Ask Mr. Smartypants

I've accepted that I'm often going to find myself in an unexpected part of my home, with no idea why I went there.

"I wonder why I'm in the laundry room," I'll think. I sort of poke around, fold a few things, look in a couple of cabinets, and that frequently does the trick. As I'm peering in the dryer, I'll see the bed linens and think, "I was going to make the beds -- that's why I'm here."

Maybe I'll spot the Canadian Mountie uniform or the hoop skirts back from the dry cleaners and remember that it's Dress Up Date Night. Regardless, when I come to in an unusual part of my home, the room itself provides clues.

If I'm in the kitchen, I'm probably hungry. If I'm in the garage, something needs fixing. If I'm in the guest room, I probably overestimated Angela's enthusiasm toward Dress Up Date Night.

When driving alone, I have the same problem. I might be engrossed in a particularly zesty book on tape (a recent 15-cassetter on the causes and effects of the Battle of Hastings comes to mind) and, suddenly attentive, realize I'm in eastern Georgia.

This is different from getting lost in my house. I know why I'm in Georgia -- because regardless of what my mother says, IQs are not like vision, and having a score of 40 is not "perfect 20/20 intelligence." I just have to puzzle out where I need to be, and since I only go to work, the YMCA and grocery stores, it's not that hard.

Lately, though, I've been getting lost in cyberspace and finding it more and more difficult to regain my bearings.

I'll be wondering about something really important -- who is 11th in line for the presidency, or whether the Thompson Twins were named Thompson or related to each other, and I will type in the name of a search engine.

But in the time it takes me to tap out the keystrokes www.google.com, I completely forget what it was I wanted to look up. Utterly befuddled, I stare at the cursor and the search window and ... nothing.

I try to trace back my train of thought, but recapping my intellectual process is like trying to follow Jeffy through one of his daylong "Family Circus" adventures: difficult and entirely unrewarding.

"Was I looking up something about baseball? Constitutional law? The odds against filling a straight flush? Mountie uniform maintenance?

Sometimes, I drag down the "Open" option on my computer and then, before I can do anything, forget what Web site I was headed for.

These aren't occasional problems. They happen 10 or 20 times a day.

And there are no clues, no hints, no methods of determining what I might have been trying to do.

My absentmindedness has even affected Dress Up Date Night. Half the time, I can't remember whose turn it is to wear the hoop skirt.

Some people enjoy testing their wits with a crossword. Others like Sudoku.

But when I'm looking for a brainteaser to solve, I sit down with a billing statement from a health care provider and chew on that for a while.

"That doctor charged $30 for an 'ASSAY OF CK (CPK)-82550,' " I said to my wife. "How do they get away with it?"

Angela was listening to the Black Eyed Peas on her iPod, something she likes to do when she fears I might try to share my thoughts, and replied, "I couldn't agree more, dear."

Me: "But the 'RBC SED RATE, AUTOMATED-85652' was $34. In my day, for $34 you could take a gal to see 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit,' fill up the Chevette and still have money for a bottle of Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill."

Angela: "I don't know how women lived with men before it was possible to pipe loud music through headphones. I wouldn't last three days."

The bill, for an office visit and some lab work, listed 16 mysterious services and came to $1,118. According to the bill, we owed $273. The insurance company owed $845.

But further perusal indicated the insurance company only had to pay $198.18, or 23 percent of its bill.

"A-ha," I thought. "I'd also like to pay 23 percent of my bill."

So I called Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System's physicians billing service, which handles the moneygrubbing for the doctor, so when you complain that the bill is written in Klingon, the doctor says, "We don't handle that," and when you complain to the bill people that, "For $275, the doctor could at least warm his 'Mr. Freeze' hands before he ... investigates," they say, "Sir, we only handle the billing."

I got the very nice Amy.

"Amy, let's get right to it," I said. "I would like the 'Payor Adjustment' option, the same one you gave the insurance company for their portion, for my 77 percent discount."

Amy: "We don't do that."

Me: "Why not?"

Amy: "I can't explain that."

But I knew why all along. The real price of the services is $471.18, the sum of my share and the insurance company's. The $1,118 is what an uninsured person would be billed, 2.5 times the real price, because lots of uninsured folks won't pay, so they jack up the price to the ones who will to make it up.

So, a few true things:

-- Most people in America can get medical treatment even when they can't pay for it.

-- The price to those who can pay is already raised to cover the cost of those who can't, via insurance premiums, medical bills and taxes.

-- That means we already have a universal health care system, albeit a hypocritical, inefficient, ridiculous one.

So maybe it's time we stopped arguing about whether we should adopt a universal health care system we've already adopted, and instead talk about how to make it work.

I am a dangerous man, I swear it.

Not too dangerous, but bad enough to have my own government intelligence file. Right? Right?

