Let me tell you, I don’t know what shape I’d be in if I hadn’t gotten me a life coach.  Before I put my affairs in the hands of Socrates Gundsenbhuter, Life Coach Supreme, I was pretty much out of control.  

My career, if you could call it that, was going nowhere.  My third wife recently left me, my children hated me, my rabbi called me a heretic, and my dogs, Hale Alan and Denver Bob, treated me like a fire hydrant.  I prayed for a spiritual reawakening, but all I got was a postcard for a two-sessions-for-one deal at the Lower Manhattan Rolfing Centre.  I begged my friends for an intervention, but to a man, each pleaded, “too busy.”

Sure, we’ve all heard about life coaches, but I couldn’t imagine anyone who needed one.  But sometimes, life takes a strange turn, and you just get lucky — whether you’re in the right place at the right time, or whether you’re homeless and living with your dogs out of the back seat of a 1992 Mazda 323.  In my case, one night while I was trying to fall asleep, I heard a radio ad for Socrates Gundsenbhuter, Life Coach Supreme, who was described as “a conduit to an organized and fulfilling life.”  I sat bolt upright, and grabbed a pen out of the glove compartment.

Organized and fulfilling?  My life?  I’d be happy with clean sheets and an overdrawn checking account!

The balls-to-the-floor voice of the radio announcer worked me over like a massage therapist racing through a discounted afternoon session on a getaway Friday.  “Have you been searching for peace of mind?  Do you have hidden and unknown inner conflicts?  Do others consider you a putz?  If so, contact Socrates Gundsenbhuter, LCS, and begin seeing spectacular results today!”

Then I heard the gravelly voice of the man who would soon turn my life around.  “Hi, I’m Coach Socrates.  Call me now — if you know what’s good for you!  And if anyone knows what’s good for you, I do!”

I turned off the radio and wrote down the Coach’s number.  Was I desperate?  Yes.  Did I need a life change tout de suite?  No question.

I called for an appointment with the Coach the next day, and since then, I’ve never looked back.

I had a two o’clock appointment with Coach Socrates last Wednesday to discuss some of the life changes we’ve been working on.  We meet weekly, and over the first thirty or so sessions together we’ve been doing little more than what the Coach calls “an inventory” of my Godforsaken life.

Like his historical namesake, my Socrates uses open-ended discussion to get to the truth of matters.  And again, like his namesake, my Socrates leaves it to others to spread his wisdom.  Consequently, at the outset of my present journey, I would rarely spend much face time with the ol’ boy himself.  Instead, I’d meet with the Coach’s disciples, a dedicated and hardy group of same-day dry cleaners, ex-merchant marines, and Parsons table carpenters.  Once I started to meet with the Coach, however, my appointments usually took place at a Greek diner on lower Seventh Avenue in Manhattan.  But last week the Coach’s office manager, Cynthia — a nut job who prefers to call herself “Oracle” — instructed me to meet Coach Socrates instead at the clubhouse entrance to Belmont Park. 

I usually look forward to our meetings, but I had gotten used to meeting the Coach at the Greek diner on Seventh, and I began to wonder what this Belmont Park meeting was all about.  In my heart, I was ready for one of those “breakthrough moments” that the Coach assured me I would one day see.

So I was a tad worked up driving out to Nassau County and Belmont Park to meet the Coach, but I knew the routine.  When I made the decision to place my life in his capable hands six months ago, I vowed to follow the Coach’s “Socratic Game Plan” until it started paying dividends.  And while I have yet to see any visible evidence of a payoff, the Coach keeps telling me that my time is soon to come.

When I got to the clubhouse entrance, I spotted the Coach face deep in the Daily Racing Form.  I don’t know what kind of image you have of life coaches, but up until I met Coach Socrates, the image I had was … well … how can I say this … sort of bland, sort of preppy, all smiles, and thoroughly lacking in the field of human development.  However, Coach Socrates is anything but bland and preppy.  For a therapist, the Coach is one cool dude!  Confident and detached, the Coach has long black hair, tied into a pony tail, and was wearing khaki chino shorts, sandals, a silk print Hawaiian shirt, dark sunglasses, and carried an unlit cigar that looked like one of those big Romeo y Julietas that Winston Churchill used to devour.  And as far as psychology goes, the Coach just happens to be the world’s leading authority on Feng Shui and workspace organization, and is the author of the best-selling, “Our Bodies, Our Shelves.”

I stood there awhile, straining for just the right set of words to begin the session.  I recalled that the Coach has told me on more than one occasion, “Nature has given us two ears, two eyes, and but one tongue – to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak.”  But the Coach has also told me, “Let him that would move the world move himself first!”

So I moved.  I settled on, for me, a direct approach.  “Coach, how are you?  It’s me.  Mark.”

The Coach turned to me but didn’t smile.  In fact, he barely recognized me.  He looked me over, and then in his resonant voice, and in a perfectly neutral tone he said, “Be with you in a second, my good man.  Just working on the daily double.”

