Letter from Scammer
Hi:)
Finally I was able to write you a message. Not so long ago I was on the internet dating site I saw your email address. I had not previously acquainted when the internet and therefore not immediately decided to write you a message. But today, my day is fine, I have a very good mood and I decided to start a new acquaintance.
That is why I am writing to you my humble post in the hope that you will see it and answer me.
I will be glad to meet you. I can not tell you much about yourself. My name is Kseniya. I am 30 years old.
I'm sociable, interesting girl. In real life, I have not been able to meet the beloved man, and so I'm hoping that maybe on the internet I met a good, interesting man for serious relationship.
I can tell you more things about me and my life in future letters. I hope that my letter to you and you are interested in answer me! I send you my photo. I hope that they will love you!
I'll wait on you and your news photos.
Kseniya!
My Response
Dearest Kenya,
I held on to your letter some many days because I was waiting for my good man Jeeves, who is my butler of much report, to dig forth a typing device worthy of a Howell's fingers.
I was once a wealthy man. I had owned most everything a man could own until one fateful day I decided to, as they say, "slum it" with my wife, Lovey, may the heavens rest her soul.
We had awoken every day to the sound of butterflies and golden chimes. Real golden chimes, too, I must say. Our estate spanned the size of a small town and we employed on our grounds alone more people than a modern day Walmart. Ah, yes, Thurston was a happy boy those days.
One of our delicious mornings came and we decided to see how the other half lived. We enlisted our limousine to drive us to the waterfront. Once there we walked upon our own fifty-foot yacht and had the captain ferry us forthwith to the dicey docks that sat on the southeast side. It seems that dicey things are always on the southeast side, doesn't it? Are you a northwest or a southeast gal, Kenpo?
Once there we searched and searched for suitable charter so that we could experience a mock poverty, if only for a few days. We found many an option, my dear girl, but one stood out above the rest.
The Skipper, as he called himself, welcomed us aboard after we funneled a paltry $50 into his hands. Can you imagine purchasing anything for a mere $50? He introduced us to his first-mate, a fellow he called Gilligan. Now that's a name that seemed a bit off to even Lovey, and she was the tolerable sort. Others soon joined the expedition. Let's see now, as I recall, there was a movie star named Ginger, a professor who I believe was a Hinkley but my mind slips these days, and a country girl named Mary Ann that gave old Thurston something to be up and about for on a daily basis. Before we left, we had the captain of our yacht take a quick photo of the group.
About half-way into our nefarious jaunt, a storm arose and tossed the boat around. My yacht would have laughed at such a mild shower, but this little boat couldn't contain and so we were sent below with the other passengers whilst the Skipper and Gilligan tried to salvage the craft.
The next morning we learned that we had been marooned on an island with no way to communicate with the outside world. I was completely cut off from my businesses and my estates.
Well, I could go on and on about the plethora of adventures that ensued on that little island, even to the point of telling you about one day when mosquitoes had left us a note, but you wouldn't believe the half of it. Even I once made the comment that if there had been a way to document our lives on that miserable little island--an island that somehow managed to contain minor civilizations and countless other interesting tidbits, even though it wasn't quite a mile in circumference--I would walk off of a moving plane instead of watching it.
The long and short of it is that we were finally rescued. Unfortunately, it had been nearly five years and my business were all under new management by then. My fortune was relegated to less than twenty-million dollars. I was, for the most part, poverty-stricken.
Then Lovey passed away and it has been me and Jeeves in a tiny twenty-room cottage in the middle of Idaho. I won't go anywhere near the water these days. It's a struggle to even allow Jeeves to wash between my buttocks with a sponge after a fresh change of diaper.
After hearing of an old fellow's woes and trials, my dear girl, could you still see within yourself to be with a man of my stature? A man who is easily five-times your age, has only a thirty-thousand square-foot home, possibly six to seven years of life remaining, and just over eighteen-million in inheritance to offer?
Do let me know as Jeeves will need to make up the spare bedroom if you are to avail yourself of it.
Thurston Howell, III