Praise Jesus...Hump's in line for $3 million, Lord willing.

“Dear Beloved. Greetings in the name of God. May the blessings of God be upon you and grant you the wisdom to understand this situation and how much I need your help."

The above is the opening greeting from a typical email I receive two or three times a month to a couple of my email accounts. Invariably it purports to be from an old Christian widow woman who is dying from cancer and for reasons known only to her and Jesus she selected me to oversee the charitable distribution of her $10 million dollar estate for which I will be rewarded 1/3rd of it for my trouble. Although her residence varies currently she claims residency in Saudi and based on how long I’ve been getting these, she has been in the throes of death for some two or three years now.

The letter is long and crammed full of references to Jesus, heaven, finding her reward, blessings, and is signed “Yours in a Loving Christ” or some such nonsense. It seems all she needs is my full name, address, and phone number to get things going. Occasionally I reply to these emails wishing the poor “woman” a lingering and hideous death, and promising her that Satan and I will be happy to double team her when she reaches her reward in Hell ... I being the one with the hump and the enormous member. Much to my disappointment I never get a reply.

What’s fascinating about this is the assumption that by invoking Jesus and tossing out endless Christian platitudes that the target will be swayed to participate in this blatantly transparent scam. The scammers obviously see Christians as particularly vapid and open to being ripped off by anyone sharing their delusional beliefs. They are well aware that Christians have abandoned all common sense, opting to believe the most ridiculous things on faith. Plus, they are scammed every Sunday when they drop their money into the old collection plate at church. And since America is a hot bed of fundamentalist stupidity, they also assume that every one of the thousands upon thousands of Americans they email is a believer ripe for the picking. After all, not once have I received an offer from an dying rich woman addressed to “Dear Reasoned and Rational Freethinker.”

I’m guessing they meet with some success with this strategy, since the letters haven’t changed much in two years. If so, Dog bless ‘em.