I thought so, not because of the piracy on the high seas charges, (a misunderstanding), or the "conspiring to overthrow the government" thing (boys who read Ayn Rand will be boys who read Ayn Rand).

But because of where I've been and what I've done, I expected the government to take a bit of notice.

When I was 16 I entered Simon's Rock of Bard College, a school so leftist it was rumored you got your own FBI file just by enrolling. Admittedly, that was extremely paranoid, and admittedly, that paranoia amongst the students was largely my fault.

See, one of the most politically deranged guys on campus (he hoped the revolution would come before May, thus disrupting finals and nationalizing beach houses), already suspected he was under surveillance when I met him. After I broke into his dorm room every day for two weeks and moved everything he owned one inch to the left each day, his suspicion solidified.

Luke: "The feds are on me like white on rice."

Me: "Perhaps you should flee. I could look after your Volvo and girlfriend for you."

I never believed everyone at the college got an FBI file, but I do think some of my adventures worthy of official attention, and I'm not just talking about the time my apartment complex seceded from the U.S. to become the independent city-state of "Partyopolis."

Curious, I found a Web site that helps people file Freedom of Information Act requests and, to be safe, requested my files from nine offices. In addition to various FBI branches, I asked for my records from the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Secret Service, Homeland Security and the National Security Agency.

So far I've gotten six letters essentially saying, "Dude, we've never heard of you," one saying they'll keep checking and one from the NSA that said, in more polite terms, "We don't have to tell you anything, Buster. Now beat it, before we really do notice you."

Thing is, I've had to give my info to government agencies who said they were going to start a file, and should have. I've covered some pretty well-guarded politicians, including President George W. Bush, and that involves some paperwork.

More importantly, I was embedded with the Pennsylvania National Guard in Iraq and Kuwait for three months in 2004. I should have been vetted before that was OK'd.

It is the catch-22 of a government that keeps files on its people. I certainly don't want to find out the feds have a 600-page dossier that details how old I was when I stopped sucking my thumb (It was when I started smoking, so I must have been 7), the story behind my first kiss (ah, sweet mysteries of the wedding night) and my entrepreneurial failures (why "PicklePop, the soda with the salty garlic kick" never caught on remains one of my life's great mysteries).

But I hope they made sure I can be trusted around our soldiers and leaders.

I did read "Atlas Shrugged" 23 times in my teens, and I admit to smoking everything in the world except asbestos. What's a guy got to do to get some surveillance love?

The thing us family men forget when we meet our extramarital soulmates, our midlife love matches, is that our wives were soulmates, too, until we broke their romantic spirits.

I think that's what Gov. Mark Sanford lost sight of.

When I met Angela, I'd just arrived in Aiken with two pieces of furniture and 6,000 books.

Her e-mail address was booklover@hotmail.com.

She was my soulmate.

About 80 percent of those books went to Goodwill two years later when the "library" became a nursery. Angela's e-mail address is now her name plus her job.

She's a wife and mother.

Back then, I cooked gourmet meals every night while I drank cocktails and we listened to "All Things Considered." Angela belonged to a wine club that granted her six new vintages every month and she would sit and sip while we talked about politics or our shared passion, newspapers. Dinner hit the table by 9 or 10, then she might take a leisurely bath in the sunken tub, a nifty feature of her condo, while I watched a ballgame.

She was my soulmate.

Gourmet dinners at 10 didn't work once Quinn was born, though I kept trying to cook and serve them until my wife slapped me in the mouth with a box of fish sticks, which we then microwaved and ate.

The only way we're going to get a sunken tub is if it falls through the floor of the second story of our stereotypical suburban home. The only wine club Angela belongs to is Costco. The last time I saw a ballgame in its entirety, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens were heroes. We mostly talk about raising Quinn and trying to reduce the cable bill.

She's a wife and mother.

We used to dance and spend Sunday in bed with the papers, eat brunch and catch a movie, go for a drive or play cards.

We were soulmates.

Now, what romance we snatch is planned like the invasion of Normandy. "Your parents will execute a flanking movement and pick up Quinn, holding her for 36 hours. We will then provision at the Fresh Market, returning to base camp to eat, watch 44 minutes of a movie and fall asleep, completely failing to achieve our mission goal."

It was the ring I put on her finger that took Angela from lover to wife and the baby I put in her belly that took her from wife to mother. She's not a girl anymore, and not a girlfriend.

She's a woman, and when my soul isn't feeling mated with hers, it's usually my fault for wanting to be a boy or a boyfriend when a man and a husband are what's called for.

Sanford met his girlfriend on a dance floor, wooed her in luxury hotels in Manhattan and the Hamptons and thinks she's more exciting than Jenny Sanford could ever be. He's wrong. His girlfriend is exactly as exciting as his wife was before they agreed, mutually, to put away childish things.

