Put down the ketchup

The longer I live the more I think about me and Mrs. Balogger selling everything and moving out to a farm somewhere. Raise our own crops, cattle, and chickens...shit like that.

If I based my life's decisions on the content of the email i receive on adaily basis, i would have shot my self by now.

I love my family very dearly and while some of them have not quite grasped the concept of email hoaxes, i still take the time to read their "chain letter" type emails. I was going through my old emails a few minutes ago and i found one from a 'close' relative..close as in we share the same blood.

This particular relative is NOTORIOUS for send around email warnings about "not buying gas on a certain day", the religious emails, and the mushy type that proclaim this is National Friends Week (which seems to be every week of the year...go figure).

Unless i see where they have addressed something solely to me, I ignore it. I dont delete it, but people that send out emails to multiple users dont normally get a rapid response from me....unless its my boss!!!

So, like i was saying I was going through cleaning out some emails and I came across one that said:

"This is serious! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT!"

Thats exactly how it came.

Maybe after years of getting BS in my inbox, I have become immune to any type email with ALERT, WARNING, YOUR IMMEDIATE ATTENTION IS REQUIRED, or DO NOT DELETE. Those are all warning signs for a bullshit email in your inbox. My spam filter normally catches that, but I have it set for all emails from this one family member to get a free pass and get delivered straight to me....BIG MISTAKE

So I open up this "nuclear warhead" type email, and this is what i read:

ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT!

SEND THIS TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE. PEOPLE ARE SICK.

This is something you may want to take note of:

ONLY USE KETCHUP FROM THE PACKET IN FAST FOOD OUTLETS!! A man was caught placing blood in the ketchup dispenser at a fast food outlet (to remain unnamed) within the last month. It is believed that he is HIV+. So be sure to let your friends/family know...
Only use items that come in a closed packet.
Thelma Jean Martin Department of Health and Human Services Quality Assurance

After reading this, do you know what my reaction was?

Why me?

I dont understand why people are so gullible. I mean, i totally understand the intentions of my relative. They dont want to see me or my family get infected from tainted ketchup, and i appreciate that, but do they really think that something that huge would go without ample news coverage.

If this were true, CNN, FOX and the Big3 networks would be all over it. Cameras would be lined up outside the restaurant in question, statements from the company headquarters would be issued, we would see the banning of open condiment containers all together.

The vagueness of the email should raise suspicion too. The restaurant is not named. Why not? Dont you think that would be a key piece of information. And if this alleged incident did happen, dont you think the employees would be heavily screened for HIV. That right there would cause the info to be leaked to the world.

Am I supposed to stop eating ketchup in the containers now? Well what about the drink dispensers? what about the ice makers. Those pose the same hazards, dont they?

I am not saying nothing like that can happen. But it sounds like a scare tactic. Possibly conceived by the distributor of those little packets of ketchup. How hard would it be to type an email of this sort. There is no responsibility of the sender. Hell, no body knows who the original sender is.

I wrote a piece months back about Amy Bruce. This is just another example of the blind leading the blind. All it takes is a little research to see if its true. If you google HIV IN KETCHUP, look at the number 1 result..from the Center for Disease Control.

For the un-educated, un-informed and those of you that just believe anything that you get in emails, there are people in the 'cyber world' that would like nothing better than to cause hysteria, either mass or minor, based on a figment of their imagination. These same type of folks are the same ones who started the $1/email from Microsoft scam and the Amy Bruce Scam and those assholes in Nigeria who think they can convince logically thinking citizens that some relative in the Congo was worth billions of dollars and has somehow wrote you into their will.
Its all BS people...but dont take my word for it. I could be full of it too, but dont be too lazy to do some research on your own. It will make you a better person. You may even learn something useful...like:

"HIV is not an airborne or food-borne virus, and it does not live long outside the body. Even if small amounts of HIV-infected blood were consumed, stomach acid would destroy the virus. Therefore, there is no risk of contracting HIV from eating ketchup."

Straight from the CDC!!!

....but WE could be wrong