Forwarding - like Spandex, a right, not a privilege

Ok, seriously – who taught Grandpa how to forward? Really…

It’s cute and all how he prints out the schedule of the hockey games on TV and whatnot for the other denizens of the nursing home. He dug up some cool pics of me from when I was a kid, managed to scan them and email them to me (and hells no, I’m not posting them), awesome.

But – whoever taught him what the forward button does must be punished.

Mostly, I get stuff that’s just lame, which is fine. Mildly aggravating, but whatever. Pictures of puppy dogs or stupid poems and shit like that.

At one point, during the proliferation of all those birthday alarm & photosharing/networking dealies, I decided that it would be a good idea to sign up for one (and then of course proceeded to never again touch the stupid thing). And you know, after the sign up thing, there’s the inevitable ‘Invite your friends!’ plea. So, I think, hey, why not invite Grandpa. It’ll make him feel special, right? Apparently not, because what I get instead is a scolding email, from my 84 year old grandfather patiently explaining that he chooses not to register for such things because they will proceed to sell his email address which will then result in him getting spam. OK – fine, fuck you grandpa, I’m just trying to stay connected…but whatever.

I’m getting tips on cyber-safety from an 84 year old. I am a 21^st century digital girl. This does not make me happy.

But then – I get this great forward from Gramps, extolling the dangers of forwarding.

Did we all catch the irony there? You just FORWARDED me and email warning me not to FORWARD things!!!

The email, which was completely ridiculous, (big bold red text, ‘This is from an RCMP officer!’. Well shit, it’s red text, it must be true, right?), was going on about how when you sign a petition your email address will get eaten be spammers, etc. (marginally true, but they have much better & more effective ways to get your info than by pretending to care about saving spotted owls).

Of course, this prompted me to shoot off a quick, sarcastic note pointing this out to my Grandfather.

I just punked off Grandpa. By email. I’m sooo going to hell.