Email Chain Message Mostly True - Recipients Are Stunned

In an unprecedented development that has Internet experts and users world-wide scratching their heads, a widely-circulated email chain message turned out to be almost entirely based on fact.

With a subject line reading, "EATING SWEETS MIGHT MAKE YOU GAIN WEIGHT!!!!" the message is set in all caps in giant blue type like most other chain emails. It even concludes with the familiar admonition, "PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!!!!!!!!!

And that's where any similarity between this and other chain emails ends.

 Carl Cannedair, a professional Web site developer and online Dungeon Master, revealed that he has received the email from fifteen different friends in the past week. "It's incredible," he said. "It's the first chain letter I've seen in five years that doesn't mention Al Gore's many plots to destroy America, the handful of damp kibbles that George Bush has for a brain, the Dixie Chicks' lesbian sexual escapades with barnyard animals, or Dick Cheney's habit of eating live puppies with a fork."

Instead, the email lists a number of instances in which eating sweets did indeed make people gain weight. It includes an anecdote concerning Bill Clinton in 1997, spending the night in the Rose Garden with a crate of Twinkies, but even that turns out to be based on a verifiable incident.

"I'm not sure what would be the point of circulating something like this, filled with facts and not attacking anybody," said Cannedair, shaking his head. "I mean, it just keeps getting crazier out there."

Authorities are unsure of the origin of the message, but at least one unnamed source felt sure that this "chain message of truth" would turn out to be just an isolated, bizarre incident.

We can only hope.

Copyright © 2006, Michael Ball