If you receive an Email with the subject line "Badtimes" delete it IMMEDIATELY, WITHOUT READING IT!  This is the most dangerous E-mail virus yet.

Not only will it completely rewrite your hard drive, but it will scramble any disks that are even close to your computer (20' range at 72 degrees Fahrenheit).

It also demagnetizes the stripes on ALL of your credit cards.

It reprograms your ATM access code, screws up the tracking on your VCR and uses subspace field harmonics to scratch any CD's you try to play.

It will recalibrate your refrigerator's coolness settings so all your ice cream melts and your milk curdles.

It will give your ex-boy/girlfriend your new phone number.

It will program your phone auto-dial to call only your mother-in-law's number.

This virus will mix antifreeze into your fish tank. It will drink all your beer.

It will leave dirty socks on the coffee table when you are expecting company.

It will hide your classic-car keys when you are late for work and interfere with your car radio reception so that you hear only 1940's hits and static while stuck in traffic.

It's radioactive emissions will cause your toe jam and bellybutton fuzz (be honest, you have some) to migrate to behind your ears.

It will give you dingleberries.

It will replace your shampoo with Nair and your Nair with Rogaine, all while dating your current boy/girlfriend behind your back and billing their hotel rendezvous to your Visa card.

It will seduce your grandmother.

It does not matter if she is dead, such is the power of "Badtimes," it reaches out beyond the grave to sully those things we hold most dear.

It will cause you to run with scissors and throw things in a way that is only fun until someone loses an eye.

It will give you Dutch Elm Disease and Tinea.

It will rewrite your back-up files, changing all your active verbs to passive tense and incorporating undetectable misspellings which grossly change the interpretation of key sentences.

If the "Badtimes" message is opened in a Windows95 environment, it will leave the toilet seat up and leave your hairdryer plugged in dangerously close to a full bathtub.

If you are a State University student and you have opened "Badtimes" in Windows95, it will cause your Groupwise account to function properly.

It will not only remove the forbidden tags from your mattresses and pillows, but it will also refill your skim milk with whole milk.

It has also been known to disregard "Open This End" labels and can often make you "Push" a door that says "Pull" and vice versa.

It will ensure that you will always run out of toilet paper only while you are "dropping the kids off at the pool."

It will change your party affiliation on all voter registration lists to the one you abhor most.

It will have an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of word processors create your secret journal - and some of the things would of course be true, then publish in your daily newspaper.

It will replace all your luncheon meat with Spam. Whenever an attractive member of the opposite sex comes within a five yard radius of you, it will transmit high frequency photons, forcing you to start cuttin' muffins.

It will  molecularly rearrange your cologne or perfume, causing it to
smell like dill pickles.

It is insidious and subtle.

It is dangerous and terrifying to behold.

It is also a rather interesting shade of mauve.

These are just a few signs of infection. Be afraid, be very afraid.

  Nick Boice