Dear Null Null…

Published in Nov. 19, 2010 edition of The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend

“Dear Null Null,” begins an endearing and personalized letter to me. Perhaps I exaggerate when I say “letter.” It’s just an email, since no one spent time or money on a postage stamp.

I know the Bible says that we should humble ourselves, because that is far more pleasant than when others have to do it for us. But being called NULL NULL really hits below the belt. That’s several shades worse than being zero. Zero is at least a number that can be represented, whereas NULL indicates a void – a field in someone’s computer program that hasn’t been given the breath of life of one’s or zero’s or any combination thereof. It hasn’t even been filled – you are empty and nothingness. You are not even zero. Hello, NULL.

Repeating NULL, on the surface, could be viewed as the placeholder for your last name. But the people who sent me this email must know I come from a Hindi-speaking household. In Hindi, to emphasize or express something in its superlative form, you just double the adjective. For example, “garam” means hot, as in temperature – not pungency as in food or in the slang form used by so many tweens to describe the vampire person in Twilight. So, if I want to describe a steaming appetizer, I would say “garam garam samosa.” Or a wonderfully hot cup of tea would be “ek cup garam garam chai,” where “ek” means one, and “cup” said with a non-aspirated, Hindi accented, “k” sound (no puff of air following it) means cup, and of course, chai means “tea.” Please don’t say “chai tea” because you are American, and saying “tea tea” makes no sense.

Being NULL NULL makes me doubly nothing, super-void. This makes me ponder black holes and the like, and since I am not a qualified physicist, I stop that sort of thinking immediately, before I get sucked into something too deep for me to comprehend. I am still trying to understand the complicated system of grocery store coupons.

And I am trying to understand why I keep getting weird communications by email, like the one from the friend of a long-lost relative. I don’t tend to be a terribly suspicious person. This email says it’s from a “Friend of your Late Uncle George” who recently died in some foreign land, and, unbeknownst to everyone else, this Late Uncle George, whom you didn’t even know you had, had a stash of millions of dollars, and this friend will be happy to share half of that with you, because that’s just the sort of person he is.


There’s just one minor complication, however. This was all done in secret, although no one is implying that Uncle George was in any way a criminal. He was the trustee of something, but now power in that country has changed hands (which might imply that money had also changed hands), but the Evil People in charge would now be unwilling to share the funds that Uncle George had so skillfully and shadily acquired. Could you please just wire about $10,000 to this old friend of your unknown uncle, so he can tap into the millions for the both of you? Thank you. He will be in touch as soon as you send all your bank information. Promise. By the way, don’t mention this to anyone, because then the whole deal would be over, and the Evil People would squander the funds by distributing it to the poor. Also, everyone else may have gotten this same email.


Here’s another suspicious thing lately: we’ve received five phone calls from our Ohio bank, “just checking to see if we are happy with everything.” What, are they going to offer me some kind of counseling if I’m not? The first time, as soon as I said everything was fine, they were ready to disconnect. That made me really suspicious. Not so fast. So I asked a few questions about their new features, such as deposits online, just to make sure the person calling me really had some connection to the bank.


Last night, when I got the fifth call checking on my Happiness Factor, I did not bother to hide the irritation in my voice. “Look, I was happy with your service before you started calling me every evening. While this might be a courtesy call, the depth of your courtesy is beginning to grate on my nerves. If you want me to be happy, you need to remove me from the list.”


According to Jim on the other end of the line, that has now been done, which is a good, good thing. After all, there is only so much attention that NULL NULL can handle.