early Christmas in Quantico

First of all I want to say that I do not in any way condone the President's policy allowing spying on American citizens. However, I do feel very sorry for the official who has to read through all my e-mail, listen to all my phone conversations, maybe even observe my day-to-day activities, like some kind of overworked national security Christmas elf. Actually, these security guys may have it worse than the elves - they don't just have to tell who's naughty and nice, they have to apprehend them, send them to a secret detention facility somewhere, maybe even build a case against some of them....

I don't get a huge amount of e-mail, but it must make for some dull reading. Also there may be some things in there which, while not necessarily incriminating, might be just bizarre enough to warrant further investigation. So as my little Christmas present to my FBI friend, I have decided to go through my e-mail records and explain some of the suspicious stuff:

• "ANTI-SPAM BLOCKER VIRUS SPYWARE RENEW NOW!" - Ever since I bought a new computer last May, I have been getting these messages almost daily, which apparently concern some dire threat to my 'firewall.' As I don't know what that is, I have been disregarding these messages, and you should too. I am most assuredly not planning on contaminating the nation's processed meat supply.
  
• IMPORTANT REQUESTS FROM NIGERIAN TREASURY OFFICIALS - Usually I just ignore these, and let the $10 million fall into the hands of the Nigerian Evil Military Guerilla Brigade. Once in a while, though, I'll write back, promising my bank account info in the first paragraph, then the next 10 paragraphs will be chatty questions about Nigeria, stories about my friend who went to Haiti once etc., and I'll forget all about the bank account stuff.
• EXTENSIVE E-MAIL, PHONE, AND LIVE CONVERSATIONS ON HOW TO CHECK LARGE, UNWIELDY TRUNKS ON COMMERCIAL DOMESTIC FLIGHTS - This is a topic of great interest to all bass players, perhaps only slightly less interest than French vs. German bow or the eternal rosin quandary. None of these are of even remote interest to anyone else (except maybe tuba players).
  

• "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US" - I have no idea what this means, or how it got into my inbox. If it is some kind of secret code phrase, though, this little sleeper cell is still asleep.
  

So as you can see, Ms. or Mr. FBI Official, I'm really a very harmless person, and hopefully you can skip reading my e-mail from now on, and concentrate instead on the real threats, like my twin brother. Please just don't read this post.

Have a very happy holiday, and I hope not too many visions of scary terrorists go dancing through your head while you are all snug in your bed. BTW, I do know that the spying is being done by the NSA, not the FBI; I just thought Quantico would make for a punchier title than 'early Xmas in Ft. Meade, Maryland.'