The Coach may not have smiled, but I did, because I knew all about his power to organize lives.  I also knew that the Coach believes that wisdom emerges from the recognition of one’s own ignorance, and conversely, ignorance emerges from the knowledge of wisdom.  While some of you who are already leading fulfilling lives may point to this apparent contradiction as a flaw in the Coach’s line of reasoning, let me tell you this: if you pulled that intellectual crap with Coach Socrates, he’d have you begging for mercy in minutes!  The way the Coach works — he calls his style “the Socratic Method” – is that everything has a time, and everything has a place.  Right now, I was at the place, and all I was waiting for was the Coach’s time.  I figured that every second I spent waiting for the wisdom of the Coach, I was one second closer to a rewarding life.

In a few minutes, the Coach smiled, put his arm around my shoulder, and ushered me into the clubhouse at Belmont.  “How’re things?” he asked, as he paid the entrance fee for both of us.

Since my time with the Coach is precious, I quickly began spilling my guts as we wandered over to the betting windows.  Big things, little events, recovered memories, forgotten birthdays, missed connections, opportunities knocking at times I was between doors, training problems with my dogs, how I missed my kids … everything.  While I recited the events that transpired since the last time we met, the Coach, not unsurprisingly, focused once again on the Racing Form and started working on the third race of the day, a steeplechase event.  While a casual observer might assume that the Coach wasn’t really paying attention to me, I knew better; this was the beauty of working with not just an ordinary life coach, but a Life Coach Supreme.

After I finished, the Coach put down his Racing Form, pushed up his sunglasses so that they rested on his hairline, and looked me directly in the eyes.  “You know what’s screwing you up?  Screwing you up big time?” he asked.

To tell you the truth, even if I did know what was screwing me up, I wouldn’t tell the Coach.  Not now.  When the Coach asks questions, unlike his namesake, he doesn’t want answers.  And again, unlike his namesake, he doesn’t want questions either.  Instead, he wants your attention.  After he’s got your attention, however, the Coach doesn’t mince words or parse meanings.  If it’s a complicated problem, you’ll get four words out of him, five, tops.  Today, however, the Coach must’ve had an epiphany; I got one word out of him.  ONE WORD!

“Email,” he said.

To those unfamiliar with the Socratic Method, an enigmatic word or phrase such as “Email” would simply make no sense.  But I knew the Coach, and I knew how the Socratic Method works.  The Coach says something, and then he stares directly into your eyes, and then directly into your nervous system, and then down into your circulatory system, and then he makes a pit stop in the middle of your large intestine, and then he checks your appendix, and then takes a glance at your table of contents, and before you know it, he heads straight for your soul.  Today, his stare started at 12:30pm, and ten minutes later, even though I was now drooling, I still had no idea what he meant by “Email.”  But I did know that once he finished staring, he would enlighten me.

Before he did however, he pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped the drool off my chin. 

The Coach has class.

The Coach then quickly wrote down a few words in block letters on a three by five card.  Before I could make out what he wrote, he ripped the card into tiny pieces, and then tossed the tiny pieces onto the ground.  Then he ordered me to jump up and down on the few pieces that hadn’t been blown away by a gust of wind.  Finally, he put his arm around me, and whispered in my ear, “You’ve been wasting too much time responding to your Email.  Too much goddam time!”

Words like these made every cent of the Coach’s monthly $1500.00 fee worthwhile.

While I was soaking up this week’s wisdom, we walked over to the betting window.  I saw the Coach pull out a roll of hundred-dollar bills from the same pocket where he had earlier pulled out his handkerchief.  But before he placed a bet, he turned to me once again.  This time, however, he dropped his shades over his eyes.

“The stare,” I thought to myself, “how long is it gonna be this time?”  My face became flush, and I soon realized that my mouth was filling with saliva.  Even though I’ve experienced this part of the Coach’s treatment plan many times in the recent past, this latest stare was particularly intense.  I felt my heart pounding, and suddenly, without warning, I was floating … floating … floating back in time.  I was now six years old, sitting at my family’s dining room table, with my mother hovering nearby.  My mother’s words then came back to me in a nightmarish flood of memories.  “You’ve got to send thank-you letters to each and every friend and relative that attended your birthday party,” she said with great drama.  “If you don’t, they’ll never come to another birthday of yours … ever!  They’ll never talk to you again … ever!  You’ll be a loner.  Alone!”  And then over and over again, my Mom spelled it out to me, ” A – L – O – N – E!  A – L – O – N – E!  A – L – O – N – E!”

“Mark … MARK,” the Coach shouted, handing me his handkerchief again.  While I wiped the drool from my chin, the Coach started to smile, and then his smile turned into a grin, and then he put his face no more than two inches from mine.  For what seemed like an eternity, but was probably no more than thirty seconds, our eyes were locked.  Then the grin subsided.

“Outsource,” he said.

