While walking through the CVS on 14th Street (just south of Thomas Circle), I heard one woman lecturing her shopping companion in the soap aisle. “Ohhhhh, no,” she scolded, “he needs more than one bar of Dove. We need to get a three-pack of Dial! Maybe more!”

I shudder to think just how bad this guy must smell. I mean, really!

And then today, while cleaning out my spam folder, it suddenly hit me that if one was granted a wish and you wanted to go for a selfish kind, I have the perfect one. “I wish that all of the spam e-mail offers that I’m sent are real and truthful.” Because really, this day alone I’d have gotten multiple $500 gift cards to all sorts of stores, some free pizzas, a brand new Toyota (the subject line didn’t specify which model car, alas), and of course, all the genital enlargement products I would ever possibly want and then some.

And that’s just from one day. Imagine the possibilities! (I think I’d pass on the offers for Russian brides, though. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen one of those in a long while. Which is a pity, because those always amused me. I liked to joke that my mother was signing me up for those mailings.)