Pictured below is Cali, a very obedient, mellow and friendly Upper West Side pooch sitting on the street corner waiting patiently for the light to change so she can continue with her evening exercise.
Cali smiling for the camera.
I asked Cali’s Best Friend:
Me: What kind of dog is she?
Best Friend: A mix. I got her from a shelter. There are so many of them there. Why not?
Good point. They seemed like an excellent pair. Judging from the blueness of Cali’s eyes, my guess is that there’s a little Paul Newman somewhere in her lineage.
It is no secret that I am very fond of hounds, especially mutts. Aside from being playful and affectionate, another wonderful aspect of dogs is that unlike their human counterparts, they have absolutely no interest in sending chain letter email like the one I received yesterday from an acquaintance I have not spoken to in nearly two years.
This acquaintance is an educated woman, a journalist by trade. She even appeared in The New York Times last year – with her dog, Maggie. I met her about three years ago through a mutual acquaintance, my close friend, Albee. He and I both lost touch with her when she relocated to Colorado last year. I have no idea where she is living now, but in recent months I get occasional impersonal e-blasts from her on an email address I no longer use.
The chain letter she forwarded to me was forwarded to her from a dimwit in the fashion industry who e-forwarded it from her workplace email providing recipients with her address, cell phone, work and fax numbers. Sheer genius. I suspect this dimwit is not the next Donna Karan.
The instructions are as follows — within five minutes read Saint Theresa’s Prayer (included in the email), lift the left foot at least twelve inches off the ground and with the right pinky pointed at the tip of the nose spin around three times, make a wish, and then forward this idiocy to eleven people. Within eight minutes of all this I “will receive something you have long awaited. Have faith.” Oh my, the clock is ticking! The thinly veiled chain letter threat, for there is always some hint of threat in chain letters, is that Saint Theresa’s prayer cannot be deleted.
Huh. Hm. Guess what? After being subjected to twelve years of Catholic schooling in my formative years I’ve been a committed atheist ever since. So …
Delete.
That took all of two seconds.
Next, I emailed Albee. I asked him if he also received this chain letter email from our mutual acquaintance. He responded, “My inbox has reserved itself for African banking schemes.”
Then, I queried the three other main men in my life, Milton, Martini Max and my sidekick, Greg. Milton and Max have both been recipients of chain letter emails and they both told me that the senders are always women. They both delete them instantly. Greg boasts that he never gets these kinds of emails and attributes that to his anatomy or to quote Greg-speak, “It’s because I have a dangler.” Or, because he’s under thirty he knows fewer crazy women than Milton or Max.
I don’t know how big a role anatomy plays in this stupidity, but Greg might be onto something. When I get these emails, it has always been from women, and usually women I know well whom I consider very intelligent. In January, my boss, Elsbeth, fell victim to the Neiman Marcus $250 cookie recipe story that has been floating around for decades. Possibly it’s because females are genetically programmed to be nurturing, and it is their natural inclination to want to help someone in need, but it baffles me why their olfactory properties shut down to this distinct smell of bullshit. Cali and I could both easily sniff this one out. Woof! Or, grrrrrrrrrrr.
Lame Adventures 