I just found out that bedbugs are real, live, actual creatures. They are, to be exact, "wingless insects with flat, reddish bodies that infest bedding and feed on human blood."

So all those times your parents tucked you in and said, "Don't let the bedbugs bite," it was an actual hazard!

Give me a moment to rethink my childhood.

Okay. Bedbugs are real. But what about the boogie man and the monster under the bed? Will I stumble on them in the dictionary? One summer I cried so much about noises under the bed that my dad sawed off the legs altogether (of the bed, not the monster).

I can still see his face as my dad turned off the lights ... "Don't let the bedbugs bite."

Okay, pop. And you don't let the serial killers rip through the screen door downstairs.

Somehow I ended up at a hunting website, which reminded me of something I've been trying to repress: hunting.

The website makes it easier to murder elk, deer, and mountain lions that have absolutely no political agenda. Sure, they are only animals -- the hunters -- but do we really need this:

"The Six-Day Elk/Deer Combo" includes one guaranteed kill."

With all due respect to the heritage of hunting, I think civilization might benefit from hunters killing themselves off altogether. We just need to liquor them up at the local lodge and wait for the inevitable...

"Oh, yeah!? Well, my truck will tow circles around your pansy Dodge."

Then the two will march off into the woods and WHAMO, cleanse the gene pool.

On this website, hunters pose per tradition with the animals' remains. One man is propping up a mountain lion like they're about to do vaudeville. I don't know about you, but I think men who dance with cadavers should get their own planet.

Wouldn't it be nice if one day these same men were confronted by really mad elk/deer combos wielding automatic weapons? Huck and Billy Bob would have to consider alternative forms of prey. Each other, perhaps.

Lately I've noticed a couple of disturbing trends. One, Oprah Winfrey's weight seems to fluctuate with the lunar tides. And two, business "greeting cards" -- the ones that show up on special occasions with messages like:

"Just because we are thinking of you, Jason Love or Current Resident."

These cards assume that (a) you have tremendously low self-esteem and (b) you know nothing about computerized mail merge.

But the part that frays the lining of my stomach is that forests are dying in the crossfire. And while I, or current resident, am flattered to receive junk mail with pen-pal-like regularity, I would rather these trees go to more important things like being alive.

In my closet is a mountain of junk mail FROM ENVIRONMENTAL COMPANIES. Yesterday I received -- swear on my stomach -- a credit card offer for my cat Misty. Isn't that silly? Misty has terrible credit.

Perhaps it is time for two flags on our mailbox: a red flag to indicate outgoing mail and a white flag to say, "I surrender!"

I called a hotline to protect my address from junk mail, but the letters keep on piling. If things don't improve soon, I will march right down to ABC and demand a public investigation ... or Oprah's secret is out.

Got a call from my neighbor, a handicapped man who relies on my wife for little things: cooking, cleaning, lottery tickets.

He ... Mike ... the neighbor ... handicapped guy ... called while I was hella-busy. Everyone needed things now, now, now, as if the Buddha taught us nothing.

"Hi, Mike," I said, shouldering the phone while I sent a fax. "Yahaira's out till this evening."

"Oh. I see. Well, okay, then."

I sensed a dot dot dot.

"Hmm," I said, stalling for time as I read an email.

Michael cleared his throat. "Sounds like you're pretty busy then."

Dot dot dot.

"Can I help you?" I asked, a rhetorical question.

"No, it's okay."

"You sure?" Rhetorical question.

"Yeah, I'll just wait for Yahaira."

I may or may not have said goodbye, but he would have told me if there was trouble, right?

Next day Yahaira told me what Michael had needed: someone to button his shirt, which he couldn't do himself on account of his fingers being mangled in the crippling car accident.

I took a deep Buddha breath and braved the hot syrup feeling in my spine. I mean, if I don't have two minutes to button a crippled man's shirt, which of us is disabled?

I have since placed above my door a note reading, "How can I serve?" I am also attending meetings for AA: A-Holes Anonymous.