In the wee small hours of the morning today, at exactly 1:01 AM Central Standard Time, I received a cryptic e-mail, a message that consisted of a single URL, one that proved to be a commercial Canadian site offering a variety of health and physical fitness products, a variety with a pronounced emphasis on pharmaceuticals such as Viagra, Cialis, Levitra and various painkillers and growth hormones.

The e-mail was from my granddaughter, a beautiful and intelligent young woman of some 26 tender years. She is a graduate of one of San Antonio’s community colleges and was recently graduated by the University of Texas at San Antonio. She is quite aware that I, her maternal grandfather, love a good joke and have been to spin off a few jokes of my own under acceptable conditions.

I considered the e-mail to have been delivered in jest, particularly given the fact that this particular grandfather has passed his seventy-eighth birthday, and however reluctantly, is hurtling toward number seventy-nine—that will put me just a scant twenty-one years away from the century mark. Armed with that knowledge and knowing my granddaughter’s penchant for good clean verbal fun, I replied to her e-mail in like vein.

This is my response to her e-mail:

Thanks for calling my attention to this web site. I have placed my order for multiple items in substantial amounts, including orders for almost everything on the home page.

I did not order the Female Pink product for obvious reasons, but also I figured that the dosage could possibly promote personal ambivalence in certain preferences, and I would really hate myself if I should learn that all those years in the past have been wasted—nope, no Female Pink for me.

I did not order the Soma, the muscle relaxant and pain blocker—my muscles are already too relaxed and I don’t hurt anywhere—much.

I did not order the Human Growth Hormone because I’m already unable to wear certain shirts and jeans—even my socks are too tight—and I do not want to grow bigger and return to wearing those wide-butted Dockers.

I also did not order any Ultram, another painkiller. However, I was sorely tempted because it was one of the least expensive items pictured.

I almost included Zyban to help me curb my smoking habit, then I remembered that I quit smoking in 1967.

I am so excited! I plan to camp out near the mailbox—I just hope that all those enhancements arrive soon, and I hope they are delivered in a plain brown wrapper. In fact, I plan to camp out immediately adjacent to the mailbox just in case a neighbor gets sticky fingers when the packages start arriving.

In the interests of full disclosure, I must tell you that I forwarded this response to the other addressees listed on your e-mail. I took the liberty of sending it to the other recipients in the belief that they would also want to order copious amounts of these products, especially after having been emboldened by my order.

Judging by their e-mail addresses, they appear to be reasonably female in gender and will probably make a run on the Female Pink product—but then again, perhaps not—one can never be sure.

Thanks for the e-mail—cheers, and happy new year!

Postscript: I learned later this morning that my granddaughter’s e-mail had been compromised by unknown persons, perhaps by someone with a financial interest in the Canadian on-line pharmacy. She did not send the e-mail. Bummer!

And one more postscript: One by one the addressees to whom the compromised e-mail was forwarded are being removed as non-deliverable.  Evidently there is something in the system  that provides for such compromises.

And as Martha Stewart would probably say, That’s a good thing!

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.