I’ve gotten two pieces of spam on my email account lately, both of them indicating that an email I had sent was undeliverable to certain of the addressees. The only problem is that I never actually sent them.

The most recent email helpfully informed me that my email titled “Find local sexaholics” could not be delivered to the recipients [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected].

The email was putatively from “Wallace Gaston” at my email address, and included the unusually literate body:

“Where love reigns the impossible may be attained”
a insightful man said long ago:)

And shortly you can get joy for yourself aswell,
without the pointless dates;-)
If its either a One-Night stand or something
more serious, you’ll obtain it here;-D

followed by a hyperlink to a website that included the phrase “get-me-laid” in the URL.

While I am glad that the four mythical recipients above were spared from this kind of godawful spam, I wondered how many other random alphabetized names DID get through, to land in someone’s mailbox at kiesewetterwise.com.

Curious, I surfed over to www.kiesewetterwise.com, to discover to my dismay that they are a Memphis law firm, specializing in “representation of management in the areas of labor relations, employment law, and human resources in both union and non-union environments”.

Terrific. It wasn’t bad enough that an email with my address on it and the subject “find local sexaholics” could have been received by some housewife, pubescent girl, or indignant boy scout. No, it had to be sent to a law firm.

The thing about attorneys is, they’re more than happy to sue your ass with little or no provocation. This is for two very simple reasons. First, when the only tool you have in your toolbox is a hammer, pretty soon all your problems begin to look a lot like nails. Second, the biggest hurdle to filing a lawsuit, if you are a member of the great unwashed, is the cost of the attorney. If you are the attorney, your time is free, greatly decreasing the barrier to unleashing a maelstrom of punitive litigation.

Hopefully the fine folks at Kiesewetterwise are IT-savvy enough, or employ someone IT-savvy enough, that they realize that email addresses and paths can be spoofed, and that it is unlikely that poor little ol’ PAgent has embarked upon a lucrative career as a spammer.

After all, if I was going to send a spam message, it would be free of typos, have a decent rhyme scheme, and be at least moderately persuasive. I do have standards, after all.