I could smell the cigar on his breath, and the Downy fabric softener on his Hawaiian shirt.

“Outsource your Email.  See you next week.”  And then he placed his bet.

By the time I recovered from the session, I was back in my car on the Cross Island Parkway.  I replayed the Coach’s words over and over again in an effort to discover some hidden meaning, not immediately apparent to me, in his words.  When I’m confronted with a mystery such as this, the Coach instructed me to form a mantra out of his words, so I did.  “Outsource your Email.  Outsource your Email.  Outsource your Email.”

And then it hit me.  I pulled over to the breakdown lane and stopped my car.  “Outsource your Email … the Coach wants me to get someone else to handle my Email … to free up more time … and to put me in charge of my life again,” I shouted.  “Genius, pure genius!”  My arms reached upward to thank heaven for bringing the Coach into my life.  Then I fell to the ground weeping.  Finally, I got up, hugged the first person I met, a three-hundred pound long-haul trucker pulled over to the breakdown lane with a busted ball joint, and in a fit of wild abandon, the trucker and I began to dance the lambada, the forbidden dance.

At that moment I realized that Socrates had become more than my life coach.  The Coach had become my model, my guru, my savior.  Before I met the Coach, my vision of God consisted of a happily married couple: He whose name may not be uttered, who took care of nature and the mystical world of high-end real estate, and She whose name may not be uttered, who took care of everyday physics and the endless rewriting of history.  But now, with my life securely in the capable hands of the Coach, my old-fashioned view of religion was up for renewal.

As soon as I got home, I grabbed my copy of the Brooklyn Yellow Pages.  Under “Email Services,” I found an 800 number for RES, Reliable Email Sourcing, and excitedly, I called to begin the next stage of my life.  While I waited to speak to a service advisor, I heard a number of clicks on the line — not random clicks, mind you — but a series of strange murky noises that seemed like someone from another dimension desperately wanted to speak to me.  The strange noises then turned into voices, swirling voices, and out of the swirling voices I was just barely able to make out, “Mmmmaaaaarrrrrrkkkkkkkkkk … the unexamined life is not worth liiivvvvvvvvviiinnnnninggggggggg!”

“How can I help you, sir?” was the next thing I heard.  I couldn’t make out the accent, but I knew I was speaking to someone who had never stepped onto North America soil, and who, despite an apparent mastery of the English language, had never uttered an English sentence face-to-face with a native English-speaking person.  While this type of mastery of the English language may upset some Americans, and to tell you the truth, in situations such as this, nothing would please me more than to fire off a few sentences of pure gibberish, at this particular moment, I was a soldier in the army of Socrates Gundsenbhuter and I was determined to get down to business.

After a brief conversation I discovered that for a mere $1500.00 per month — a figure much less than others would pay for a similar range of services, once I mentioned Socrates Gundsenbhuter’s name — RES, Reliable Email Sourcing would handle all of my Email responses.  I would receive copies of each response at my Email inbox, and according to the service advisor, my family members, friends, and business cohorts wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. 

“What’s the chance for getting a sample Email?” I asked.  The service advisor’s first response was, “sixty-five percent.”  My first reaction was, “this person needs some touch-up on idiomatic expressions.”  But then I restated my question as, “Would you please send me a sample response to my Email account?”  This time, the service advisor responded with, “Certainly.”  I then thanked the service advisor for her help, and fired up my PC.  Here’s what I saw.

Hello. My name is Asheehia Sanyatanagong, and      MR. M. MARK ROSENBLATT      has authorized me to reply to your recent Email.

We here at the Reliable E-Response Center in Dili, East Timor, provide this service to select customers for a nominal fee. This service benefits you, the writer, by providing a customized response to your       EMAIL        on the subject of      A SAMPLE EMAIL RESPONSE                  , while offering a range of benefits to         MR. M. MARK ROSENBLATT         , including timely responses to you, the closest family member, friend, or business associate of          MR. M. MARK ROSENBLATT         , and the freedom from responding in a timely fashion to those who make demands on his extremely valuable time.

Thank you for your inquiry. The Dili Reliable E-Response Center is presently researching your request, and will provide you with bona fide information within 24 or 48 or 72 hours.

In addition, we will be providing you, the closest family member, friend, or business associate of          MR. M. MARK ROSENBLATT         , by Email, with a wide range of customized offers to members of your demographic and geographical group that         MR. M. MARK ROSENBLATT               has authorized us to send to you, his closest family member, friend, or business associate, or closest friend.  In addition, please expect a wide range of local sales associates to contact you in the near future.

Thank you for your inquiry.

Ash (for     MR. M. MARK ROSENBLATT     )

This communication, though colorful, confidential and intended only for the named recipient(s) above, is vague, confusing, and most likely duplicitous, and may or may not contain trade secrets or other information that is exempt from disclosure under applicable laws in your country.  Good luck on any attempt you make to find any applicable law.  Any use, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication by anyone other than the named recipient(s) is in essence, strictly prohibited, and moreover, a colossal waste of time.  However, in the event that you wish to use, disseminate, distribute, or copy this communication, you’ve truly got to be out of your mind.  If you have received this communication in error, please immediately call 800 Who Cares.  Thank you, and vote for Al Gore in the 2000 election.

