In my home are seven phones: two personal, two business, two cell, one fax. My computer also has talking email, which is -- and correct me if I'm wrong here -- THE SAME AS A PHONE.

Every night before sleep, I turn off all the ringers, each one to its good-night sound. One says in a sultry, bedroom voice, "Thank you." I call that Creepy Phone.

You have to be vigilant about turning off ringers because there's always someone who wakes up at dawn and feels that this is normal behavior. And that others are doing the same.

Yesterday my mom called at 5:30 a.m. and left a message on the answering machine, which I had failed to turn off for the first time ever.

"Hi, son. I'm getting ready for work and just wanted to let you know that I was thinking about you."

She's so sweet.

I'm going to tell her when I call her back at midnight.

You know the voice inside your head that gives the daily play-by-play? Mine is speaking in a British accent. It's the same nonsense as always, only now it's Robin Leach doing "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous":

Opening a box of cereal. Offensive, the cost of cereal. Are they mining it in Siberia? They found that Siberian Tiger. Whatever happened to Siegfried and Roy? We should visit Las Vegas...

And he's talking in the first-person plural.

We really should get going. Do we have to shave EVERY time we shower?

This, of course, begs the question, How many of us are there? Do they talk about me when I'm asleep? Will the straitjacket be provided, or is that out of pocket?

Interesting that when "we" do something stupid, the inner voice goes back to you's.

You idiot. How many times have I told you?...

Robin Leach is also in charge of playing music in my head. Not the entire song, mind you, but the same snippet of music over and over and over. And since Robin isn't happy unless he's shouting over things, he turns it up full blast:

Sunday, bloody Sunday ... Who names these razors anyway? ... Sunday, bloody Sunday ... Is it important for razors to always be breaking the sound barrier... Sunday, bloody Sunday...

Nonstop music is, incidentally, a tactic employed by the FBI to root out David Koresh, someone else who who heard voices in his head.

And during all of this racket, I'm out buying stamps and meeting people for lunch and operating heavy machinery. The government would even issue me a handgun if I met some qualifying criteria such as having a name.

It would be nice if surgeons could remove that part of the brain that keeps replaying the same sound byte of music. A loopendectomy. And while they're in there, I would be greatly obliged if they could look for Robin Leach.