Here in the 21st Century we don't have to imagine any of that quaint stuff anymore because we have a bajillion variations of the Nigerian 419 scam, one of the lesser celebrated by-products of all this world wide connectivity. (Why 419? Perhaps because 418 just won't do.)
In a 24/7 news cycle, information washes over us. We don't wade in the water, we drown because we cannot possibly walk on it. Schemers and scammers rely on that. All they need to do to live comfortably ever after with whatever goofy and often outrageous hustle they concoct is get .00001 % of everyone to whom they email their tale of woe to respond. If you have trouble with the values to the right of the decimal point, that's one hundred thousandth of one percent.
You've read me write of Norwich as a city of forty thousand, so in this case, double the city and add half again. and then have one person of all of those bite on the offer. But what kind of offer, you ask. How about this one that showed up yesterday in my email and to which I'm about to respond in such an alacritous manner as to assure I'll need never work another day in my life, assuming I die later today. It's from someone neither of us didn't know we didn't know. Golly, Wally, we sure get around, eh?
"From: Mrs. Safiya Gadhafi.
Wife of Libya leader.
Dear Friend
This may appear a bit surprising to you but as a matter of fact, I am desperately looking for a foreign partner whom I can trust to handle some investment of fund movement. I MRS SAFIYA FARKASH, A wife of late Libyan leader ... who was recently killed by his political opponent, I her wife is contacting you for help ...in getting some money which was deposited by my later husband in Burkina Faso where....But before we continue, we have to build a memorandum of trust that you will not betray me. As soon as you agree, I will quickly furnish you with the contact address of the GROUP BANK where the US$25 Million (Twenty-five Million United State Dollars was deposited. Perhaps am waiting for your prompt and positive response. Reply to my private box at mrs.safiyagadhafi10@*******.com
Best Regard.
Mrs. Safiya Gadhafi."
Someday our children, when they visit us at the home, will listen to us speak fondly of email from Mrs. Qaddafi, Mrs. Arafat (a personal favorite of mine) and Snooki among others. I suspect all their correspondence will always be grammatical car crashes and syntactical tsunamis, even in our memories. And long after we shuffle off our mortal coil, some variant of this money for nothing, or less than nothing, will still be extant. After all who of us doesn't want to believe you can exist exclusively on the kindness of strangers. And the strange is just starting.
-bill kenny
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