Phutatorius

Product packaging info of the day:

Ayr® Saline Nasal Mist — non-medicated, mercury-free.

USES: Ayr Mist moisturizes nasal passages relieving dry, crusty, and inflamed nasal membranes; useful as a nasal wash for sinuses, allergies and colds. Safe and gentle. Doctor recommended.

DIRECTIONS: With head in an upright position, put spray tip in nostril. To spray, give short, firm squeezes in each nostril. For drops, tilt head back and hold bottle upside down.

CAUTIONS: Keep out of the reach of children. Take care not to aspirate contents back into bottle. If spray tip touches nose, rinse with hot water before replacing cap. The use of this dispenser by more than one person may spread infection.

CONTAINS: An isotonic solution of sodium chloride 0.65% in deionized water, monobasic potassium phosphate/sodium hydroxide buffer, preserved with disodium EDTA and benzalkonium chloride.

Mfd in USA for B.F. Ascher and Co.

B.F. Ascher Co., Inc.
Lenexa, KS 66219
www.bfascher.com

The way I see it, there are three classes of fortune-cookie fortune. There is the fortune that makes a descriptive — usually complimentary — statement about the reader's life or personality: You are a wise person with a keen eye for flattery. Then there is the fortune that offers unsolicited advice or encouragement, leading the more paranoid among us to believe that the fortune-writer has identified some deficiency in character: Your silence is your best asset.

And finally, there is the fortune that actually promises something good. My all-time favorite, of course, was One day you will write a book — this after I spent eight years writing and rewriting a book. Another gave me the assurance that Your hard work will pay off, which I found cheering but perhaps a bit too slavishly promotional of capitalist dogma (Is You will get what you need and give what you can a staple sentiment in Red China's cookie analogues?).

Maybe I'm wrong — and it wouldn't be the first time my personal opinion did not fall into rhythm with the pulse of America — but I think we all like this third class of fortune best. Increasingly, however, I put aside my beef with broccoli and crack open flat observations and words of questionable wisdom, and I'm not sure what is supporting this trend.

Clearly the fortune-writers are responsive to demand; otherwise they wouldn't print lucky numbers within parameters that cross-promote with state lotteries. So why can't we get more fortunes that promise us rich futures with financial windfalls and assured happiness? Is it a fear of litigation? I would imagine that faulty advice is better grounds for a lawsuit than promised gains that never materialize. Here's an idea: perhaps the government asked the fortune-writers to temper our expectations, lest a broad-ranging disappointment lead to civil unrest outside the Golden Hunan.

The simple fact is that if someone who knows next to nothing about my life is going to butt into my business, I'd rather they did it with open-ended promises, and not advice. And until that sea change in fortune-crafting happens, you can look for Phutatorius at the Indian place down the block.

Earlier today, in the Snow Park lodge at Park City, Utah's Deer Valley ski resort, I peed in the urinal next to Emmy-winning TV sports personality Cris Collinsworth. No kidding, people — I thought I recognized him buckling his boots, and when he announced to his party, in signature Southern twang, that he was off to the privy, I was 100%. It was Cris Collinsworth, and no one can tell me otherwise.

Now, you figure a guy like Cris Collinsworth probably gets around. He'll pee in maybe ten or twelve public restrooms in a given week. Extrapolating that over his 44 years, a generous estimate is that he's landed in front of 26400 urinals in his time on Earth. Of course, Cris wasn't always the long ball-catching, Bradshaw-taunting urinal hopper he is today. Take out his early years in rural Florida, where he probably peed outside most of the time, and 16000 seems to me to be an unimpeachable Collinsworth urinal appraisal.

Assuming that Collinsworth drew a crowd every time he peed in a public restroom, a maximum of 32000 people would have peed beside him since his early 1960s potty-training. But you have to believe that now and again Collinsworth, given the choice, will favor the urinal on the far left or right — and on occasion he might even seek the solitude of a stall — so that moment-seekers like me cannot gather on either side of him. Let's not forget either that sometimes a restroom harbors only one urinal: in these solo-shooters no one at all can pee next to him. Finally, it's a stretch to assume that restrooms are packed to capacity every time Collinsworth pees. The simple fact is that, in his lifetime, probably only 14000 people have peed next to Cris Collinsworth.

