Crazy Idea #5 - Blackmail

When you think of all those forwarded e-mail floating around that have all those gooey pictures of kittens and stuff, and say things like "if you forward this to seven friends in the next seven minutes you'll have seven wishes come true" you have to wonder... do people do that?

They must, because people will buy magic crystals from the ads in the back of magazines like The Enquirer. And sea monkeys from the backs of comic books. My mom once told me sea monkeys were just brine shrimp. I didn't understand why that was supposed to burst my bubble, cuz who cared what they really were when the little girl ones had bouncy hair and a hair ribbon!


I digress.

So sending those e-mail is a kind of emotional blackmail. "How dare you not forward good thoughts to seven friends!" And it's not like they're promising bad luck, they're promising the good kind! Life maybe getting a parking spot right in front of the grocery store, or (in Canada) finding a quarter left in the buggy so you don't have to go back to your car in the pouring rain to go through your ashtray-slash-change drawer for that elusive quarter.

But how can I send an e-mail that emotionally blackmails people into buying a raffle ticket. I just asked Jer-bear and he said I should put "Hey guys, forward this to seven of your friends and you'll wake up with seven inches." I don't know if seven inches is good or not, or if I should even be putting that in this blog, but what the hell. It sounds like something a guy would do, and it means I don't have to put "boobs" or "hot college girls" in here superfluously.

Oh, he just qualified that idea with "Buy a raffle ticket and gain an extra inch."

I think the wrong one of us is in advertising.

raffle, boating, Bayliner