mad that I didn’t have a job?” I asked.
“Oh,” my mother replied with a laugh. “Are you trying to suggest that you have a job now?”
“Well,” I said, trying to ignore her, “what I was doing during the day was going to college in journalism school. And what I learned in journalism school was basically to check stuff out. And now you can do that, too. I’ve sent you a couple of replies that have a link in them to a website that can tell you if something you get in an email is true or if it’s an urban legend.”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“The emails I sent you about the website snopes.com?” I asked. “Did you get them?”
“I don’t know,” my mother finally answered. “Maybe I did.”
“How do you not know if you got them or not?” I asked suspiciously.
“I may have deleted some of them,” she said.
“Some of them?” I asked.
“Well, most of them, really,” she answered. “Actually, all of them. When your name pops up in the list, I just hit ‘delete.’ ”
“You don’t even open them?” I asked, a little stunned.
“Most of what you say is nonsense,” she informed me.
“Oh,” I said, nodding my head. “It’s nonsense? You think it’s nonsense? Of course, hitting *77 is nothing short of scientific theory, because guess what? Not only is dialing *77 only useful in a handful of counties in the United States, but it’s the exact number of keys required to hit 911, which works … well, everywhere.”
“They couldn’t send out the email if it wasn’t true,” my mother insisted. “When I get pulled over by an unmarked police car driven by a serial killer, I am dialing *77!”
“Okay, fine,” I snipped. “Push *77. You go right ahead. And when your abductor takes you to the ATM at gunpoint, you try to remember your birthday backward, but don’t worry, because you have plenty of time. The police will never come, because there is no backward-pin-number panic signal. It doesn’t exist; it’s an urban legend. And guess what I’m going to do right now? I’m going to go to the closest Walmart and ask anyone walking by if they’ll sell me cheap perfume, but only if they can test some on me with a squirt bottle! In my face! In my face!”
“You’d better not!” my mother warned. “It’s ether, Laurie! It says it in the email! It’s not perfume!”
“I’m putting my hair in a ponytail!” I threatened.
“Go ahead and be an idiot!” my mother countered. “It’s like putting a handle on your head. Try to grab a pitcher without a handle. It’s almost impossible!”
“I have to go now, Mom!” I said, my voice rising. “I hear a crying baby on my porch and I’m afraid it’s going to crawl into traffic! Bye! Bye! If you hear me scream, please push *LIES!”
I didn’t hear from my mom for a while after that, which was probably for the best, especially since I was still making a point of not carrying an umbrella until after 9:30 a.m. But then one day it came, a message too important to ignore, an email too frightening to deny. Doing what all good mothers do; trying to ensure my survivability.
“FWD: FWD: FWD: verry important to know!”
And there, unfolding before me in red 70-point Helvetica:
A few days ago, a person was recharging his mobile phone at home. Just at that time a call came in and he answered it with the charger still connected to the outlet.
After a few seconds electricity flowed into the cell phone unrestrained and the young man was thrown to the floor with a heavy thud. As you can see, the phone actually exploded. [Inserted here is a photo of a charred, dirty mattress that has clearly been on fire.]
His parents rushed to the room only to find him unconscious, with a weak heartbeat and burnt fingers.
He was rushed to the nearby hospital, but was pronounced dead on arrival.
[Inserted here is a photo of the dead man’s hand, cooked, with fingers swollen to the size of Ball Park franks. They plump when you cook them.]
Cell phones are a very useful modern invention.
However, we must be aware that it can also be an instrument of death.
Never use the cell phone while it is hooked to the electrical outlet! If you are charging the cell phone and a call comes in, unplug it from the charger and outlet.
FORWARD THIS TO THE PEOPLE THAT MATTER IN YOUR LIFE!!!
Clearly, in the world of FWD, this was a hallmark moment. Never before had my mother sent an email that was illustrated with photos featuring the hands of the corpse. I mean, really, it was almost proof. For a moment I was lost in the excitement of the bloated, waxy sausage fingers, and I thought, I can’t believe I’ve answered an instrument of death when it was being charged and I lived! I am still alive!!
And then, as if there was a cherry on this cake, I spotted something incredible in the very last line: “Verified by snopes.com!,” followed by a link.
Wow. I thought, I am impressed. Finally, my mother has sent me a true Forecast of World Destruction. I couldn’t believe it. The fear was real. It was justified! In fact, I had just gotten up to unplug my instrument of death when I sat back down and decided to click the link.
And, to be honest, much to my dismay, the page that came up was indeed to snopes.com but was a blank page that said only, “You wanted what?”
A dead link. No such page.
I took a deep breath and reached for the phone, since I was positive my mother was about to embark on a door-to-door mission to inform her neighbors of the catastrophe, armed with the “dead hands” photo as evidence. To her, sending the email with photographic evidence that the fear was real was not only an accomplishment, but a message to me that every time she had sent out another FWD, she really was helping to stop someone from dialing a truly evil area code or being roasted by a cellphone charger or keeping a serial killer who was terrified of umbrellas from impersonating an officer.
I dialed the right area code for her phone number (the temptation to dial 809 still soooo great) a
nd then stopped.
I looked at the last line of the email again.
“FORWARD THIS TO THE PEOPLE THAT MATTER IN YOUR LIFE!!!”
I thought for a minute.
And with that, I hung up the phone.
The Burn Test
The first time I walked into the kitchen of the house I would eventually buy, the current owner saw my eyes immediately catch fire when they saw the stove. It was a huge late-forties white enameled antique gas stove with cast-iron burners and big, rounded corners, and it was the finest piece of stove porn I had ever seen in my life. I do recall actually having to catch my breath. It was so big it gobbled up six inches of the doorway, and rightfully so. Despite the fact that I was ready to make her an offer based on the white giant in the kitchen, the woman noticed my leer and quickly stepped in front of the stove, as if to protect her young from a predator. She wasted no time in telling me that the stove was not staying; it had been her grandmother’s and was coming with her to the new house.
“We have a stove in the basement that we’ll replace it with,” she added. “It’s a KitchenAid.”
Which was a drag, since I had left a similar yet not nearly as grand stove behind in our last house, and felt compelled to do so because it was original to the bungalow I’d just sold. It would have been greedy to break them up.
Indeed, true to their word, the former owners had the KitchenAid in place when we moved in, although they neglected to mention that I’d run three cars into the ground since that thing was considered “new.”