I think I like the Viagra spam better

I've mentioned this before, but my spam goes to quite unbelievable lengths to get me to open it.

I’m sure you too delete all of those emails promising you misspelled drugs, replica watches and di$count designer handbags. I know you have also trashed untold numbers of foreign lottery winning notifications and bogus eCards from “a friend.” You are like me--a savvy, sophisticated dweller of the Interweb who can smell a phishing scam a mile away and who knows darn well your family tree does not include a Nigerian royalty branch to whom you should send your bank account numbers.

I delete these things every day in my morning computer ritual which includes checking my favorite blogs over a cup of coffee and

But today my inbox was downright scary. And I don’t mean just the fake frightening headline spam like, “Paris Hilton Stars in Movie Life of Mother Teresa,” but a spam subject line that stopped me dead in my tracks.

From some made-up name, the subject read, “We have hijacked your baby, see the photo.”

Now my rational mind knew it was a hoax, but my heart sank to my stomach as I leapt up to check on the baby who was of course safe and sound sleeping in her crib. I didn’t open the link, because when I moused over the words, it showed a pretty suspicious .zip file that would surely send screaming flying monkeys from my computer screen as I spontaneously combusted at the keyboard, never to be blogged from again…

I joke now, but I was pretty spooked there for a minute. The thought that spammers could go from appeals to ego, greed, and sensationalism to preying on my greatest fear as a mother is the single most terrifying thing on the Internet.

Even scarier than Paris Hilton starring as Mother Teresa.