My first response to this sample Email response can best be described as “encouraged, though uncertain.”  I knew the Coach worked closely with Reliable Email Sourcing, and that was a good thing.  But I’ve never been the type of guy who went out and bought the first car, refrigerator, or washing machine that he sees.  I like to shop around.

So I grabbed my yellow pages, and continued searching under Email Services.  I spotted an ad for Email Sans Frontieres, a company that maintained offices in Chicago, Paris, Frankfurt, and Camden, New Jersey.  I called the offices in nearby Camden first, but the number listed in the ad for Email Sans Frontieres connected me instead to Dill Purveyors, a pickle distributor in nearby Pennsauken.

“Dills,” a young woman answered.

“I’m sorry,” I responded, “is this Email Sans Frontieres?”

“No, this isn’t.  You’ve reached Dill Purveyors, purveyors of fine pickles from across the globe.  How can I help you?”

I started to get nervous.  I frantically searched for the advice that Coach Socrates had once given me when you think you find yourself walking down Path A to search for Item X, but soon discover that you’re on some other path that leads … that leads … that leads … and then his words came back to me!  “Mere mortals can never become wise,” Socrates once told me.  “The best that they can hope for is to find the path to wisdom.”

“Sir?  Sir?  Are you OK?”

Even though I thought I was thinking to myself, I was actually speaking my thoughts out loud.  But I then remembered the Coach’s insistence that the path to wisdom, once found, can turn an unseemly conversation, even an irrational conversation, into one that meets the expectations of both participants.  “Do you have a retail location anywhere near Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn?” I asked.

Within thirty seconds I had three addresses to nearby Brooklyn delis, and within sixty I was dialing the Chicago office of Email Sans Frontieres.

“Hello, ESF, Email Sans Frontieres, how may I direct your call?”

I asked to speak to ESF’s Chief Executive Officer. 

A secretary picked up after a brief wait.  “Good afternoon, you’ve reached the Executive Office of ESF.  How may I help you?”

“I’d like to speak to your Chief Executive,” I replied.  “I’m interested in one of your services.”

“May I tell the Chief Executive, Mr. Downward, who’s calling?”

“Well,” I responded, if you’re so damn sure of yourself, Ms. Smarty Pants, why don’t you tell him why I’m calling as well!”

The next thing I knew I was speaking to Chief Glancing Downward, an Ojibwa elder who had built Email Sans Frontieres to its preeminent position within the Email services industry with money he inherited from his tribe’s interests in casinos, duckpin bowling, and the translation of Danielle Steele’s oeuvre into twenty-two Native American languages.

“So you know my good friend, Socrates Gundsenbhuter,” Chief Downward asked me.

I was about to tell the Chief how I knew the Coach, but I sensed that Chief Downward already knew who I was, and why I was calling.  Coach Socrates often told me stories about his early years, and how he had run away from home as a pre-teen to join a traveling dental practice that served the orthodontic needs of Native Americans.  The Coach insisted that all Native Americans know, through a special ancient form of meditation passed down from generation to generation, when they needed dental work.  But the kicker to this way of life is that these same Native Americans were able to determine when dental services would be provided to them.  Moreover, the Coach swore that truly spiritual Native Americans were so in tune with their place in the natural order that they were able to read the thoughts of others, and that tribal chiefs could not only read the thoughts of others but could experience the future as well.  And from the few words that I had exchanged with Glancing Downward, I suspected the Chief was as spiritual a Native American as there ever was.

Chief Downward interrupted my thoughts.  “Who are you, and more important, why are you calling me?”

I then realized that Chief Downward was not only deeply spiritual, but a sharp businessman as well.  I also knew that to get a good deal, I had to use all the life skills that Coach Socrates had taught me so far. 

I explained to Downward that I was searching, with the help of ESF, for a way to put my life back in order by cutting back on the amount of time I spend responding to Email.

Within minutes, Chief Downward put together a package for me that he guaranteed would free up ninety-five percent of the time I spent handling my Email.  “We’ll take care of pop-up reminders, paying bills online, solicitations from charitable organizations, friends, relatives, and … ” he paused, “we’ll install a joke filter.”

The price the Chief offered me was exactly the same price I got from Reliable Email Sourcing earlier, and to clinch the deal, Downward offered to throw in three Native American dream catchers, in my choice of Ojibwa, Cree, or Navajo.

I thanked Chief Glancing Downward for his offer, and told him I’d look for a sample response Email at my electronic mailbox.  But before I let the Chief go, I mustered up the courage to ask whether I’d get a discount as a client of his good friend, Socrates Gundsenbhuter.

