Fishing or Phishing

You know I like fishing, just not phishing.  At least I used to like fishing until I began to intellectualize or was that over-analyze the whole process.  But of course, that's a post for another time.  And this post really isn't about fishing anyway but more phishing.  You know that unwanted mail that arrives in our inbox unless we take measures to guard against it.

And it's not just phishing - although maybe they are too, I haven't taken a close enough look at them.  But what's with numerous pitches for watches and sex-enhancement medication - I don't get it.  How many watches can one person wear?  And as far as the other, let's not even go there.

Lately, I've been inundated with requests to retrieve money.  A recent fave was an e-mail that suggested that I must be familiar with a certain African dictator who was deceased and had left a fortune to his family.  And with just a little of my help they'll be able to access millions of dollars which of course I would profit from being the one to help them and all.  Yeah, right.

The text had a grade school element to it.  But worse than just being badly written, it was written in slightly staccato English taking any morsel of believability away with the bad phrasing.  There wasn't even a morsel of believability that I could see.  Which leads to another question - why is it all badly written?  Not that I should complain, that makes it all easy to detect. 

So what inspired today's post?  Well, I've just been informed that my bank cancelled my tax transaction.  The e-mail assures me that the money was sent from my checking account and thereby cancelled.  Apparently it's a payment to the Internal Revenue Service and if I just hit that lovely executable file button - well, it will be all over - literally.

Internal Revenue?  Dead foreign dictators?  Glitzy Watches.  Okay back to the latest e-mail - the cancelled check and the Internal Revenue.  For one, get the spelling correct people - I don't mind American spelling but not when it involves my bank account - chequing not checking.  And the Internal Revenue?  Hey, I have enough worries filling out my Income Tax Return for Revenue Canada.

I know, get a decent spam filter and I can quit complaining.  But if I'd done that - you'd never have had this post. 

But speaking of fishing or phishing - while sending out a line for a new story idea I tripped on the unexpected.  A slight veer in the path, but isn't that what writing is all about?  A story so close to home I almost scraped my knuckles reeling in the general idea of it.  And the beauty of it is it's just a little veer in the path and just a bit of phishing from the home front.  Phishing - maybe it's not so bad after all.  At least as a good method of obtaining a story.

And fishing - the last time I did that I fell asleep in the boat without even a nibble.  You, any fishing stories?


Ryshia
www.ryshiakennie.com