What's My Line?

*Yeah, I know...it ain't remotely Christmas time. But this archival fav is worthy of a reprise now, especially since work's tryin' to kill me at present...so enjoy this 'un from '06*

Will the "real" Mariam Abacha please stand up?

Prolly not.

Over the years of my receiving these email scams, I have heard from "Mariam Abacha" perhaps 25 times. Always a different one, I reckon. On one rather amusing occasion, I heard from two competeing "Mariam Abachas" at the same time, and had quite an email catfight going for about a week, as I sought to have "the real Mariam Abacha please authenticate". Both ultimately got mad, picked up their marbles, and went a scamming elsewhere.

So what should be new that I hear from yet another Mariam Abacha this week?

What's new is, Mariam gets to hear from Santa Claus. Well, at least my version of 'em:

To mariamabacha4040@virgilio.it:

It has come to my attention that you have sent to me, by way of Wish-'n-Elves-Hear.net, a wish for fiscal succor this upcoming Christmas season. Or at the very least, for your finding a fiscal sucker this upcoming holiday.

Well, I am many things, including grotesquely overweight and quite annoyed with the 24/365 playing of "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" in the workshop, but this is the time of year I live for, and letters like your are what I thrive upon. Along with pooploads of chocolate brownies, that is. After all, I listen to all good wishes of all good boys and girls around the globe, and do all that is in my infinitely-finite power to deliver upon those wishes to good boys and girls, non-believers and anti-air defenses aside.

But after a time, that gets a tad repetitive and boring. So getting wish letters from those who've been checked twice or thrice, and wound up on a secondary list of those with "good tendencies absent or atrophied", injects a bit of challenge into my otherwise normal routine that leads up to my annual "journey of dispensery".

The "great moment" I allude to is spending 31 hours in a climate-vulnerable open sleigh, flying in all kinds of weather with eight pissed-off reindeer, who have no qualms about pelting me with their discharges, while I defy all sorts of basic laws of science and Nature as regards time, distance, space and credibility. All the time also having to adhere to a myriad of flight restrictions and hazards, just to make all those "good" boys and girls happy, and to annoy those who bridle at the notion of differences between "good" and "bad", among other things they find offensive.

As I read your email, I recognize that yours is a "special" request, indicative of the need for "special" handling and processing. Therefore, I have put your wish before my "Special Circumstances Committee" for peculiar and expedient attention. Bear in mind that despite their expedience, none of these kind, compassionate folks EVER carry a wallet to pick. I just wanted to mention that.

Ho-ho-ho (get the pun?)!

If you have anything to add on your behalf that will aid them in their decision-making process, please feel free to advise me in a follow-up email, and I will see to it that you get prompt and expedient attention worthy of your request. Rudolph in particular has become quite adept at pin-point delivery of discharges on specific targets, and I am sensing that he has added you to his very tight little list of pin-point deliveries with his especially gnarly discharges.

In short, if you weren't full of it aforehand, you soon will be.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Incarceration!

St. S. Claus Kringle, pHd
Wishologist and Global Delivery Services, UnInc.

Whichever Mariam Abacha version this one is, she seems as awe-struck to hear from "the" Santa Claus, as her contemporaries have thus far.

Maybe she's just securing her chimney access; Rudolph might prove as accurate as he says.