
I know a guy whose neighbor, a young man, was home recovering because
he had been served a rat in his bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Anyway, one day, he went to sleep and when he woke up, he was in his
bathtub, it was full of ice, and he was sore all over. When he got out
of the tub he realized that his kidneys had been stolen and he saw a note
on his mirror that said, "Call 911!" But he was afraid to use his phone
because it was connected to his computer, and there was a virus on his
computer that would destroy his hard drive if he opened an e-mail entitled
"Join the crew!" He knew it wasn't a hoax because he himself was a
computer programmer who was working on software to save us from
Armageddon when the year 2000 rolls around. His program will prevent a
global disaster in which all the computers get together and distribute
the $600 Neiman Marcus cookie recipe under the leadership of Bill Gates.
(It's true. I read it all last week in a mass e-mail from Bill Gates
himself, who was also promising me a free Disney World vacation and
$5,000 if I would forward the e-mail to everyone I know.) The poor man
then tried to call 911 from a pay phone to report his missing kidneys, but
reaching into the coin-return slot he got jabbed with an HIV-infected
needle around which was wrapped in note that said, "Welcome to the
world of AIDS." Luckily he was only a few blocks from the hospital - the
one, actually, where that little boy who is dying of cancer is, the one
whose last wish is for everyone in the world to send him an e-mail and
the American Cancer Society has agreed to pay him a nickel for every
e-mail he receives. I sent him two e-mails and one of them was a bunch
of X's and O's in the shape of an angel. (If you get it and forward it to
twenty people you will have good luck, but to ten people you will only
have OK luck, and if you send it to fewer than ten people you will have
bad luck for seven years.) So anyway, the poor guy tried to drive
himself to the hospital, but on the way he noticed another car driving
along without its lights on. To be helpful, he flashed his lights at the
other car and was promptly shot as part of a gang initiation. And it's a
little known fact that the Y1K problem caused the Dark Ages.
