Being a cubicle-dweller in a corporate environment has its share of hazards. Now, it appears I can add metaphysical bullying to the list.


Through the innovation of intra-office e-mail, (which allows annoying people to pester you from floors and even entire buildings away without leaving the comfort of their staling, climate-controlled workstations) I am inundated daily with forwarded jokes, chain letters, and even Power-Point presentations.


I bear these as gracefully as I can.


One thing I can no longer tolerate is that little message at the end of each one ordering me to "send this to X amount of people or you'll get Y amount of bad luck."
Even more absurd are the more specific claims that I'll receive a phone call with good news in a number of minutes vaguely related to the content of the message if I obey.


Now I consider myself open-minded. I've heard tales of items that are said to have mystical properties.


Some examples are King Arthur's Excalibur, the Necronomicon, the Spear of Destiny, and that Holy Grail all those British comedians were after.


Yet, in all my years of studying the occult, I've never come across anything proclaiming the awesome powers of the free Yahoo! mail account.


So whatever ancient, clandestine orders of priests, shamans, or druids that are trying to harness the mystic combination of jpeg animations and poor grammar need to stop sending me this nonsense. If they want to bring me harm I suggest they try something that actually works, such as cutting my brake lines. Or a voodoo doll.