Six degrees

I always seem to get those annoying emails.

The ones that should have been verified by someone, anyone, before being sent to the 1000+ people in that person's distribution list.

I get those emails from my parents.

Mostly my mom really, but sometimes my dad. (I think I sent my dad the link to snopes enough times that he stopped sending them to me.)

So the fun game that I play with these emails is to drill down to the original sender (usually at least three sender lists removed) and look at their original email list and see if I recognize any names.

I am not sure WHY I do this.

The list I am looking at does not include my mom's name. Hers does not usually appear for three or more forwards, three or four more email lists.

But for some reason I always scroll through that original listing to see if I know anyone. I usually don't. And in truth even when I recognize a name I can never be sure that it is actually the person I know...

I also follow the path to my mom.

I look to see who sent it to who, who then in turn sent it to my mom.

Somehow this makes these emails more bearable.

I don't always do it.

Usually I just erase these pesky emails.

But somehow the tracking of the email path has some fascination for me...

Not sure why.

The new age six degrees of separation...