It was an unusual enough in itself that my mailbox—and by that I mean my non-virtual mailbox, the one that Canada Post delivers items to—apparently contained no junk mail this day. No flyers, nothing unaddressed. Just real mail! It seemed. Airs of bygones days, when mail was still mostly nice to receive. I got:

• A real-life thank you card, with hand-written note.
• The latest issue of a paper magazine that I subscribe to
• A rental DVD! (From zip.ca, still in business, though I don’t know how long.)

The final item was a bit of a puzzle. An international letter, addressed to me. I was most curious about this one.

This was the opening paragraph.

Firstly, I must solicit your confidence in this transaction; this is by virtue of its nature as being utterly confidential and top secret. Though I know that a transaction of this magnitude will make anyone apprehensive and worried, but I am assuring you that all will be well at the end of the day.

Utterly confidential and top secret! Both! With assurances that all would be well, “at the end of the day”. I was mesmerized.

Somebody in Spain had composed a full, legal-ish sounding letter, largely correctly spelled, outlining an inheritance scheme. But instead of just emailing it more or less for free to every virtual address they could get their hands on, they printed it on paper, folded it and put it in an envelope, added international postage (a stamp celebrating Unesco), and put in a real mailbox.

Is this sort of brilliant, or especially moronic? Either way, I must appreciate the effort. At least this person is working for their ill-gotten gain.

All he requires is my honest cooperation, if it doesn’t offend my moral ethics. This transaction is entirely risk free. 🙂