I Am a Victim?

Like most people who foolishly use that wild-wild-west-esque electronic frontier that the young folks call the "interwebs," I get more than my fair share of spam. Not the savory canned meat treat (because, honestly, nobody ever gets their fair share of that kind of Spam), but the kind of spam that is email which the cyber-intelligences in the metal demon box that the young folks call "computers" determines is evil and shunts off to email Limbo.

Of course, often the demon box is wrong, and what it sends to Limbo turns out to be last month's electricity bill ... which is ironically a form of suicide for the demon box, since it suckles so vociferously on that easily interrupted electron stream. Or the demon box makes a mistake and allows thru an email from the ubiquitous disenfranchised Nigerian prince. Won't somebody help that poor man?

Last week, the demon box dropped in my box something that smelled fishy ... or should I say "pfishy?" You see, there's also spam email which is used to pfish for valuable information from people, such as user names, passwords, credit card data, and phone numbers of dependable baby sitters. These emails seem to come from such solid trustworthy entities as banks, the government, and major corporations, but in reality come from far less savory criminals than those guys.

The one I got said that it came from the United States Department of Justice -- a dead give-away as being false, since everybody knows there is no such thing as Justice in this world. Since my virus-checker said it was safe (and I had my flu shot just a few days before), I opened and read some of it. The mail was supposedly from someone with the FBI in San Diego, and said that I had been a victim of a crime.

Yeah. Right.

Just to be sure, however, I checked my wallet -- yep, $14 still there -- and went out to make sure that my bikes were secure in the new RandoCave. Of course, nobody can get past the security systems for my sanctum sanitarium without either getting the retina for my right eye and a DNA sample ... or the garage-door opener out of the car. Nonetheless, irregardless, and res ipsa loquitur, my bikes were all safe (not to mention clean and well-lubed ... yea, me!), so I knew that there could not have been any crimes perpetrated upon my personage or property. Herewith, forsooth!

I thought nothing more about it for the rest of the week, but got a follow-up email yesterday. This was from another lady at the so-called Department of Justice, claiming to be an FBI agent in San Diego. However, when I read this email I found more information about the nature of the crime of which I was supposedly a victim. It all related to the Floyd Fairness Fund.

Ahah!

You see, I actually gave money to the Floyd Fairness Fund. Not nearly as much as that first Nigerian prince who emailed me, but more than I gave to the next two. Call me a "softie," but I consider myself a "believer" when it comes to helping people in need. And that sounds better than what RandoGirl calls me when she sees the cancelled checks.

So, apparently the Department of Justice (yeah, there really is such a thing -- who'd have thunk?) is going after the Floyd Fairness Fund on behalf of me and the couple of dozen other people that thought Floyd was one of the many cyclists that were riding clean during the first decade of the millennium. Supposedly, they are also going to go after Lance.

I've heard that Floyd is planning to sue Lance as well, as is Frankie Andreu and probably the U.S. Postal Service and Trek and Bissell vacuums and everybody else that ever gave him money. We are entering a golden age of litigation, wherein everyone will be suing everyone else until all the riders are bankrupt and all the fans have moved over to watching indoor soccer. I predict frequent courtroom drama resembling a feeding frenzy of Great White Sharks.

Which is a whole different kind of pfishing.