You've probably gotten an email at least once in the past 8 years entitled "The Budweiser Story". As has become her habit in the past couple years, my grandmother forwarded it to me yesterday after having received it from another of her friends, pretty much without having read it beforehand. As I do with most of the things she forwards to me, I deleted it without reading it. However, my sister later replied to grandma, indicating that she didn't like the content of the story.

So I went ahead and read it, and afterward decided to send the following message to everyone I could see in the thread who had forwarded it down the line (only 9 people) -- none of whom I know personally. I considered sending it to everyone to whom it had been forwarded, but I'd like to think of them as innocent bystanders in the whole mess.

I'm interested to see what kind of responses I get.

( My letter to strangers ... )