Honey, please. Today at school someone , the same person as usual , forwarded another of those emails. This one, thankfully, was not political in nature, just the old one about cell phone numbers being released to telemarketers. I dutifully found the Snopes.com link and replied to all without comment, other than to say, “This is an old one.”

But I’m commenting here. Jesus H. Spaghetti Monster, people, where are your brains?? If there were a looming deadline of such awful significance, wouldn’t you have read about it in the newspaper? Seen it on the news? HEARD ABOUT IT FROM ONE OF YOUR RANTING NUTJOB RADIO FROTHERMOUTHS???

Years ago, before the intertubes were invented for the purpose of keeping the unwashed in a turmoil of anxiety, these things were spread orally, over lunch at work. I remember my own lovely first wife, who is far more skeptical than the run of the mill executive, coming home breathless with horror at the kidnapping of a little boy by mysterious women with canvas bags in the restrooms at the mall. (Need I say that the little boy was white and the kidnappers were black?)

We were all to beware sending our children to the restroom alone, of course, because those people lurked everywhere. Pretty horrific stuff for any parent, to be sure.

After one tiny frisson, however, my rational brain kicked in. I pointed out to MLFW that if such a kidnapping had taken place, wouldn’t that be the only thing on the news for weeks? Had we seen anything like this in the newspaper? She did the grinding-gears-because-because-but-it’s-such-a-good-story! face and realized that I had to be right. Again.

The current emailer just replied to my reply with, “IT’S NEW TO ME!!!!” I can’t tell whether she’s offended that I have—once again—exposed her to the entire school as a panicky, credulous git, but darling, the fact that you’ve never encountered information before doesn’t mean that you have to take it at face value. Quite the reverse, IS WHAT I’M TRYING TO TEACH YOU HERE.

Onward to the midterm elections. ::sigh::