“Socrates who?” the Chief responded.

“What a businessman,” I thought to myself as I hung up the phone, and once again fired up my PC.  Within thirty minutes, I saw Email from ESF.

While     M. Mark Rosenblatt    usually responds to your Email with 24 hours,      M. Mark Rosenblatt     at this time requests instead that you assist him in becoming a better person.

While you’ve counted on     M. Mark Rosenblatt     to always be available for your interpersonal, dining, and entertainment needs,      M. Mark Rosenblatt     , at present, is undergoing major renovations.

Some of these renovations include a heightened sense of well-being, a newfound feeling of personal fulfillment, an increased awareness of the richness of life, and thrilling new insights into the human condition.

Please be advised that the new improved       M. Mark Rosenblatt      may not meet the limited needs of most men, women, and children. 

In fact,     M. Mark Rosenblatt      is not recommended for men, women, and children who rely on restless spirits of the past to guide their daily activities.  Nor is     M. Mark Rosenblatt     recommended for those who suffer from frequent nightmares due to previous life experiences, or those given to wearing sweaters with the arms knotted and draped across their chests, a la Vogue, February 1962.

Please consult your physician before each engaging in communicative acts with     M. Mark Rosenblatt     .

Editorial Sans Frontieres (ESF) does not guarantee the reliability of Email responses generated by its users.  By reading this disclaimer, you hereby acknowledge the following: 1. The two words, “intelligent,” and “design,” when placed together, reflect neither intelligence nor design.  2. The ancient Greek philosopher, Empedocles, who argued that the four humors correspond to earth, air, wind, and fire, also predicted that the compact disc would become a major recording format in the last decade of the twentieth century.  3. Unlike other disclaimers, this disclaimer respects the rights of all readers, encourages dissent, and reserves the right to make fun of Scientologists.

“This one’s a winner,” I thought.  “But what would Socrates think?”

I’ve never been one who worries about what others think, but as the Coach says, “The Socratic Game Plan is the only game in town.”  Unfortunately, Coach Socrates has also told me, “Never, ever, ever call me for advice.  If you’ve got payment problems, speak to billing.  Appointments?  Speak to appointments.  If I can’t be free from your petty goddam problems between sessions, how can I help you when we meet?”

Now who could argue with a strong, self-sealing argument like this one?

But I wasn’t looking for an argument; I was looking for confirmation.  So I grabbed my phone and called Socrates’ office.

“Hello, Mr. Mark Rosenblatt,” was the response I got from a familiar, and eerie feminine voice at the Coach’s office.

Before I was able to ask, “Who’s this?” I remembered that the Coach’s office manager was the nut job, Cynthia, a recent Adelphi University psychology grad, who liked to call herself “Oracle.”  Cynthia … I mean Oracle claimed to be able to predict the future, but I’d be willing to bet that in this instance, Oracle merely used her magical powers to read the caller ID on her office phone.

“Oh, hi Cynthia … I mean Oracle,” I said.  “May I speak to the Coach?”

“Gnothi seauton,” she responded.

Now I know my way around Spanish, and a little French, but with “gnothi seauton,” I couldn’t tell if Oracle from Adelphi was pulling my chain or had mistakenly thought I sneezed.

“Thank you,” I responded, “but can I please speak to the Coach?”

“Silly human,” Oracle said, “but since I knew you’d be calling, I took the liberty – and after all, what is liberty? – to ask Mr. Gundsenbhuter whether he approved of the Email outsourcing firm ESF, Email Sans Frontieres.”

“And … ” I interjected.

“Coach Socrates,” the Oracle continued, “was busy preparing his acceptance speech for the LCSAs, the annual Life Coach Supreme Awards ceremony, and when I asked him about your … your … ahem … concern, he told me ‘gnothi seauton.’  ‘Gnothi seauton,’ Mr. M. Mark Rosenblatt, means ‘know thyself’ in English.  Now, goodbye, and remember, know thyself!” 

And then Oracle hung up.

I hated Cynthia, the Oracle from Adelphi University, but I loved the Coach.  “Know thyself,” I thought to myself.  “Know thyself.”

The first thing that popped into my mind was that this was as good a time as any to put my complete faith in the Socratic Method.  Moreover, the Coach always stresses the importance of irony in gaining control of one’s life.  However, the Coach’s “irony” isn’t your parents’ irony, the irony of fate.  Socrates’ irony is a tool of precision, and at the same time, a profession of ignorance used to analyze unsubstantiated common assumptions and commonly held beliefs.

So once again I created a mantra out of the Coach’s words, “gnothi seauton.”  But after five minutes of gnothi seautoning, I was still at the starting gate.  I was going nowhere, and a creeping sense of doubt, bolstered by a wide range of horse racing metaphors, began an attack on my otherwise even demeanor.  “Should I be using Greek, or should I be using English?  ‘Gnothi seauton?’  Or ‘know thyself?’  Or both?”

