I can’t take any more cute emails. They are no longer cute. They are annoying. You know the ones. A friend sends one to a friend and so on down the line. Then, by the time you get it, there are hundreds of email addresses of friends of friends. You don’t know who they are. You look at some of the names, but you don’t recognize them. How can your friend (the one who sent the email to you) have so many friends you don’t recognize? Is he living a double life? Has he been holding out on you? You start to wonder why you’re not at the top of the list. The whole thing can be very ego-deflating. But I digress as usual.

Worse thing about these cute emails is that you can’t complain. Your friend sent you the email and you can’t say, “Look, Sheila, I like you as a friend, but if you continue sending me these ‘cute’ emails, I’m going to have to cut you off. No more New Years parties, no more double dates to the theater. Wine tasting at Carol and Steve’s is definitely out. And no more sex behind our spouses’ backs. I mean it.” Nope, you can’t say that. The cute emails just keep coming. It’s unnerving and may lead you to drink.

Last week, on a Friday at about 6pm, I walked into a local restaurant and saw a friend whom I will call Ronald. He was sitting at the bar and working on his third glass of wine. Here’s a slice of our conversation as I stopped to speak to him on the way to my table:

Me: Ronald, where’s Leslie?
Ronald: She’s in Detroit.
Me: So you’re drinking all alone at the bar?
Ronald: That’s right. I can’t take it any longer.
Me: What do you mean, Ronald?
Ronald: I got one too many cute emails. It contained a photograph of six baby duckies in a pond while a puppy sat at the edge of the water wagging its tail. I can’t take it any more. I can’t take the cute emails. Make them stop! For God’s sake, make them stop, man!

Very sad for Ronald and the thousands like him all over the world. I spoke to Oprah’s psychologist, Stanton Fleeghaffen, PhD, MD, PharmD, LAPD, who told me over the phone:

It’s a very serious problem we’re experiencing. It takes about six months, but then it hits you like a ton of bricks. The cute emails take their toll. We’ve seen people drink themselves to oblivion from it. One unfortunate fellow in Manhattan threw his computer out of a 20-storey building into a swimming pool filled with Japanese tourists taking snapshots of Jeremy Piven. The splash from the impact ruined three Nikons, a Canon and an expensive jogging suit. I cannot begin to tell you how far-reaching this problem has become. If I was the Pope, I would do something; put a cardinal on it or something. But for heaven’s sakes, we’re at a crisis crossroads. You’ll have to excuse me now, Oprah’s on the other phone and she wants to know if it’s okay to lie on Dr. Phil’s couch during a cocktail party in his home.

So it’s not just me. The medical community recognizes the problem too. I can’t take any more emails depicting animals snuggling. I don’t want to see any more photos of a hippo with a baby chimpanzee on its back eating a banana. I don’t want to have to look at a camel on roller skates or a bear in a speedo smoking a cigar (it reminds me too much of my father). Nor do I care to see a toddler with his genitalia in a bowl of cereal. Have you seen this one? Come on! Give me a break over here! Who wants to see this stuff?

These emails are cranked out faster than Republican jabs at Hillary Clinton. Somebody in Panama or Pakistan or maybe Lisbon, is sitting at his computer and putting these montages together. Then somebody gets the email and passes it along. What was once cute is now annoying. This is a shame for cuteness in general. And this is my point. What would happen if all the cute girls in the world became non-cute? What would this do to men’s fantasies? Or what if you started to look at puppies and say, “Yeah, so what? He’s fuzzy and naps with all four paws facing skyward. So what?”

See what I mean? We don’t want “cute” to lose its meaning. Somebody has to put a stop to these emails before the entire planet is turned on its ear. Before you forward an email, you have to be more selective. You have to say to yourself, “Would Alex really like this, or is he/she busy trying to make a living? Do I want to bother Alex? Is Alex fond of baby elephants and polar bears cuddling with an Eskimo child?” Consider Alex’s feelings; that’s all I’m saying.

Now that I think about it, keep forwarding the photos of the polar bears. They are going extinct. Maybe if people see them, they’ll begin to see the devastation of global warming and be moved to save the little creatures. Maybe they’ll think twice before taking a roadtrip in an SUV from Miami to Chesapeake Bay; maybe they’ll stop the drilling in Alaska or at least get their brother-in-law to stop eating beans. Okay, so I guess the point is to be selective on the cute stuff. Don’t just forward the forward that was forwarded to everybody and his sister. Think before you click that button. Hold onto your mouse.

This message was brought to you by the National Committee to Preserve Cute. Our poster depicts an image of a baby turtle poised on the head of a baby gorilla holding a daisy while a fuzzy little bunny nibbles on a carrot in the foreground. I would have included the photo with this article, but I am the first to practice what I preach. I hope you’ll do the same.

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