A Feng Shui Lotus Touts

I am most definitely, absolutely, positively not one of those who constantly forward e-mails. Because of that mindset that borders on obsessive, I have on numerous occasions risked my life, my fortune (what little there is), the possibility of having my hair fall out, sixty years bad luck, a wart on my nose, and all because I would not forward an e-mail.

Now, I know some of you don’t fiddle with a computer, but you probably remember the old ‘chain letters’ back during the days of the dinosaurs. This e-mail was a chain letter.

My mother, bless her heart, was fanatical about getting chain letters back into the mail before the allotted time. She’d sit as the dining room table and labor over fifteen or twenty of those suckers, then hurry to post them before the next day’s mail.

I never did notice any appreciable change in our luck and fortune despite an average of six or eight chain letters yearly. I still had Vienna sausage sandwiches for lunch at school. When I mentioned our lack of fortune to Mom, she shrugged and reminded me Dad still had his job; we had a roof over our head; and there was always food on the table.

So, you can see why I never placed any value on chain letters.

Until one day!

Yep.

I got what was called a ‘Mental Feng Shui Lotus Touts’.
Now, I’ll be honest. I had no idea what a Mental Feng Shui Lotus Touts was. Feng Shui is a 3000-year-old system of art and science from China that reveals how to balance the energies of a space to ensure health and good fortune to those inhabiting it. Lotus Touts? Your guess is as good as mine. Sounds like something you might step in.

I don’t believe in such stuff, so I can’t tell you why I decided to see what would happen if I forwarded the e-mail.

Maybe it was because it claimed that if I sent it to five people, my life would improve; five to ten, improve greatly; ten to fifteen, three surprises in the next two weeks; and over fifteen, all I had dreamed of.

Golly gee, folks. With those kind of assurances, an old country boy would be a sucker not to give it a shot. I had nothing to lose. At least, that’s what I thought.
Now, this little good luck e-mail consisted of twenty-one guides to a more satisfying life.

They were the usual little truisms that most of us try to observe in our daily lives: give more than people expect, and do it cheerfully; marry someone you love to talk to; don’t believe all you hear, spend all you have, or sleep all you want; when you say ‘I love you’, mean it; when you apologize to someone, look them in the eye; when you make a mistake, take steps to correct it; don’t let a disagreement destroy a friendship; and another fifteen or so.

So, I figured if I were going to forward the good luck note, I might as well go whole hog and send it to everyone on my list.

Well, I have to admit, the e-mail was right about the surprises. The first came the next day when three on my contact list said they’d taken my name off their contact lists and for me to never communicate with them again.

I didn’t have time to get upset, for at that minute, my computer crashed. I contacted my computer tech. Great guy, smart guy, expensive guy.

So far, the e-mail had cost me three contacts and a nice chunk of cash. I shrugged if off, figuring if I bought the cheapest beer for the next six months, I’d recoup my expenses.

I got my next surprise the following day when I ruined a tire. That was just after I got a speeding ticket. By then, I was ready to strangle the jerk who had sent me the good luck e-mail.

That night, I reread the list of truisms. I stopped at ‘Hindsight is twenty-twenty.’ Was that ever right! I knew when I was in the middle of sending out that stuff that I was making a mistake. And I refused to listen.

The only good luck I got out of that fiasco was a few days later when I ran out of gas, I did manage to coast into a station. That’s the kinda luck I have, half good and half bad, and there ain’t no stinking e-mail that will solve that.


rconwell@gt.rr.com