You all know those absurd e-mail scams where the perpetrator contacts you and claims he’s from Nigeria or some other dilapidated African nation, wanting to execute some three-card-molly scheme involving sending fraudulent checks in exchange for a percentage, in order to escape cooked up international regulatory obstacles, or something like that.
Well, even powerful mystic empaths of my stature can be out-conjured, and I’d like to share an experience from your ol pal’s younger days. I was in my early 20s at the time, working a stiff office job that oppressed my natural desire to levitate outside the constraints of waking viscera. Right around that time I was looking to sell my worn-out sled for $2,500 on Autotrader.com, from whence I was contacted by a faceless cyber-creature claiming to be from England with a special offer for me.
Essentially, the guy proposed to send me a cashier’s check for $15,000, on the condition that I would send a G to some phantom third-party shipper in N.Y., who would then handle the rest of the transaction domestically. The reasoning involved the check being originally for a more expensive ride, but the deal fell through and the check was already made out. My British counterpart had already set up the contact with Mr. Nebula shipper man, and just needed a car ASAP. It went something like that.
In any case, Marty, under some type of level 4 confusion enchantment, told the guy to go ahead and send the check. A week later, sure as the return of Gozer the traveler, I received a $15,000 cashier’s check in the mail from a bank in Arizona. I checked out the bank’s website and immediately read about an alert for fake cashier’s checks from that branch.
Snapping slightly out of my involuntarily induced dementia, I called the bank and was told by what I imagined as a wizened old fat man that, under no circumstances, should I cash the check. They took down my information and had the fucking big guys themselves, the U.S. Secret Service, contact me. This is where it gets good.
Leonard Parizek of the Service calls me and instructs me how to proceed. I could only assume that preparations for a mini-sting had been set up. So, playing stupid, I e-mailed the limey badass back with some questions I had been told to offer. Within a few hours, I received the following e-mail response (which I recently found in an old print-out while I was doing some spring cleaning):
Dearest young Martin,
I sent this communiqué directly to you via The Curse Of The Wicked Soul. Cradling the powers of the Orunmila the Wizard Of Ingoni, I have unleashed an army of seventy-two spirits and demons. The Eiye Efe will gaze from above as the summons of the spirits appear before your eyes. My cosmic powers have grown from the fears of deception and will wreak havoc and spill the blood of the guilty. I have carved marks of evil into your conscience and your spiritual blindness will direct you to fall into the hands of the proper authorities. The curse will begin when I attach this written segment of your soul “hope you are Christian, in the name of the almighty God. Help me thanks.” For you have only made me wiser. Money is only paper, which I used to buy your soul. If you would like it returned unharmed, you must make amends for the deception you have brought upon yourself. If you do not, you will live for eternity in the fiery pits of hell and in fear of Bytor, Light of Darkness, Centurion Of Evil, Devil's Prince. The U.S. Secret Service and the FBI will be on this case if the funds are not sent back to me today. Did you think you would eat someone’s money?
Jim “The Wizard” Waskowiak
Owner Of Your SoulEver since, I've been visiting the guilds and grog joints through eons of parallel dimensional stasis, in desperate search for Waskowiak and his diabolical crew. I've only discovered his vapor trail. But I haven't forgotten.
Shakes,
The Magesterial Martin McFriend