While the left hemisphere of my brain was engaged in a battle between the languages of ancient Greece and contemporary English, my right hemisphere asserted control and forced my right hand to grab a felt-tip marker.  Without thinking, I began drawing a solitary man lounging on a beach chair at a beautiful beach in Anguilla.  Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the man was reading a paperback copy of Will Durant’s “The Story of Philosophy.”  I then drew a tall man in a tuxedo, off in the distance, but walking toward the man on the beach chair.  As the man in the tuxedo comes closer, I can see that he’s a waiter, and that he’s delivering my favorite beer, a Victory Hop Devil IPA to the man on the beach chair.  And when I look more carefully at the drawing, I noticed that the man on the beach chair is me!  ME!  When the waiter arrives at my beach chair, he pours the beer into a chilled mug, and then hands me the mug.  I thank him, and as the waiter bends over to pick up the remains of a snack I ordered earlier in the day, I notice that he’s got an ID tag on his jacket, and that the waiter’s name is Dorough.  “Bob Dorough,” I think to myself, “isn’t he the jazz singer who sang ‘Three Is A Magic Number’ on Multiplication Rock?'”

The waiter looks at me, and then smiles, beatifically.  “Three,” he says, “IS a magic number.  Yes it is, it’s a magic number.  Somewhere in the ancient, mystic trinity, you get three as a magic number.  Three.  Threeeeeeeeeeee.   Threeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee ………”

At that precise moment, I realized that the eternal struggle for domination between the left and right hemispheres of my brain was not going to be resolved any time soon.  Moreover, if the left side of my brain was debating language differences, while the right side of my brain was put in charge of my drawing skills, what part of my brain was I now using to interpret meaning?  Just then, the image of Coach Socrates formed in front of me.  The Coach looked excited, and from what I could make out, he was positioned near the Belmont Park finish line, shouting home a front-running sprinter in a maiden claiming race, “C’mon, honey!  C’mon, baby!  Yeah, number three!  Do it!” 

The Coach’s pick crosses the finish line first, and in the Coach’s face I was able to make out a sense of well-being and Buddha-like contentment that can only come from prayer, meditation, the study of religious principles, and in this instance, contemplation of the Daily Racing Form.  My eyes welled up with tears, because for the first time since I began my journey, I knew happiness would soon be mine if I continued to follow the Socratic Method.  And then the Coach turned to me and said, “Whatever exists for a useful purpose must not be questioned!”

And then it hit me!  This was it!  Three!  The number, “three.”  The Socratic Method strikes again!  How did the Coach know that I needed to speak to a third Email outsourcing company before I decided to pick one for my Email?

I then put down my felt-tip marker, terminated my mantra, and realized that the distinction between left and right hemispheres is only a metaphor.  And the only reasons metaphors exist are to replace concepts when words fail.  With my brain parts once again working together, I pulled out my Brooklyn Yellow Pages a third time, and thumbed over to Email services.

I crossed off RES, Reliable Email Sourcing, and ESF, Email Sans Frontieres.  Then I noticed EFL, Email For Life, with offices in Athens, Ohio, and Athens, Georgia.

“Athens,” I thought to myself, “the birthplace of democracy, and the home to Socrates.  This one’s gotta be the right one for me.”

I dialed the Ohio office of EFL, and an efficient secretary immediately directed me to an equally efficient Email advisor, a Mr. Flesch Kincaid.  “Please be advised,” Kincaid told me, that “our conversation may be recorded for quality assurance purposes.”

“Recorded by whom?” I asked, intending to alert Kincaid to my status within the qualitative research end of the quality assurance (QA) industry.  For many years, I’ve been one of the country’s foremost experts on quality assurance research, and at present, I was serving as chairman of BQRCSQAR, the Brooklyn-Queens Regional Committee of the Society of Quality Assurance Researchers.  I knew precisely what constituted quality in quality assurance research; my groundbreaking work on quality assurance, “Assuring Quality Assurance in Quality Assurance Research,” uncovered a causal relationship between quality assurance errors and readability indices.

My interest in the subject of quality assurance comes from the warning that precedes many business-related telephone conversations: “This conversation may be recorded for quality assurance purposes.”  As a quality assurance researcher, whenever I’m confronted with this “quality assurance” warning prior to speaking to a fellow human being, I inform said human being that “it’s not necessary to record our conversation, because as a quality assurance researcher, I can assure you that any conversation with me will be of the highest quality.” 

“How’d you find us?” asked Kincaid.

“Yellow pages,” I replied.

“Whattya need?”

“Email outsourcing.”

“Everything?”

“Everything,” I replied.

Kincaid then explained to me that our conversation was rated at fourth-grade level on the Coleman-Liau Formula, and at fifth-grade level at the Toots-Shor Readability Index.

As soon as Kincaid mentioned Toots-Shor, I knew I had Kincaid cornered.  “You know, my good man, “ I said quite casually, “the Toots-Shor Readability Index hasn’t been accepted as meaningful since the early 1960s.”

