To which I smugly reply:

It just goes round and round with no end in sight. I have taken my Mustang there so I assume that they are legitimate, but when Calvin doesn't have the decency to legitimately respond to me regarding my beloved Mustang, I lose all respect for the emailer, spammer or not.

When the notorious askers for money at UCLA come up to me, I typically draw the slick "I'm on my cell phone gesture can't talk right now" or something similar, but when there's no time for such an action, I start talking to them. Sometimes they're amiable and we have a fun conversation for a couple minutes until I shut down their so-called cause before class...or they become hostile.

"Hey son can I have a minute of your time?"
"Uhh...I'm actually going to class right now."
"It won't take long...do you care about homeless people?"
"Look, you can't ask me a question like that and expect me to say no. That's entrapment."
"Do you have a couple dollars to spare for our cause?"
"And where would my dollars go for this cause?"
"Well, here's a flier that can tell you about our organization..."
"I really have to go to class now, I'm sorry."
"If you don't wanna give me nothin just say so...you don't hafta lie."
"I'm not lying! Watch, I'm walking into class....Look!"
"Shiit."
"I'm walking into the building now! Look!"

You might wonder where my newly found sass comes from and why I antagonize these people. The old me would have pity on them for having to run around asking selfish college students for money. The new me would rather engage them in conversation to see how long they go before they get frustrated and leave me alone.

This approach seems to work in person, except for the Jesus freaks...they just won't let up. They whip out the Bible and everything. I even tried saying I'm Jewish once. That did not work. It's on the phone that the approach hasn't worked out for me. I always imagine fun exchanges like on Seinfeld:

"Hello?"
"Hi! Have you considered changing your long-distance plan?"
"Yes I have actually but I'm about to sit down to dinner...why don't you give me your home number and I'll call you back?"
"Ummm I don't think we're supposed to do that.."
"Why, because you don't want people calling you at home bothering you?"
"Umm I suppose..."
"Well now you know how I feel."
*Click*

No, it doesn't happen that way. When the kindly people at the UCLA Alumni Association called me at 8pm, when I was leaving a late meeting on campus, half-asleep and dazed, and they ask me to give them money for some convoluted reason involving a so-called class gift, I'm too caught off guard to blow them off. So I humor them and have them explain what wonderful things will happen to me if I give them $250. All my dreams will come true, the chancellor will come to my house, the vice chancellor will give me his wife, I get a job automatically apparently...it sounds great, Phil. Oh, it's no obligation? Ok fine send it to me. So I pledged $250 so I could hang up the damn phone and drive home. It's no obligation, after all.

Two months later, I open the Daily Bruin to the page listing all the donators to the Class Gift. I skim through it just to see if I knew any of the suckers who donated money....under "Chancellor's Circle," the highest donator level possible, I see the 6th or 7th name down: Pasha Bahsoun. I SO did not give $250 or more to these jackasses. They already extorted enough money out of me. I laugh and throw the paper out. A couple weeks later, the phone calls start. "Our fiscal year is ending and we haven't received your pledge yet." Whatever man, you said no obligation. I feel like I'm being hounded by the mob. What're they gonna do, rescind my diploma? They can't do that....

...can they?

Naw....so I'll keep screening their spammy phonecalls until they finally give up and my pledge is thrown out. My dreams won't come true as expected, but it's ok...they weren't going to anyway.

Spam comes at us at all ends of the spectrum, and it's up to us to figure out how to sort it out into our Junk folder. From Russian mail-order brides to poor children in Bosnia to the Alumni Association, we're surrounded by bullshit. You just have to become cynical enough to outsmart them...but not too cynical...otherwise you'll end up published in a college newspaper with a bill for $250 and a lonely vice chancellor's wife.