IT'S BEEN a bad week.

Monday morning I woke up late, burnt my toast, and dented my fender trying to get the car out of the garage. My windshield wipers wouldn't work, Iran declared war on the United States, and someone put corn starch in my Cremora.

In the office, my secretary called in sick, the bottom fell out of the stock market, and my boss gave me a bawling out for screwing up the office baseball pool.

By the time I got home I was depressed. My favorite primetime TV show, "Family of Bubble-heads," was preempted by a base ball game, which was bad enough, but the announcer kept on making statements like, "The score is four to one...but who cares? The economy is in a tailspin!"

And the other announcer would say: "Yipes, what a beating those boys took on the floor today."

"Not a pretty sight. Did you take a huge loss?"

"I sure did. And I bet a lot of the viewers did, too...hey hey, looks like a grand slam home run!"

"Over five hundred points."

Finally this got too depressing, so I decided to call an old friend, Rev. Brightside. The Rev was a Krishna during the '60s and then dropped out and made a bundle on mood rings. I met him during an EST session at the Ensalen Institute and we got to be pretty good friends before I was kicked out for parking illegally on a hugging workshop.

Ring, ring.

"Hello?"

"Rev! How ya doin', buddy? Long time no see. Hey, how's the old wolf... get any lately?"

"Just a minute. This is his wife. I'll see if my husband is in."

Yipes, a grievous error. But soon I was reconnected.

"Hello? Who the hell is this?"