We're all adults here, right?

Me, 2006

We’re all adults here, right? What follows isn’t for the prudish.

I get two classes of junk mail. One is trying to sell me watches, specifically replicas of expensive designer watches. They claim a new designer watch will give me a whole new look and make me classier and more attractive to women. I don’t know why I get these come-ons. I’ve never paid much attention to watches and haven’t actually worn one in several years.

The other class of junk mail falls into the “male enhancement” category. I’m not sure why I get these, either. Do women get this stuff, too? Is there a parallel world or “female enhancement” spam? A lot seems to come from what we used to refer to as “Eastern bloc” nations. So the factories that used to turn out all that “sofa-sized art” are now churning out an endless barrage of poorly translated e-mails promoting sex aids?

I used to create all kinds of elaborate mail “rules” to screen this stuff out. But the spammers got onto this quickly, and started misspelling words in order to get past the spam filters. Staying ahead of all this became too time consuming. Now, nearly all of my non-client/friend e-mail now goes directly to a “junk” file that I check a few times a day to make sure I’m not missing anyone.

As I was going through the junk file the other day I was reminded of the Monty Python “Dead Parrot” skit, arguably the five most memorable minutes of modern comedy. Eric Idle has said that the skit was written originally for a used car, but changed to a parrot to heighten the absurdity. When they were stumped over how to describe a dead bird, Idle says they simply went to a thesaurus and plucked out all the synonyms for death. “Ceased to be.” “Deceased.” “Passed on.” “Bleeding demised.” “Is no more.” And so on.

Thinking now back to the male enhancement spam, it seems they’ve been similarly plumbing the depths of carnal synonyms. How else can you explain these e-mails subject lines?

Recipe for hotter lust.

Solid gun for having fun.

Hoisters for your pork lever.

Have a concrete thing in pants.

Become her drillasaur.

Ideal for bed marathons.

For frequent getting busy.

Extend your male might.

Hit her in all poses tonight.

Your favorite ardor hoister.

Power for all the girls.

Make it point to roof.

For continuous flight.

Give your [deleted] bulldozer power.

Sink it inside her.

Pack full of night drive.

Enough weenie’s limpness.

Wang Up.

Solid gun. Pork lever. Drillasaur. Bed marathon. Ardor hoister? It would appear that they’re not only reaching for new and inventive language to evade spam filters, but also a basic grasp of the English grammar. Don’t they know it should be “Make it point to THE roof”?

This has gotten me to wondering whether I really should be paying attention to all those spam messages about replica watches. I suppose there could be a time when I might find myself needing to know whether it’s been four hours or longer or wanting to know the correct time during a bed marathon?