5 People I Need to Work For Me

I don't need the type of hired help that many people long for: house cleaners, schedulers, errand runners, nor kid transporters. I need people to help me clear my head of all the foolishness I force myself to keep up with.  Here are the ones I need the most. (Applications will be taken tomorrow.)

1. Mail Reviewer--In a fit of nostalgia last year I subscribed to nearly a dozen magazines. It was nice for a while, and I enjoyed them. Then the piles of dog-earred, book-marked volumes began to grow. I need someone to go through all the old magazines and organize all those "great ideas" and "future plans" into something I actually stand a chance of getting around to. This lovely person would also be responsible for sorting the incoming mail, combing through the debris of an over-stimulated world for the few useful nuggets of originality.

2. Battery Analyst--This person's never-ending job would be to scan my environs for batteries, separating those that are new from the duds. They would also need to know exactly when any battery in my environment was about to give out. Then, of course, they would produce said battery and perform the replacement operation. Brilliant.

3. Lightbulbs and 4. Leftovers--See #2.

5. (And this is actually the most important of the lot.) Medical Headlines Scrutinizer--There are so many "new studies" and "revised recommendations" and "exploratory drugs" that I cannot possibly keep up. This person would identify, isolate, and research all claims and present me only with those credible crumbs that survive review.

Here's my inspiration for #5: Today's newscasts and web headlines feature the following work of the University of Minnesota as provided to them by the Iowa Women's Study: "Older women who take vitamins and minerals have a 2.4% increased chance of death." That's it, I call bullshit! Look, 2.4% of those women could have fallen on the way to the medicine cabinet. And 2.4 % of those women could have choked when the pills went "down the wrong pipe". I say 2.4% of those women could have gotten into car accidents driving to the store to buy their supplements. Come on already: This is stupid!

And I'll bet if I had a Medical Headlines Scrutinizer I would find I could go a lot longer in between my own trips to buy more acetaminophen! E-gad...