Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Ode to an Obnoxious Crap E-mail Forward

I found this in my inbox this morning. Is there something wrong with me that I find crap like this completely unfunny? And damn, what a double standard. If this went out with the opposite genders, there would be such a call to arms.

****Start of obnoxious e-mail****

FUNERAL PROCESSION: (DON'T SKIP THE PRAYER AT THE END...ITS PRICELESS!)

A woman was leaving a convenience store with her morning coffee when she noticed a most unusual funeral procession approaching the nearby cemetery. A long black hearse was followed by a second long black hearse about 50 feet behind the first one. Behind the second hearse was a solitary woman walking a pit bull on a leash. Behind her, a short distance back, were about 200 women walking single file.

The woman couldn't stand her curiosity. She respectfully approached the woman walking the dog and said, "I am so sorry for your loss", I know now is a bad time to disturb you, but I've never seen a funeral like this. Whose funeral is it?"
"My husband's."
"What happened to him?"
The woman replied, "My dog attacked and killed him."
She inquired further, "Well, who is in the second hearse?"
The woman answered, "My mother-in-law. She was trying to help my husband when the dog turned on her."
A poignant and thoughtful moment of silence passed between the two women.
"Can I borrow the dog?"
"Get in line."
__________________________________
A Woman's Prayer:
Dear Lord,I pray for:
Wisdom, To understand a man.
Love, To forgive him and;
Patience, For his moods.
Because, Lord, if I pray for Strength
I'll just beat him to death.

****End of obnoxious e-mail****

Ok, so instead of just letting sleeping dogs lie, I had to go poke Fido and Muffin with a stick. I started really thinking about that "call to arms" thing I mentioned. The sender is a former student of mine who I love dearly, but doesn't always think things through or beyond herself. So, to prove a point, I went back through the e-mail and changed the gender throughout, and asked her if she still thought it was forward-worthy-funny. Woman gets attacked by dog, another woman gets attacked by dog, a line of men hoping to off their wives and mother-in-laws, a "prayer" about wanting to beat your wife. No one with half a brain would send that version out (heh, hi, except me, apparently) let alone expect laughs.

To me, it shows an inexcusable laziness to just go for the lameass "ha-ha" at men's expense instead of taking the chance to show some respect for the opposite sex by deleting the crap. It shouldn't be anymore ok to talk about beating a man than it is a woman. And to just laugh it off, bugs. Or at least, bugs me. I respect my husband, dad, uncle, guy friends, etc. more than that.

Now, as my brilliant friend Jenny pointed out, male abuse of women is, of course, a much more serious social problem than the other way around. But as my brilliant friend Jenny went on to say, "It'd be nice if we could think of something a little more intelligent and less appalling to make jokes about. Spousal abuse-HAHAHA. Wow, gets me every time." (Poor Jenny had to put up with my pre-blog rant. Jenny deserves some nice wine.)

I also think e-mail forwarders should take a minute to think a little before hitting that send button. Maybe reflecting on: "how am I portrying myself by mindlessly forwarding crap like this under my name?" or "could this be offensive to anyone?" or even just a simple, "is this even the least bit funny?"

I don't know- maybe I just have a bee in my bonnet today. I think of myself as one who enjoys and appreciates all sorts of humor, can take a joke, and although liberal, not necessarily PC, but for some reason, this got me going.

Ok. I'll breathe now. Perhaps lying under my desk in the fetal position and rocking back and forth for a bit would be just what the doctor ordered.

10 Comments:

At 1:53 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oooo blog! Ok, I don't normally do these things (I've seen far too many confused white upper middle-class suburban kids writing raps about anarchism and other such ridiculous things on their blogs). But for Lori, I have to contribute. Lori, I love your blog!

Ok, so I'm here to contribute a joke that I found funny and illuminating...told to me by a Catholic Spaniard, so I feel like it's safe to pass it on (don't read any further, however, if you'll be offended by a Pope joke):

So Ratzinger and two Cardinals die and are outside the gates of heaven. The first one goes in for his interview with God, and immediately begins to cry and confess to all the mistakes-theological and otherwise-that he's made in his life. Done. Second cardinal goes in, and the same thing happens. He cries and laments his past errors and begs for God's forgiveness.

Ratzinger goes in...and God starts to cry, decrying his own theological and other mistakes and begging Ratzinger to pardon him.


So there we go. No misogyny or double standard necessary. Just distaste for ultra-conservative Catholic Church figures who are all over God's word and reaching out to the world--except the world's biggest sinners: feminists, gays, liberals. You know how it is.

 
At 2:00 PM , Blogger ZigKvetch said...

And this, folks, is why I'm so lucky that Jenny is a friend of mine. Nicely done. I'll start work on an anarchism rap next, just for you!

 
At 2:30 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Good job; I enjoyed the comment. Just so you know current research shows that there is a equal amount of husband/man abuse as there is wife/woman abuse. It works out to be about 1 in 5.

Being a male on the recieving of it wasn't fun and it is not a joke to me.

 
At 2:37 PM , Blogger ZigKvetch said...

Anonymous, I was not aware of that. Thank you for sharing, and I sincerely hope you get(or already received) the help you need to recover from the abuse. Take care.

 
At 3:51 PM , Blogger tish said...

Lori, I love your blog too!

 
At 4:07 PM , Blogger Skeezix said...

I don't think Lori is having a bad time. I think she is properly appalled at the lack of intelligence shown by whomever wrote that piece of crap.

 
At 4:14 PM , Blogger ZigKvetch said...

Ms. Doodlemom,

Yeah, I definitely unleashed, it's true. I know you know that I'm stressed, but I also think it has a lot to do with the source (I still feel responsible for trying to get her to see things differently) of the e-mail. And, reading Anon's post (I have no idea if this is a real person or not, but I have no reason to assume he's not), I actually felt glad that I did unleash a little.

That said, the e-mail with the toy links rule-- what a trip down memory lane! I think you should order all of 'em for your wee Doodle.

If anyone is reading this and would like to take your own trip down memory lane, check out http://www.thisoldtoy.com

 
At 4:19 PM , Blogger ZigKvetch said...

Ah, kind Skeez, I thank you for your support and appalledness!

I'm not sorry I wrote the unleashment (Appalledness! Unleashment! It's make your own word day!). It may be a bit testy, but alas, it's how I feel at this moment for a bunch of reasons.

Thank you Skeez, Doodlemom, Tish, and of course Jenny, for being my friends.

 
At 6:35 PM , Blogger Flipsycab said...

Ooooh, I am so with you on this one, Zig!!!!!!! I can't tell you how many times I've had to set email boundaries with some people in my life because they sent me crap like this. How are sexism and violence against others funny? I don't get it. Emails like this grate on my last nerve because they are simply perpetuating stereotypes that many of us have worked to breakdown because they are false. Grrrrr....

Yes, people should think before pressing that Fwd button. Seriously, y'all.

I'm sorry for everything that Anonyomous experienced as as survivor of domestic violence, that's for damn sure. But the statistics are still heavily weighted: 93% of dv survivors are women; 7% are men. It sucks all around and, I don't know about y'all, but I'm WAY over it.

 
At 9:22 PM , Blogger Megan said...

Zig, my reply-all to an offensive email forward got me a trip to New York!

 

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