A Dalmatian and four easy payments

Dear Sir,

(T)he sum of $10,000,000 (Ten Million US Dollars) has been approved to worthy beneficiaries which upon confirmation of the below listed, payment will be made promptly as desired. Do send immediately your full name, physical address including area codes, telephone number, age and occupation for confirmation ...

Wow, ten million dollars. I could get a big-screen TV and one of those expensive shrimp rings with cocktail sauce I always see in the supermarket deli. What the heck, I could even splurge on one of those universal television remotes that come with 147 buttons and an operator's manual printed in as many languages. Maybe when my soulmate and I go to a movie we could actually buy the theater's high-ticket popcorn, candy and drinks rather than sneak in our own cheap noshes stuffed into her purse and my shoes.

All I have to do is give this gentleman I've never heard of who sent the e-mail from a foreign country I've never visited my personal stats, then it's all mine. This person, who claims to be a doctor, said I should hurry up, though, because other people who want the money for themselves are claiming I have kicked the proverbial bucket and they'll gladly take the dough on my behalf.

My luck seems to be increasing. First I get the doctor's generous offer, then yesterday I got a call from someone who said I had won a thousand-dollar shopping spree from any one of several well-known department stores. All I had to do was give him similar personal information and he'd get the spree rolling.

I stammer excitedly to my wife about all of this good fortune, and she gives me one of her multi-purpose looks I have come to know intimately. It can mean: A. What have you done now? B. And I'm supposed to believe that? C. Please tell me you didn't fall for something that obvious. D. Forget the long explanation, just tell me how much. E. Can't I leave you alone for two minutes?

The answer this time is C. (Last time it was A with a sprinkling of E, although I had argued it was more B with a smattering of D. Once it was all of the above, and I slept alongside the cats until it blew over.)

"You know they're scams, right?" she asks with a tinge of superiority. Whenever I do or say something asinine that she and, apparently, everyone else in the civilized world knows is due to my gullibility she responds with an irritating superior tinge. It's this little inflection in her voice I've learned to tolerate through a series of calming breathing exercises and a lot of beer.

When I was eight years old, an older neighbor boy who knew I'd believe practically anything told me a tiger was running loose and he'd pay me a dollar to catch it. (I said I'd believe practically anything. To my credit, I mostly didn't believe when he said if you're lost and hungry and eat your own leg it will taste like chicken.) I nervously hunted that imaginary tiger for more than an hour before I started to feel suspicious. But at that moment I was surprised by the beast in the garden next door, or so I thought. It was actually a big, orange, striped tabby cat, but when you're eight and looking for a tiger you see a tiger, and I almost blew my lunch in fright across a bed of petunias.

My beloved knows this about me, knows being a sucker for these things is one of my weaknesses. "If it sounds too good to be true it usually is," she warns me repeatedly, but I can't help it. I want to believe that a foreign doctor who writes that articulately really wants to give me ten million dollars. And it's not as if I can't use the money. We're out of shampoo and orange juice, and the phone bill is due.

But I listen gravely to her admonishment (" ... and this is just like that commercial for the metal detector for three easy payments of $49.95, remember? It said you'd get rich unearthing ancient Roman coins and priceless gold jewelry buried at the beach, and what did you find? Two Canadian pennies and a broken zipper."), and I promise to consult her before I do anything she might consider rash, such as give out our personal information to a complete stranger.

Still, her whole attitude kind of irks me. It's not like I'll fall for anything. Take this infomercial I'm watching about a miracle stain remover not sold in stores that's so powerful it can wipe the spots off a Dalmatian. I don't know who would believe that, even though, hey, they're spraying it on a Dalmatian and the spots are coming right off. Of course, I understand it's a trick to get me to buy. A stain remover can't really do that.

On the other hand, it is only four easy payments.