we're all grown up now

We received our first comment spam on the blog today. We're still feeling a little breathless and shaky, even now that the first exhilirating rush is over. We hardly feel violated at all. In fact, it feels like we've passed a developmental milestone, or somehow been initiated into real bloggerhood.

Let me tell you about our first spam.

It was so. . . sweet. Sweet and gentle. It came out of the blue. Our first spam was delivered in lowercase, in a soft, faintly-exotic Eastern European accent---it's hard to tell when it's barely even a whisper. Like the lost stoned hippie chick who wanders in from the rain and ends up in a pool of light on your couch, it started with a meandering apology. It said it had lost its way, stumbled onto our blog, didn't see what it was looking for, but wondered if we wanted to make some money? Hell yeah, we say. Sure we want to make money. Then suddenly she sprouts stainless steel talons that knock over the lamp, plunge into the couch (though in a panic, we still notice that the couch is covered in cat fur. . . oh, it is exactly these prosaic small things that keep us grounded and protect us from real harm) and grind right through the floor, and she instantly grows other tentacles and whipping appendages and spikes and plates like a technohorror chia pet. Humming alien ductwork runs everywhere. Someone somewhere has fired up a stage fog machine, dramatically blanketing the room in a knee-high layer of white dry ice smoke. Her metallic spiderbot body hovers, spinning. Her red eyes glare. We wait, unable to move or even blink, limp with. . what? desire? terror? Finally, sounding uncannily like Stephen Hawking, she commands us to visit a website. Do we want to make money? Yes! Yes! We move to comply. We point our browser. But suddenly we remember the small things that matter, precious necessities like pesky cat fur on the couch and ice cream and calls to pick up siblings at the airport, and we come back to our senses. Begone, beautiful dark lady of the spam world! And take your robot spiders with you! We'll put in our iPod earbuds and crank up ABBA Gold tunes to drown out your siren song of wealth and fame and splendid penis enlargement! Go away!

It was that close. But now we're older and wiser and we know better.