Contrary to popular belief, I don’t make a living writing. This is because as most writers and bloggers will tell you, living off writing alone almost invariably results in a very poor and meagre life.
So, to make ends meet, and sometimes comfortably overlap, I also market commercial products to unsuspecting audiences, (imagine a smiley face right about now.)
This means that despite the mental bile that’s about to follow hereunder, let it be known from the start that I’m no stranger to spam - I get it, I use it, I know how to get away with it, I’m fully aware that it bugs some people to the point of despair, but personally, I can very easily live with it.
Up to this week in fact, I thought that I’d never be one to report a spammer to the Data Protection Gods, but when my own Government, ( formed by the party I’ve voted for all of my life), denies me the right to have children and robs me of my natural right to what it calls a family, then finds the gall of writing to me making reference to MY children and MY family, well, let’s just say, I pop an artery and get ready to stage a nutty.
The ‘Partit Nazzjonalista’ sent me two emails, in just as many days - the first one was entitled ‘A chance for YOUR CHILDREN to quiz the Prime Minister’ and the second, which was entitled ‘See you at the Granaries!’ went on to tell me that it’s time for the Nationalist Party to ‘reaffirm their commitment to me and my FAMILY.”
How rich, coming from a Government that came up with a shameful Cohabitation Bill that places my kind of relationship in the second class bin of sorry substitutes for marriage and family.
How rich, coming from a Government that has done absolutely nothing in the face of blatant and illegal discrimination against single people who want to adopt children from Ethiopia.
How rich, coming from a Government that reserves IVF treatment only for heterosexual couples, because according to its clairvoyant visions (and not scientific research) this is the best kind of upbringing for children.
How rich, for a Governing party to try to lure me into what is essentially a partisan activity by referring to the children and the family that the same party has denied me from having.
I don’t know about you, but although I laugh my head off when I’m spammed with offers for Viagra, having to tolerate such insensitivity from my own Government, (triggered entirely because I won’t sleep with Tom, Dick nor Harry), really grinds my gears.