Kincaid was silent at first, and then I heard him clear his throat.  “Who are you?” he asked.

For the first time in many years, I felt alive.  I was in control.  My heart rate slowed, and I felt that if I had wanted to, I could have reached through the phone line and grabbed Kincaid by the throat.  I began to imagine pulling Kincaid’s trembling face close to mine, and repeating Kincaid’s question over and over again.  “Who am I?  Who AM I?  WHO AM I?”

I could hear Kincaid breathing heavily on the other end of the phone.  “Listen, Mr. Kincaid,” I said carefully, “I’m nothing more than a mere pebble of sand along a third-world beach filled with German vacationers, but even with such a humble status, I demand that you DO NOT record our conversation for quality assurance purposes.  Instead, I want YOU to listen carefully to me.  I want YOU to put aside all of your two-bit concerns until I’M finished talking.  And most important, I want YOU PERSONALLY to construct an automated Email response program for me — one that will free me up to focus on matters far more important than Email.  Got the picture?”

Kincaid soon turned from a pit bull on crack to a fawning lamb chop.

“I apologize for my behavior, Mr. … Mr. … ‘m sorry, I didn’t get your name, sir,” Kincaid asked ever so politely.

“You can call me Mark.  Mark Rosenblatt, to be precise,” I replied.

“Please excuse me for asking this question, Mr. Uhhhhh … Mark,” fumbled Kincaid, “but are you a student of Socrates Gundsenbhuter, Life Coach Supreme?”

“What if I am?”

“Coach Socrates called me yesterday,” Kincaid explained, “to expect a call from one of his clients.  My relationship with Mr. Gundsenbhuter goes back quite a few years.

Now that I was in control, I could afford to loosen my leash on Kincaid.  “Look, Kincaid, every second you spend bullshitting with me is one second more I have to endure before I get what I need from you.  And I don’t have a second to spare.  Can I be any clearer?”

Kincaid responded immediately.  “I understand completely.  I’ll personally develop a program for you that will give you all the free time you so richly deserve.  I’ll send you a sample within the hour.  Simply leave your Email address, and I’ll start right away.”

“Sounds good to me,” I replied.

“Oh, Mr. Mark, “ Kincaid asked, “you will put in a good word for me with the Coach, no?”

“Let’s see how your Email program works for me first,” I told Kincaid, and then after I gave Kincaid my Email address, I simply hung up.

And smiled.

Within the hour, I received the following sample on my PC.

—Original Message—–
From: System Administrator <EmailForLife.com>
To: M.Mark.Rosenblatt@EmailForLife.com

Subject: Undeliverable message.
Your message To: <M.Mark.Rosenblatt@EmailForLife.com> did not reach the following recipient(s): <M.Mark.Rosenblatt@EmailForLife.com>

The contextual-independent spam filter at EmailForLife.com intercepted your recent Email prior to delivery to the recipient.  As a result, <M.Mark.Rosenblatt@EmailForLife.com> has not received or read your Email. 

1. Had <M.Mark.Rosenblatt@EmailForLife.com> received your Email, he would have no doubt deleted your Email prior to reading it. 

2. As you know, <M.Mark.Rosenblatt@EmailForLife.com>is a very, very busy man, with hundreds of correspondents who make demands on his extremely valuable time.

3. If you were responding to correspondence from M. Mark, your opportunity to respond to <M.Mark.Rosenblatt@EmailForLife.com> has long since passed.

4. These things happen.  Far be it from <M.Mark.Rosenblatt@EmailForLife.com> to posit that a simple understanding of the political, social, and economic framework in which words and meaning reside would have permitted you to comprehend the intentions of <M.Mark.Rosenblatt@EmailForLife.com>.  As you know, all meaning is reader dependent, you insignificant slug.

5. Figured that one out, no?

6. If you were responding to some other Email that <M.Mark.Rosenblatt@EmailForLife.com> may have sent you, your response was unnecessary.

7. If you were seeking the advice of <M.Mark.Rosenblatt@EmailForLife.com>, he regrets that he is unable to help you at this time.

8. If you were seeking to praise <M.Mark.Rosenblatt@EmailForLife.com> for any one of his hundreds of selfless and/or self-sacrificing humanitarian actions, please be advised that no praise is necessary.  <M.Mark.Rosenblatt@EmailForLife.com> is a very, very humble man.

9. This is a computer-generated, automatic reply.

10. If your Email was intercepted in error, <M.Mark.Rosenblatt@EmailForLife.com> apologizes for any delay and inconvenience this has caused you. 

11. If your reading of the text of the Email sent to you by <M.Mark.Rosenblatt@EmailForLife.com> creates in you an understanding that your Email was intercepted in error, please communicate with <M.Mark.Rosenblatt@EmailForLife.com> by telephone, fax, semaphore, or letter at a later date. 

12. Much later.

13. In addition, please tell <M.Mark.Rosenblatt@EmailForLife.com> that your Email was intercepted and give him your Email address. 

