• by George Simpson , Featured Contributor, September 7, 2005

Guess who I got an e-mail from? No, not the guy who says I won a big lottery prize in the UK (a welcome change from the millions I helped spirit out of Nigeria), not the guy who says he can get me hits of Viagra for 0.79 per, and not the guy who garbles his copy so badly that I can hardly find the link to porno pictures. No, think bigger. Think real estate, gambling, TV, bankruptcy, runway model girlfriends... think hairpiece. Yes, I got an e-mail from The Donald!

It made me feel pretty special. Imagine a busy mogul like that taking time out from berating over-eager, blindly egocentric, recent b-school grads to sit down and send ME an e-mail. I know it was from him because it had his famous squished-up signature on the bottom.

Although he didn't ask me how my vacation was or how business is going --he didn't even wish my oldest child good luck in his hockey tryouts for the high school team--he did ask me to meet him "personally at a once-in-a-lifetime event." I had already bought a train ticket and made a hotel reservation in New York when I read further and found out Don's (I can call him that, since we are pals now) idea of personal was online.

Oh well. Maybe that's a New York thing, like not really kissing your cheek when someone pretends to. Don went on to offer to teach me how to get rich, assuring me that "It will be the live educational event of the decade." Geez, that sounds more important than two years at Wharton! Or one of those seminars where you learn how to buy depressed real estate and become a trillionaire in about four months.

Don's plan would make me rich in just seven days, according to his e-mail: "In one intense week of live online action, we will turn your financial life around. And yes, one week can make you a millionaire." And to think I was going to refinance and get one of those risky interest-only loans.

Let's see, what will I do with my millions? Donate some to the Red Cross for hurricane relief? Feed starving African children forever? Renovate an inner city school? Or buy a condo in one of the new Trump buildings going up on the West Side of Manhattan? Decisions, decisions. What would Don do?

He provides an answer further down in our e-mail: "The decisions that matter don't happen in the future. They happen here and now. I got where I am today by taking action. Not by postponing action. So here's a choice for you to make right now. Are you totally committed to creating wealth for yourself and your family?"

Wealth for me and my family? That seals it! I'm going for the penthouse views of the Hudson River and New Jersey.

Naturally--and especially in the World of Trump--there is no free lunch; Don has asked me to give him money before he'll tell me how to get my money. Now that I think of it, his e-mail is kinda like those Nigeria oil offers. But as a hedge against disappointed get-rich-in-seven-days-at-Trump-University undergrads, Don says he will "be sending (me) a Certificate of Achievement as soon as (I) complete (the course)." That will look pretty impressive on the wall of my office, or perhaps more prominently in my family room for all my neighbors to admire. But of course, they will already know from the Maserati in the driveway that I have successfully completed something important, if only a bank robbery.

Well, I was pretty pumped up looking at floor plans in Trump's best apartment buildings and arguing with my wife over whether the Maserati would be red or silver, when I saw at the very bottom of the e-mail that it wasn't sent by The Donald at all. Rather, it came from some outfit in Florida called ThrillingOffers.

Oh my god, The Donald has stooped to spam to attract enrollment in his get-rich-quick scheme. Will he stop at nothing?

I have a mind to write him back and say: Don, "You're fired!" But it's probably copyright-protected, and he'll only make a fee off of it.