Strolling the streets of Spamville in the dark before dawn

I took a stroll down Main Street in Spamville early this morning. I was lucky enough to make it back home, but I’m still trying to regain my balance.

It started innocently enough when I went to the library yesterday and learned that my library card had expired. I didn’t know those things had a freshness date on them but apparently mine had curdled, so the nice lady at the checkout-desk computer brought me back up to date. She even let me take four books home with me as proof that my card was fresh, crisp, and green once again.

And all the way home, Spamville was on my mind.

For the record, I never visit Spamville when I log in to my email account. I know you’re supposed to do that once in a while just to make sure that somebody important to you didn’t make a wrong turn and get stranded in that seedy part of e-town. But I figure that everybody important to me knows how to find me, so it’s every moron for himself, if he gets spammed on the way to my crib.

But I remembered that the last time I visited my library’s website, they encouraged me to put their address into my contacts list just so they wouldn’t be spammed by mistake.

That was a long time ago, and my friendly neighborhood library has sat comfortably in my e-contacts since then. But would that change with the withering of an old card and the germination of a new one? Would that nice lady at the checkout desk try to contact me some day as my book’s due date loomed near, and would she end up lost and forlorn in some skeezy spammy slum on my computer?

It weighed on my mind all night. It doesn’t take much to render me sleepless, and so this morning sometime before dawn, I got out of bed, fired up the computer, and took a stroll down the seedy streets of Spamville, just to make sure that the library lady wasn’t wandering there.

As soon as my feet hit the alien pavement, my stomach lurched and my head spun. Every Spamville storefront blazed to welcome me in, but the lights were harsh and jarring, as if they were too eager to have me open a door that might not let me leave once I entered. It was a strange, unsettling feeling, like waking up in a motel bed in some unknown city where “Wheel of Fortune” comes on at seven o’clock instead of six and you ask yourself, “do people really live like this?”

Some Spamville shops were tempting, assuring me that I had indeed won that huge award in the U.K. Lottery that I didn’t remember entering. One window whispered that the deposed royal family of Ghana really did want me to inherit their riches.

Somewhere in the distance, a siren howled in the night. I walked on.

Other doors simply bore signs that screamed “Urgent!” and I couldn’t decide which proprietor needed me the most urgently — Mr. Rashid Kabir, Kundi Salif, or Sergio Ziaurriz.

In the shadows of a dark alleyway, a dog woofed and settled into a low, menacing growl. Somebody coughed. I walked on.

A woman’s scream echoed off the pavement, though I could not guess its source. Joy at losing all that weight promised by Garcinia Cambogia Slim? The excitement of learning a new language in only 10 days at the Pimsleur store? Or maybe something shocking was going on behind that blacked-out Male Enhancement window?

I walked on.

The “Secret Wife Affairs” shop promised to show me sexy pics of beautiful married women. But my wife is a beautiful married woman, and I don’t need a pic to see her lovely face every day.

I walked on.

Daniel Lau’s storefront offered to sell me the concealed hinges he manufactures. Spamville is that kind of a place, with doors to rooms so mysterious that even the hinges have secrets to hide.

It was time to go.

I turned the corner and found my way back to Inbox, where dawn broke on a landscape that was comfortably familiar once more. My buddy Bill was there and so was my pal Mike. Walgreens and Ace Hardware wanted to update me on the benefits I have earned from shopping with them. Even the electric bill hummed a warm welcome home.

I never found my nice library lady wandering the streets of Spamville, and I was glad of that. Of course, there is no guarantee that she might not end up there someday.

Still, she seems to be a sprightly, able lady, with the wealth of knowledge that comes from sitting at the checkout desk of a building bursting with books. I’m sure she’ll make her way back home, if she ever finds herself searching for me on the slippery, askew streets of Spamville.

I won’t be going back there anytime soon, but I think I’ll check in on her at the library a little more often. I owe her that much for her heroism of trying to save me from late charges.

• Author, musician and storyteller TR Kerth is a retired teacher who has lived in Sun City Huntley since 2003. Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com. Can’t wait for your next visit to Planet Kerth? Then get TR’s book, “Revenge of the Sardines,” available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online book distributors.

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