Help, I’m lost inside an alternate reality crafted for me by the Ted Cruz campaign and I cannot escape.

Here’s how it works. Several times a day I receive in my inbox an email that, at first glance, looks like something I really want to open. But it’s not. It’s a fake email from the Ted Cruz campaign.

(I signed up for them in an effort to better cover Cruz’s campaign, but I can’t say the same for all of my fellow recipients. The campaign mines data from users who of the CruzCrew app, which also tracks users’ physical movements. They can run but Ted Cruz will find them.)

But the most incredible thing about the Ted Cruz campaign emails is they’re almost, but never quite, what real emails look like. At this point I have to assume Ted Cruz has never actually used email and is basing his understanding of what they should look like on a bootleg VHS copy of “You’ve Got Mail.” Still, I want to click on every single one.

Because I know this is not a voicemail.

And I know this is not what missed emails look like.

And even though I know this is not what flagged emails look like, I still want to check, just to be sure.

Because this is not Ted Cruz’s personal email address.... but what if it is?

He didn’t send me a confidential email... probably. Maybe I should click?

No. And I did not do this favor for Ted Cruz, even though it was urgent.

That one still haunts me. What did he need so badly? Should I have helped him? Maybe he lost his passport and needed me to wire him money—that happens, right? I literally can’t tell what’s real anymore. Help.