Because I've had my email address since I was seventeen years old, a lot of spammers know about it. In fact, I'm reasonably sure that every spammer knows about it--on average, I receive almost 1,000 emails a day I don't want. And because yahoo's spam filter is--how do I put this politely--relentlessly awful, I end up reading a lot of spam subject lines every day. Most of them, obviously, are dumb--but in just a few, you can see that there's a hard-working and talented writer behind the spam. And I've been wondering lately: Do particularly talented spam-subject-line authors get paid well for their work? Or do they just do it for the love of the game?

Some of my favorite recent spam subject lines:

"We never repent of having eaten too little": As it turns out, this is a quote from former President Thomas Jefferson, and I think it's very beautiful. It also makes an excellent subject line for an email about dietary supplements.

"Your Chase Account Has Been Violated": It's simple, to-the-point, and just scary enough to tempt me to click. And it's much more effective than another recent spam email I got: "Your Chase Account Has Been Violated!!!" I mean, really. Would a gigantic corporate bank really send me an email with three exclamation points in the subject line?

"Very Sad German Statistics": I was hoping this might be an offer to receive some very sad German statistics in the mail or something, but it turned out to be just another spam email for Viagra.

And finally, "Your Mother Has Always Dreamed of Having Sweet Grandkids": No doubt about it, and eloquently stated. The spammer, in fact, said it in precisely the same way that my mother has often said it to me. But I don't see what that has to do with a 3.75% interest home loan.