And I am pleased to say now that one of these urinal-neighbors of record is your ever-loyal correspondent,

Phutatorius.

Quick hits today (been a while):

• Looks like my home state is determined to remain a swinging hotbed of gay promiscuity. Rock on, Ohio! But remember, kids, when you finally decide to settle down and make a commitment, you'll have to come to Massachusetts.

• From the Name That Zealot department: a religious fanatic talks a man into blowing up a warship with a boat full of explosives, and it's not Osama bin Laden plotting the demise of the U.S.S. Cole. Give up? It's Katharine Hepburn's Rosie in The African Queen, which I saw for the first time last night. Fantastic movie: you go, Bogie.

• I'd put down good pay-per-view money to see Jeeves, Dr. Phil, and the Globe's Dr. Knowledge go at it on Celebrity Jeopardy. I think that would be some competition! A real clash of intellectual titans — those three know everything! But my money is on the butler. With his service-industry background, he comes off as the Good Will Hunting of the group. And those Good Will Huntings can creep up on you.

• MTV has promised to move its Top Six "raciest" videos out of daytime rotation into late-night time slots only, where they no doubt expect to be happily reunited with the rest of the network's music videos, none of which have seen the light of day since Jenny McCarthy was commissioned to run roughshod over our last nerve in Singled Out.

• Dunno what all of you thought of forced cockle-picking in the British Midlands, but it ain't funny anymore. Well, "cockle-picking" is still kind of funny, when you say it out loud. But people are dying, and that part isn't funny. So there. Did someone say "cockle-picking?" Tee hee . . .

I saw myself naked in the shower yesterday, and boy, was I offended. I mean, it totally blindsided me. I'm reading ingredients off the shampoo bottle, and it slips out of my hands. I bend down to pick it up and — bam! — absolutely without warning: full frontal nudity.

It was a crass and classless stunt for my body to pull at any time of the day, but to do it at 10 a.m., when it knew I was awake? I quickly averted my eyes — lifted them to heaven, in fact — scrubbed and scrubbed my body for an hour and a half (I had a noon appointment). But for all that effort, and all that lather coverage, I still felt dirty.

Yesterday morning's manifestation is just one more sign of the general decline of American values. Back in the early sixties, when Ed Sullivan was programming my showers, the censors were committed, proactive, and thorough. I could not set one foot inside the bathroom without my chest covered in a chaste polyester wrap and my nether parts cheerfully contained in a pair of knee-length bathing trousers.

I am horrified and outraged by my body's inappropriate and shameless display of its you-know-what, and you can bet I will be writing a sharply-worded letter to the government demanding an explanation as to how this could happen.

Checked my eBay feedback the other day, and boy did it take me by surprise! Here are some choice cuts:

• Super Fast Payment and Communication! I wish all eBayers were this good . . . and this Presidential.

• Lightning quick payment, and with the right message, could do well in Iowa and New Hampshire!

• great to deal with, strong on national security and civil rights, not 2 mention a fundraising dynamo!! will be a great commander-in-chief.

• They don't get better th[a]n this. We're just waiting on pins and needles for him to announce his candid[a]cy!

• Quick payment. A great buyer! He would make a fine meat-and-potatoes alternative to Kerry and Dean. Rumors are swirling about an exploratory committee: what's he waiting for?

• Very Satisfied, Fast payment, Rate ex +++++++ ALL THE WAY TO WASHINGTON, BABY. JUST SAY THE WORD AND WE'RE ALL BEHIND YOU.

Well, there you go. Who knew there was such a groundswell of support here? Makes me wish I had monitored these reports more closely. My advisors are always pooh-poohing the Internet, but I tell you — if I had seen this kind of enthusiasm a month ago, I'd have jumped in the race with both feet.