14. <M.Mark.Rosenblatt@EmailForLife.com> may, at his discretion, and if his understanding of your Email is consonant with your intent, elect to override this spam filter so that your Emails will be delivered to <M.Mark.Rosenblatt@EmailForLife.com> in the future.

15. Or not.

16. Thank you for your patience and cooperation.

This was IT!  “Three IS a magic number,” I sang to myself, “oh yes, it is!”  I couldn’t believe it, but I actually began to feel giddy!  And then I realized that I was moving about my tiny apartment with a grace that I would never associate with … well … ME!  Hale Alan and Denver Bob looked at me like … like … I was their master!

The next thing I noticed was that I was smiling.  SMILING!  Not smirking.  Not grinning, either, but for the first time ever, my face wore a life-affirming, warmth-generating, freeze-frame-for-life natural smile.  I then ran into the bathroom to take a look at myself in the mirror, and my reflection looked like no one I had ever seen before.  I was glowing!  I saw radiating lines of contentment coming off the mirror that exploded into starry little spangles when they met with even stronger radiating lines of contentment coming from me.  ME!

I could’ve been in the bathroom for thirty seconds, thirty minutes, or three hours.  I couldn’t tell you.  All of these new feelings, all of this positive energy, all of this self-confidence … where did it come from?

And then the image in my bathroom mirror became incandescent, and through the blinding light of sheer ecstasy I was able to make out the face of the Coach.  And when I looked deeper, I saw that the Coach was standing in front of a world-class symphony orchestra, baton in hand, and behind him sat an audience of thousands eagerly awaiting the premiere of a new work commissioned for the occasion of my breakthrough.  The Coach then turns to the audience, clears his throat, and introduces the evening’s performance.

“Tonight, ladies and gentleman, you will hear an extraordinary rendition of a new composition dedicated to a simple proposition — the proposition that all lives are salvageable.  In fact, the rendition of this new composition is so extraordinary that I can guarantee that each and every one of you in the audience is in for a surprise!” 

Just then, two Secret Service agents emerge from the wings and race over to the chair of the lead violinist.  Within seconds, the agents have the violinist handcuffed to his chair, and the two are carrying the chair and violinist to the back of the stage.  The audience, stunned, began to murmur, and then turn to each other, and then turn to the Coach for some sort of an explanation.

The Coach extends his arms to shush the audience, and then, with each and every audience member in a state of shock, begins to speak.  “Tonight’s performance of ‘Extraordinary Rendition’ is a new composition I have created in honor of a client of mine, a man who has suffered for many years due to obstacles put in his path as a child.  Ladies and gentleman, the lead violinist’s abrupt departure took place because I have determined him to be an enemy of the people — an obstacle — a man so completely incapable of seeing the power of self-efficacy, a man so completely unable to see the forest for the trees, and a man so completely unable to see the golden path, that I could not continue … nay, would not continue, with him in the orchestra.  Let this simple act serve as a lesson; let this lesson serve as a primer on human opportunity; let human opportunity serve to restore faith in the very potential that each individual possesses at birth; let birth act as evidence that while some may see a glass as half-filled, and some may see the same glass as half-empty, the important thing … the important thing … is to see … ladies and gentlemen … is to see the glass!”

The audience was quiet.  Dead silent, in fact.  Then, way up in the second balcony, a man stood up, and began clapping, slowly, much like Orson Welles clapped for Dorothy Comingore — as Susan Alexander Kane — after a dreadful operatic performance in CITIZEN KANE.  Soon others joined in, and then still others, until the clapping and the noise in the auditorium bitch-slapped me back to the here-and-now.  But before I realized that I was back to my bathroom, I saw the coach turn to me from his podium and say, “The glass!  Don’t forget the goddam glass!  And I’ll see you next Wednesday at Belmont.”

Hale Alan and Denver Bob were tugging at my pants.  “Guys,” I said to them, “what’s up?”  They both looked up at me, and then simultaneously turned and walked side by side out of the bathroom and into the living room where my PC is located.  Both walked over to the chair in front of my PC, and then each put a paw on the chair.  “They want me to sit down,” I thought.  And then it hit me!  I’ve got work to do!

Within fifteen minutes I had set up my Email to ship out Email For Life’s response to all incoming Email, with the exception of course, to Email from the Coach.  “Never again,” I said to Hale Alan and Denver Bob, ”will I ever… EVER … screw up my life again by feeling compelled to respond to each and every Email that comes into my inbox!  I’ve got better things to do!”

But before I construct a mantra out of “better things to do,” I urge you, good reader, to look deep into your soul, to contemplate your humble existence, to take a look around your world, and ask yourself, “Is my life in order?  Have I reached my full potential?  Am I truly happy?  Should I avoid betting on all turf races longer than one turn?”  If the answer to any of these questions is “no,” then have I got a Life Coach for you! 

Me.