Just purge it unless you have a spare computer to unload it on.

That's what I did with the "Sircam" virus.

unless it has an attachment that you could activate a virus with...which 1k ain't... delete and figure it was a SPAM mass-mailing glitch.

No_Expert

but I do know computers

A whopping 1 kb ? What world are you in, 1 kb is nothing nowadays. But, to be sure check a few things.

1) Does it have attachments.
2) do the attachements have double extensions.
3) do you know the sender.
4) why was it sent to you.

As far as I can tell the only unanswered questions are does it have attachements and do the have double extensions. Delete anything with two extensions. For example:

iloveyou.doc.vbs

the .doc is an attempt to coverup the .vbs extension.

If it is just a .jpg, .mpg, etc. then it is no threat.

But, if it ends in:

.vb*
.js
.htm*
.asp
.exe
.pif
.com
.bat

or

.asm

don't open it.

Careful.  There's at least one other thing they might do:  they can send you HTML email which immediately opens up one of their web pages, embedding your email address in the HTML.

This causes your address to be logged as a valid address, which will quadruple (at least) the amount of spam that you receive. . . .

The best thing to do is to use a text-only email client, such as Elm.  This way, you KNOW they're not going to be able to log you.

The next-best thing to do is to delete anything which even might be spam.  Risky (you might delete something by mistake, or something you weren't aware you would receive, such as when I deleted a prospective employer's email after a friend gave my resume to his boss without telling me).