VIRUS WARNING!! VIRUS WARNING!! VIRUS WARNING!!

A virus has mysteriously been built into every personal computer that has ever been made, bypassing security software and causing computer owners to curl up into a protective fetal ball. Unlike other viruses, this goes beyond the mainframe of the computer itself and attacks the user.

As a result, opening an e-mail will have the following effects:

^ You will want to open all your other e-mails, and send out unnecessary e-mails so you will get more e-mails back.

^ If you don't have other e-mails, you will join e-mail news groups, so that you will always get more e-mails, even when no one has written to you personally.

^ Instead of writing, say, a novel, you will send novel-length e-mails to your newsgroup, because unlike social situations in which people are physically present, the Internet offers no subtle indications that you are a boring little man who has already said quite enough.

^ You will find yourself sitting up at 3 a.m. trying to find the e-mail address for some girl you had a crush on in high school, since it is now so simple in your current condition -- typing anonymously into your computer and squinting out of a fall-down-drunken blur -- to say everything that is in your heart.

^ You will find yourself at 5 a.m. on eBay bidding on ``Vintage German Baby Table with Mini Clothes.''

^ Life will slip away.

This virus is also designed to wipe out a computer user's brain, so that valuable information is replaced by massive amounts of false and useless data, which the user is then compelled to forward to everyone in his address book. Such information can include but is not limited to the following:

^ Pointless, obscure golf jokes.

^ Things that were supposedly written by Kurt Vonnegut, but actually were not.

^ Chain letters that offer loving advice by the Dalai lama, then threaten you with a horrible lingering death if you do not forward the letter.

^ Radical diet plans that would probably destroy your kidneys.

Any married people who catch this virus will, over time, become single. Any single people who catch this virus will eventually join an Internet dating service, where they will spread this virus further. In the dating service, the virus also affects the user's spatial perceptions, as the Internet dater proceeds to describe himself or herself as ever-so-slightly taller than he or she really is, and considerably more active -- while the expressions ``a few extra pounds,'' ``ruggedly handsome,'' and ``sassy'' lose virtually all meaning.

In this and other sites, the user will also lose all perception of time, when, after he has visited, for example, Mr. Showbiz (www.mrshowbiz.go.com, where visitors to the ``Plastic Surgery Lab'' can combine pieces from various celebrities' faces; and readers of the ``water cooler poll'' can vote on who is ``The funniest man in fat make-up,'' a contest in which Martin Lawrence is currently running dead last), he looks up and realizes that two years have gone by and his goldfish are dead.

Side effects from this virus include:

^ Your very own vintage German Baby Table with mini clothes.

^ A restraining order from some girl you had a crush on in high school.

^ A sneaking suspicion that, when he said, ``The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race,'' the Unabomber may have been onto something.

IF YOU HAVE THIS VIRUS, TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER IMMEDIATELY AND TRY TALKING TO SOMEONE IN PERSON. IF YOU CAN'T FIND ANYBODY IN PERSON, AT LEAST CALL YOUR MOTHER. SHE'S BEEN TRYING TO PHONE FOR THREE DAYS WHILE YOUR MODEM HAS BEEN ON.