I hate spam. I hate it a lot. I have never purchased anything from spam. I will never purchase anything advertised in spam. Or from any company that spams for that matter.

While I hate spam viciously I’ve noticed something quite useful about it. Here’s the scenario:

Work late, perhaps until 3 AM. Wake up the next morning, perhaps at 8 AM. (I chose these these hours because the amount of useful e-mail I get between these hours isn’t very high.) Check my e-mail. No e-mail.

What?!?! No e-mail? How could this be? It’s completely plausible to have not received any useful e-mail in the few hours I was asleep, but where’s the spam?

There are only two explanations to why I don’t have e-mail:

1. Spam has been completely eliminated from the world in just 5 hours!!
2. My e-mail is experiencing difficulties that were probably caused by spam.

A quick call to the system admin or a quick test reveals that my assumptions are correct. No, spam was not eliminated from the world – my e-mail isn’t working.

Thanks, spam, for helping me discover a problem a little bit sooner than I otherwise would have. I still, however, hope you die a thousand deaths. No, make that 3 million deaths… after being tortured ruthlessly for at least 5 days straight.