With regrets, you can rot in Denmark

"With regrets, you can rot in Denmark. That’s what she gets for breaking my heart." Those are my only two replies to the numerous emails I have received about the desperate situations some of you have found yourself in over the past few months.

It seems while traveling some of our citizens lost their money and emailed me from their intelligent phones asking for assistance. I’ll change the names to protect the proposed guilty.

Bettia Haffinferger was in my office Thursday afternoon and on Friday morning an email arrived from Bettia that she was stranded in a far away land. To some of you that could be Florence, Ky., but poor Bettia was in Brixton Hill, England.

I’ve been to England and I know that if you are in Brixton Hill and the sun goes down then you are probably mortally wounded and would be dead by the time any money from me arrived. It’s sort of like if you called me at 3 a.m. from Over the Rhine.

I usually think that the person also sent emails to others who probably like them better so I just ignore the requests. But this time something inside me made me reply to Bettia with, "That’s what you get for breaking my heart. Rot in Brixton Hill."

I saw Bettia a few days later and apologized and was awesomely shocked that she didn’t get my reply and that she was in Grant County the entire time.

Sometimes I get another email from the troubled victim saying that they are not anywhere other than Bruce’s Grocery in Mason and that the request for financial help was a hoax. To this I replay, "So sorry, Brixton Hill is a wonderful place to visit this time of year…before dark…try the smoked eel."

I have noticed that these pleas for help come from many of us caught in a loop of emails sent out by those who pass on to us those "Things you have to see" attachments.

These emails usually begin with something like, "I don’t normally do this but you have to see this."

Some begin with, "You are not an American if you don’t look (like) this." Or, "You are not a Christian if you don’t…" so on and so forth.

I delete them all. I delete everything that comes in that says, "This is the funniest thing ever." And, "this is the most shocking thing ever," as well as, "The most awesome" and any other description.

These emails can carry the mother louse of internet lice.

My advice is don’t pass on anything that is more than first generation. That means if someone forwarded it on to you, don’t pass it to someone else no matter how awesome or shocking it is. If you want to share then say, "You’re not an American if you don’t go to this web address," and give the address."

"Awesome" and "Shocking" and many other such words used to mean something. Now they are so overused like, "Funniest Ever," that the words don’t mean anything.

If you think you have seen awesome, shocking and funniest ever on the World Wide Web, then I’m guessing you text while you drive and haven’t seen the awesome shocking funniest ever reactions of the people trying to avoid your drunk-like driving.

Excuse me now as I’ve got some emails to send out. Seems that if I can come up with $800 I can claim a package waiting for me in Spain that has been certified to contain something of great value. All I need to do is find some friends with money.

(Ken Stone is the publisher at the Grant County News. He can be reached at 859-824-3343 or via e-mail at kstone@grantky.com.)