If At First You Don't Succeed...

I've got another thought about this "e-mail your friends to get them to volunteer with you at Irish Fest" thing. Maybe, I'm thinking, if your friends are like mine, they're not likely to do anything you suggest. Just because it's you suggesting it and the last time they took your advice they ended up in the parking lot of the Cowboy's Rest bar in Ada, Oklahoma wearing a tutu and a fake beard. So I'm thinking maybe we need to sort of back door this thing. If that earlier fill-in-the-blanks angle didn't work for you, try this one on those lazy slacker buddies of yours:

Dear Friend,

Please allow me the pleasure of introducing myself. My name is Oboyo Poulaphouca and I am an exiled Nigerian prince from Nigeria. I have recently been given, for no apparent reason upwards of $1,000,000,000,000 US dollars by an official in my government, here in Nigeria which is where I am. Equally bizarrely but not made up, I have decided to contact you, a complete stranger, to have you accept receipt of these completely legitimate funds and keep a whopping big pile of dough for yourself for your troubles, like. As you can appreciate, what with me being an exiled prince and whatnot, this all must be done in the strictest secrecy. Shhh!

Here, my American friend and business partner, is "the skinny" on this deal, as we say over here in Nigeria: I have set up a secret web page and cleverly disguised it as the volunteer sign up form for an obscure American ethnic festival. You are to go to that site and "sign up" to work at this "festival". I shall have my operatives monitoring the site from Nigeria, which is where I am, no fooling, and watch for your name to appear. You are to attend this event at the time for which you signed up and work your shift as if the whole thing was an actual ethnic festival and not being staged totally as a cover for my transaction, because if officials of my government found out what was going on, they'd be plenty steamed, I can assure you. At the completion of your shift (or better yet, multiple shifts...you know, to confuse any government agents that might be milling around) you will be contacted by my representative (he may use the name "Regan" in order to fit in with the representative ethnic group) who will hand you, secretly, a big sack full of million dollar bills. Then when I arrive in America a few weeks later, you hand it back to me, keeping a sizable chunk for your assistance in this sensitive matter. Done and done. Plus you'll get an awesome free t-shirt, a ticket to the festival, and other great stuff. All in the interest of throwing off suspicious agents of my government who could be snooping around of course.

Blessings upon you my friend for accepting this completely non-bogus offer and for your kind assistance. I remind you again that this is a top secret e-mail intended only for you, my trusted friend and anybody else you'd care to forward it to. I remind you too that $1,000,000,000,000 will buy a gansey load of Boulevard beer at the sham festival. Just saying.

Yours sincerely, way over here in Nigeria, no kidding,

Prince Oboyo Poulaphouca

That should get 'em. Who wouldn't believe that? Copy, paste, send.