Early one morning, sipping a cup of coffee, I started my first task of the day. I sat down at my computer, took steady aim with the mouse, and began a series of rapid-fire shots: delete, delete, delete, delete, delete...
'Are you the one we've been looking for?' The words suddenly popped up in my junk mail, jolting me from my drowsy state. 'Feeling overweight lately?' How did they know? The night before, I had decided to indulge at dinner, and was still feeling the effects.
The messages continued. 'Diets that work.' 'Shed those pounds fast.' 'Do you have a weight-control problem?' Fighting obesity seemed to be a recurring theme in my junk e-mail. At first I found the junk-mail adverts merely irritating; at worst, it was slightly alarming to see my name in the subject line.
Then I began to feel a personal threat: Was someone out to 'delete' me? While trying to send out an e-mail, I was blocked by a security page. It asked me to read eight letters of the alphabet - they were partly screened, and difficult to read - and type them into a rectangular box. The internet site had doubted my identity! It was checking to see that I wasn't a little electronic spam bug, sending junk mail into the cyber world.
I carefully typed out the letters I saw in the graphic, but a sudden fear gripped me. What if I misread the letters? Then they really would think I was a bug and squash me right away, never allowing me to send e-mails again.
In today's e-world, where we converse through MSN, commute with our iPods and consume through eBay, the demarcations are strikingly clear. You're either in or you're out - and there are continual tests to pass, making you feel you're always on the brink. 'They' test for our true identities: technologically adept web surfer or pesky bug that should be exterminated?