 Satan and Beelzebub were having a glass of hot tea and discussing business.
“Bub,” Satan asked (he thought it was funny to call his minion Bub; Beelzebub didn’t like it one bit, but what’s a demon to do?), “how are we doing on winning souls over to our dark purposes?”
Bub laid an Excel spreadsheet (made with pirated software) in front of Satan.
Satan looked at the numbers and graphs for a moment. “Look, Bub, you know I can’t read this stuff. That’s why I have minions. Just tell me what it means.”
Bub smiled. He never tired of showing up his evil master. “It means we’re doing better than ever. We’ve got souls coming out our ears. It’s almost like we’re having a blue light special on souls.”
Satan was suddenly interested. He just loved getting souls.
“How are we doing it?” he asked.
“The Internet,” Bub said.
“What, porn, online gambling, Internet stalking, that sort of thing?” asked Satan.
“Well, sure, all of that, but we’re really reeling them in with good, old-fashioned e-mail,” said Bub.
“E-mail? What’s so special about that?” asked Satan, wishing more than ever he could read the damned spreadsheets. Then again, everything is damned in hell, he thought, and had to suppress a laugh.
“Do you remember all the fun we used to have with chain letters, making people believe miracles happened through forwarded mail?” asked Bub.
“Oh, sure,” said Satan. “Man, those were the days. Hard to believe there were that many gullible people who would risk their souls by believing miracles come from the postal service. Of course, the Big Guy told me himself one time that just getting mail delivered required his frequent intervention.”
“Well, we’ve updated the chain mail scam,” said Bub, taking a sip of his tea and wishing for the umpteenth time that there were ice cubes in hell. About as likely as an Arkansas bowl bid.
“We get some idiot to start an e-mail. Sometimes we will get him to put in a sweet poem, or just something simple like. ‘If you love Jesus, send this to all your friends in 10 minutes and you’ll get a miracle.’”
“And people don’t question that?” asked Satan. “They don’t sit down and think, ‘Now who started this and by what authority does he make these claims?’”
“Oh, sure, it happens, but almost never. People send these on like you wouldn’t believe,” said Bub, warming to his topic, or was it just the nonexistent climate control?
“Once we get them to believing in the power of e-mail over the power of God, we’ve got them — and the thing is, they think they are serving His purpose by sending this stuff on,” said Bub.
“If I wasn’t so appalled by perfection, I’d say that scam is nearly perfect,” said Satan, whose mind began to wander. He had been trying to find his “101 Dalmations” video before Bub arrived. He really liked Cruella DeVil and had been considering for years changing the way his nickname was pronounced as a tribute to her.
“I guess this meeting is over,” said Satan. “Keep up the bad work, Bub,” he said.
After Bub left, he gave up on finding the video. He hated the ending, anyway. Poor Cruella! He turned to his computer. He had been corresponding with some woman in Africa who was going to pay him lots of money to help get an abandoned fortune out of the country. All she needed was his bank account number.
“I just love the Internet,” he said as he began entering his account number. “666 ... .”
Robert Shearon is news editor of the Courier. His column appears periodically.
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