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SHORTCOMINGS

Given the abrupt tumescence in my email, I can't help but be surprised at all the male shortcomings in the world these days, and how everything from the environment to international relations appears to be rooted, so to speak, in the dimensional aspects of what until recently was by nature a rather reclusive organ.

But not any more: they're waving it all over the place now, and not just the men. I learn much more of all this, in all its disappointing brevity, from the dozens of dozens of emails I receive every day from Mindy Maneater, among others. I've also gotten quite a few from Leland Compton, who until just a little while ago had serious dimensional problems with his personal parameters, but thanks to his miracle drug they are all growing apace; soon he will be in the minority vis-a-vis his physical person, and good luck to him getting on the bus.

I had been living quite happily in ignorance of the fact that these obsessions, formerly wrapped in strictly plain brown paper and delivered to other mailboxes, are held by people we see every day, people who give lousy service, ticket our vehicles, audit our taxes or hold high office: real people, with names like Maggie Friedman, Bruno Gagne, Lucinda Lugo, Dina Soto, Michael Myers, Ashlee Fernandez, Kenny Clifton, Nannie Kirby, Lauri Stephenson, Jerrod Sneed-- the list gets longer, though the width stays about the same.

This means that everybody you see on the street or anywhere else (except maybe the cemetery) could be experiencing, from one direction or another, serious dimensional concerns. People of all sexes, all walks of life and from every dimensionally obsessed country in the world (excepting relatives of recently deceased Nigerian officals; must be something in the water) are every day emailing everyone else on all aspects of this admittedly key organ and what they want from it.

What they tacitly admit to in these plentiful but brief emissions seems to indicate a general dissatisfaction in regard to length, width, girth, endurance, and other qualities normally attributed to blue steel. Personally, I'm surprised that so many people suffer from such problems. I seem to be one of the rare exceptions, even though I've never been to Nigeria.

And all these people have what they obviously consider to be serious dimensional handicaps, some of which are small, so to speak, and some of which really loom right out there, as in the aforementioned pitiable case of Leland Compton, who will likely have to stay at home for the rest of his life or get a new doorway and special transport, if he can ever get a job with that miracle in the way.

Then on the other end of the very short spectrum there's the sad hunger of Nicole Yumyum, whose width and length requirements appear to rival the interstate highway system, so she keeps busy by sending millions of email organs into the world. Someone should introduce her to Leland.

Anyway, to unzip the fly, as it were, on all this formerly shadowy stuff, whose salespersons sprinkle their subject lines with such psychological come-ons, so to speak, as "manhood," "dysfunction," "enlarge," "dramatic," "self-esteem," "longer and stronger, "please her" and "enhancement" (the creativity, the creativity!!), maybe it's a form of projection they're engaging in, sadly assuming as they do that the rest of the world is just as deficient as they are, that we share their so to speak shortcomings, so maybe they can make some quick bucks off the suckers with the short attention spans.

But then again maybe it's only Bruno, Lucinda, Kenny and the rest of the metrically challenged crew who have to work so hard to forget the profound anguish integral to their lack of dimension, about which I'd know nothing, if they didn't keep telling me.