The best way to figure out whether I should do something is to ask, "What will the headline be when I get caught?"

If it's likely to include the words "shame," "sorrow," "playpen," "adultery," "mistress," "divorce," "alimony," "exotic dancer," "lying," "tryst," "gallivant," "secret e-mails," "cell phone records," "alibi," "love grotto," "shallow grave," "plagiarized," "Ponzi scheme," "tearful," "alleged," "high-speed chase" or, of course, "Argentinian mistress," I should not do it.

Because I'll get caught.

Drug use, stealing, lying, cheating: I'll get caught.

And the thing about married people's affairs is that there are only three possible outcomes:

-- The affair goes really badly. The girlfriend calls my wife and says, "Keep him. I feel sorry for you. Kissing him is like eating raw squid." Chaos ensues. I end up in a boarding house eating ramen noodles off a coffee table made from cinder blocks and a door.

-- The affair goes really well. I leave my wife. She calls my mistress and says, "Keep him. I feel sorry for you. Kissing him is like chewing calf liver-flavored bubble gum." Chaos ensues. The mistress finds out how much journalists are paid while watching "The Wire." I end up in a boarding house eating olive loaf sandwiches off a table made from an old wooden cable spool I found by the side of the road.

-- The affair goes really well. I divorce my wife and marry the mistress. So I'm right back where I started: married, but to an adulterer who knows I'm an adulterer. Oh, joy.

Me: "Honey, I'm going to the hardware store."

Her: "Yeah, right. Is that what you used to tell her when you were coming to see me?"

Me: "Actually … yeah."

When the Mark Sanford story broke, my wife quickly said, "I wouldn't stand by you. I would heckle you at the news conference. When you told the media, 'I just want to heal my family,' I'd yell, 'We'll heal with the help of a locksmith and a divorce lawyer who is kept in a cage and fed raw meat.' "

I know you can't stay out of affairs by carefully keeping intimate friendships with members of the opposite sex from turning physical. That's like staying sober by sitting in bars every night with a cold beer in my hand, vowing not to drink.

That's why my wife doesn't have male friends. I don't have female friends because I'm unattractive and my personality grates on people, but still, I don't have female friends.

My e-mails, even my deleted ones, live on. My cell phone has a GPS device. I couldn't successfully hide a stack of Playboys from my mother when I was 14, and compared to the absent-minded 38-year-old me, the 14-year-old version of me was James Bond.

If I do something wrong, I'm going to get caught.

And if I remind myself of that often enough, maybe I won't do anything too horrible.

'We need a code phrase," I told my girls as we headed to Hilton Head for vacation.

"We need an expression we can use to let each other know we're being obnoxious, or mean, or that the veins in our neck are about to burst or that the waitress is crying and mumbling, 'All I asked was who would like the bill … why are they pounding the table and screaming about fleeing Russia and the Tsar?' "

"Quinn and I will be all right," Angela replied. "We send our brains to a happy place when ya'll start fighting. But if you think we need a code phrase, that's fine."

Traditionally, in my extended family, we let people know they are getting too worked up by saying, "Shut your @#$%^&* piehole," but that seemed inappropriate. We ended up picking "baby fish mouth," because it's from "When Harry Met Sally," and because it seems impossible to to fight when someone has just said "baby fish mouth."

I thought.

At first it seemed the three of us should keep our safety phrase to ourselves, but then I reconsidered: "Why not share it with everyone, and that way we can all warn each other when our tones of voice, facial expressions or brandishing of weapons gets out of hand."

So on the second night of the trip, as we all were sitting around the dining room table, I told the family of the phrase.

"I don't see why we need some stupid code," one said. "Because you're judgemental and passive aggressive," another replied. "Telling stupid people they are stupid is not judgmental," the first debater answered, "and I'm passive aggressive on purpose. My therapist says it's better than active aggressive."

"Baby fish mouth," I said, and was immediately overwhelmed by bellowing. I don't know who said what but I clearly heard, "I'LL SHOW YOU BABY FISH MOUTH," "WHO DIED AND MADE YOU EMCEE," "YOU'LL NEVER BE HALF THE MAN YOUR FATHER WAS" and "Quickly, Quinn, let your brain flee to our happy place."

That's when I stumbled across my greatest invention (and keep in mind I'm the guy who created the word "hugantic" and first suggested the possibilities of "Veal Whiz").

I slapped the table three times and with my palms down, spread my arms wide.

It silenced them completely.

"What was that," my sister asked, confused.

"It's a conversational tap-out," I answered. "A submission, like in martial arts. It means 'uncle.' I concede anything you want me to concede, but you must stop attacking."

They didn't like it. It was clear they'd rather continue arguments than win them.

But the conversational tap-out stood, and now I offer it up, my little contribution to society. I just hope, as my inventions go, it gains more traction than the lambsicles.