A wealthy oil executive in a far-off land wants to give you millions of dollars, right now!

E-mail fills our in-boxes with come-ons to see celebrities naked, men’s dangling participles enlarged, and to get rich quick. Even though we know deep down that these are fakes, why do we continue to think, "Why not?"

Now let’s be honest. If someone came to your door and told you any of those things, you’d tell him to get lost. So why do people still fall for this stuff when it’s in their e-mail, as if a poorly written message made a weird-sounding pitch any more legitimate?

The saddest part is, the only reason annoying e-mail keeps filing your inbox is because it works. No matter the number of reports detailing e-mail hoaxes gone bad and tales of spammers taking people for all they’re worth, people just keep on clicking and clicking just to satisfy their curiosity.

It’s amazing how many people were willing to believe this e-mail about a breeder in New York who raised kittens in bottles. Perhaps it’s the horrible detail that outraged the recipients so much:

The small animals are given a muscle relaxant to pacify them and to allow the breeder to chuck them in the bottle. They’re fed through straws and while the kitten is in there, its skeletons take on the shape of the bottle. It’s totally sick.

Actually, it started as a fake Web site, Bonsai Kitten, the product of MIT students. The idea was so out of this world, it spread like wildfire via e-mail. Plenty of people fell for it, many begging animal-welfare organizations to help the small furry creatures. Perhaps it could happen -- after all, you can miniaturize a tree by pruning it and shaping it.

E-mail alerts outlining the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide swept the Internet in the late 1990s and still pop up today. Many ask that you sign and forward a petition to ban the chemical, which contributes to global warming, is a major ingredient in acid rain, causes metals to rust more quickly, and has been found in cancerous tumors.

The chemical also contributes to the greenhouse effect and to erosion of our natural landscapes. It’s even in food. Sounds pretty dangerous. You’re ready to sign right now, aren’t you?

But before you do, you really should know that dihydrogen monoxide is also known as water. You know, the substance that every single living being relies on to survive?

The origins of this item are multifold, from flyers circulated at the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1989 to a junior high school student who surveyed 50 classmates in 1997 and got 43 of them to sign his petition to ban the chemical. He then won a prize at his science fair for his project, called "How Gullible Are We?"

With all the talk of cell phone dangers, the idea of radiation from them being powerful enough to pop popcorn doesn’t seem that far-fetched, at least on the surface. Why, a medical institute in the US recently advised its employees to limit exposure to electromagnetic radiation from cell phones.

So why wouldn’t you believe the swarm of e-mail telling you to look at the incredible video of friends popping kernels of corn with their mobile phones?

The group allegedly did it by placing the kernels inside a ring of cell phones that all rang at the same time. The result: Holy Kettle Corn! The kernels popped wildly as the cell phone owners shrieked in delight. The event set off a wave of imitators attempting to film themselves re-creating it or trying to disprove it.

Unfortunately, as you might expect, it was all fake. A company called Cardo Systems made the video to promote its cell phone headsets.

The phones were real and the popping popcorn was real, but the video was a composite, with the footage of the popcorn heated over a kitchen stove digitally dropped into the video of the folks with their phones. Guess the e-mail about cell phones that can cook eggs isn’t accurate either.