I signed up for a MySpace account a few years ago because everyone else seemed to be doing it. I've got to be honest though, given the existence of blogger.com, I don't see the point, unless you're afraid a stalker might be interested in photos of your drunk friends or a video of your sibling embarrassing herself at Oktoberfest. Everyone knows about MySpace at this point, teachers, coworkers, employers, stalkers...even dogs, cats and some species of hamsters. Run to whatever semi-anonymous social-networking site you want, "they" will find your profile eventually.

That said, this message hit my account the other day:

From: MySpace.com Contact
Date: Sep 20 2006 6:20 PMFlag spam/abuse [ ? ]
Subject: WARNING: Please set you age correctly

MySpace has special privacy and safety settings for users under the age of 18. We would like to remind you that you may not pretend to be older than 18 to get around these safety measures. We are providing you a two week amnesty period to accurately portray your age. Please take this time to update your profile and set it to your real age to avoid deletion. Thanks!

Now what's amusing about this is that my profile has me listed as being 99 years old and I included a shot of this hardworking street performer and friend to all members of the wild kingdom as my cover photo. Why did I do that? Probably because I'm an idiot with no knowledge of how to put together a proper MySpace page (unlike this guy, who obviously has the best one EVER). Nevertheless, as far as the monitors at MySpace should be concerned, I am that old or I'm a 60-something war vet that is lying about his age to get, maybe, on the Today Show's birthday rundown.

So since I'm the sort of person that loves to cause trouble when A:) there's little to nothing at stake and B:) someone is trying to enforce a petty regulation that causes me a minor inconvenience, I've decided to screw with them. Here's the message I'm prepared to send back to MySpace's minions:

To Whom It May Concern,

When my great-granddaughter Aspen encouraged me to get a "MySpace profile" to see photos of her gallivanting around with her nubile sorority sisters, I was skeptical. What was "MySpace" and how could anyone make use of such a thing? Now I don't know much about the World Wide Internet aside from the system of elaborate tubes it uses to get email from my concubine to my AOL 3.0 account. I am, as you might say, an "old timer."

Nevertheless, I humored the girl and quickly learned the pleasures of your wonderful, wonderful service. As the photos later proved, her friends are indeed nubile...and bendy and flexible in all sorts of incredible ways. The things they can do with ping pong balls, bananas and their own heads, my lord! Back in my day young women wouldn't go to a gathering in anything less than a full ball-gown and they'd spend the entire time waltzing. Waltzing! If ol' Gloria Hambernackle drank too much of the "wowy sauce," we might get lucky enough to see her ankles. Yes, I came of age during the roaring '20s but I ran with a stiff crowd. Not like kids these days! What a country! What a century! Hot damn!

Now I can understand the need to raise an eyebrow over the age I entered on my profile. I could very easily be a 16-and-a-half year old trying to pass myself off as a 17 year old and all that. Yes, I am lying about my age but involuntarily, I assure you. Honestly, good sirs, I am, or was, 99 years young when I signed up a few years ago. I am now 101, quite possibly the oldest member on MySpace but I don't believe your service accommodates people my age...in that regard.

If you like, I would be happy to pass along some photos of myself to prove my age, in a variety of tantalizing poses if you wish. Despite my birthdate (April 18th, 1906. God Almighty how the earth shaked on that fine morning!), I am surprisingly limber. Just ask my concubine! My bones are as brittle as peanut brittle and I can no longer properly digest anything beyond Metamucil and mashed potatoes but there are parts of me that still work as well as they did back when FDR was fighting the Nazis. Aw, Mr. Roosevelt, if only they had girls back then like they do nowadays. The average female undergrad could suck the polio right out of you. If they got to work at 4:45 you'd be back jitterbuggin' by 5 o'clock. Hot damn!

Sincerely yours,

[insert my name here]

PS: I was serious about those photos. Give me a "buzz" if you're interested, as the kids say these days.

PPS: Hot damn!

PPPS: I am the veteran of no less than three foreign wars. Don't screw with me. I'm still pretty good with a Howitzer.

Think they'll go for it? Maybe the FDR bit was too much?