Friday, September 3, 2010

An Amusing Note in My Spam Box

Do you remember the post, “What?! Be Prepared? You Were Serious?” Neither did I. I wrote it last February. In that post I shared the story of the Boss and Captain Chaos at a Boy Scout Merit Badge College. The Captain had hurt her finger. She cut it badly. When the Boss looked at a room with over 100 Boy Scouts and adult leaders and asked if any of them knew first aide, she was met with silence until one brave soul replied, “Um, no.” It was the post where I surprised both my wife and myself after I penned the acronym “S.O.H.K.S. (Sudden Onset Helen Keller Syndrome),” and received absolutely no comments complaining about my insensitivity. The event changed the way I think about the motto “Be Prepared.” I now carry my emergency kit with me everywhere. I’m constantly amazed at how often I fix a scraped knee. I’m thinking it’s bad ju-ju to carry it around. I attract injured people.

Anyway.

That post was brought to my attention early this morning when I discovered a comment awaiting moderation. It was a comment from “bemcohydraulicss.” It read, “BEMCO Hydraulics, originally an Engineering Craftsman's shop in the late thirties has risen to be a premier producer of HYDRAULIC PRESS and Portable re-railing equipments. It is located in Belgaum, Karnataka, and a southwestern state in India.for more details visit…” The comment ended with an email address.

I have to laugh.

I laugh at the misuse of the English language. "Portable re-railing equipments?”

I laugh because if you take a look at my bio you will learn that I am a stay-at-home, homeschooling, father of General Mayhem, Major Havoc, and Captain Chaos. I am happily married to The Boss. We live in Apathy, Kansas, with The Big Fuzzy Dog, several chickens, a few fish, and Reggie the Rent-a-Dog. What exactly in that description underneath the title Boarding in Bedlam indicates a need for a hydraulic press?

I laugh wondering what in a blog about a little girl cutting her finger in a room full of Boy Scouts screams the need for portable re-railing equipments?

If this comment was sent to my blog through an automated system, what are the search terms that were used to trigger a hit on my blog?

The bright spot to all of this is that I re-read an amusing post and discovered a typo that I was able to correct. Nobody seemed to notice. I guess if our economic fortunes ever change it’s nice to know that I could go write for Bemcohydraulicss.

6 comments:

GingerB said...

I enjoy this the way I enjoy seeing what Google ads run by me in my gmail sidebar, when the language bots are obviously unable to detect an actual opportunity for an appropriate ad. It does make me wonder when the hand carved walking stick ad keeps popping up. What am I writing that warrants a hand carved cane being offered to me? A bot by any other name would still just be a bot.

Kathleen said...

While you did point out that you live in Apathy, KS, I think it's also worth reiterating that you do NOT live anywhere near Belgaum, Karnataka, and a southwestern state in India!

Daniel "Captain" Kirk said...

When I saw this title, I thought you were going to write again about considering a manboobjob or something similar. I get spammers trying to post to my blog from time to time. Nothing this wildly off-topic, though, and usually a day or two after I post, not months later. For example, when I posted about "How to make a real crappy web page," I got a comment with a link to a site about learning HTML.

One blog I used to read, "Because I Said So," would post a list once a week or so for the Google searches people used that led them to her site. I'm not sure how she looked those up, but the results ranged from the amusing to the bizarre.

Michelle said...

I second papa bear. I thought I was looking at another male boob enhancement! I agree that I'm not quite sure how they correspond a little girls cut to a hydraulic press.

Kid said...

Conservatives don't point out typos. Only liberals, in a state of panic disagreement, frantically searching for a way to object to a conservative or non-liberal idea, happily locates a spelling error to rag on about.

Kid said...

PS, it's a weel known fact that people in Kansas often use hydraulic presses.