I have always thought e-mail was one of the coolest things ever, since I first saw anything like it in the early eighties, and used it in the early nineties. Perhaps it’s a shyness thing, but what others might see as impersonal, I see as “someone wanted to communicate with me? Cool!” It helps, perhaps, that I always had a fondness for the written word.

To this day, there’s a sense of excitement attached to receiving an e-mail that has only just, only spottily, worn down. Sometimes it’s a burden or a distraction if I am busy, or a guilt trip if I can’t promptly reply, or get distracted from doing so. More commonly I see that an e-mail has arrived and I excitedly click over to the e-mail program, and…

It’s another spam. Argh! What a letdown.

That is what I really hate about e-mail spam.