As a Mac user, I’m generally not afraid of anything that comes attached to my email. The stereotypical “.exe” files that some Windows users unwittingly double click to open a Pandora’s Box of Nastiness on their PCs just don’t affect Macs.

There is one form of email attachment that I am really afraid of, however. Being the weekend before Halloween, what better time to tell you about these scary morsels of mayhem. Even though the temptation will be great to send me one of these because you now know my weakness in this area, please don’t. I won’t open it. I’ll be paying my executive assistant to open and view all attachments until further notice.

I remember that day all too well. It was a dark and stormy night. I received an attachment in the form of a PowerPoint presentation. It was one of those .pps self-playing PowerPoint shows that starts right up without giving you the opportunity to view the individual slides first. That should’ve been my first clue.

The show contained supposedly un-retouched photos of ghosts and other eerie apparitions, accompanied by written descriptions below the photos. For example, a family has its photo taken in the parlor of their home. In the mirror on the wall behind the family, the visage of a dead family member is clearly visible. You get the idea. I’m getting goose bumps just describing it to you.

The final photo was of a tree, barren of any leaves, against a gray winter sky. The text narrative said something like “If you stare for a few seconds at the branches on the tree, you’ll begin to see the shape of a…”

AAARRRGGGHHH! A hideous grinning face appeared on the screen, accompanied by a very loud, blood-curdling scream, the only sound in the entire presentation.

My daughter called them “screamers”. I vowed to be ever vigilant. Of course, a few weeks later, I idiotically watched a video attachment of what was supposed to be a European car commercial of an attractive sedan winding it’s way through the Alps on a beautiful spring day. You could almost see Julie Andrews pirouetting on a hillside in the background.

The description at the beginning of the video said to be sure to look for some new feature on the side of the car. Sure enough, as the car approached…

AAARRRGGGHHH! Guess I’ll never learn. Have a fun and safe Halloween. BOO!

© 2006 Peter F. Zimowski