It is hard to believe that I ever worked for a living, or at least went to the office. There is just not time enough to read my mail every day, let alone consider going to an office eight hours a day. Forget commuting.

One day last week, I came home with a typical load of mail and newspapers. It was enough to tie me up for the whole day. First there was the Bangor Daily News for breakfast, then the Boston Globe and Boston Herald for lunch, with the news of (still) another Red Sox manager. Are you aware that the Sox have had more managers than the United States has had presidents? And they have done just as good a job.

In addition, I had to stay politically current by buying the New York Times for its political profile on the most interesting Democratic candidate, Al Sharpton. Sharpton was once James Brown’s road manager. That has to be a first for presidential candidates. Then of course I had to struggle through the Times crossword puzzle.

Then there was the latest Sports Illustrated with a great story on Las Vegas oddsmakers plus a great profile on the latest Sox savior, Curt Schilling. The weekly sports-humor column by Bill Scheft is the main reason I subscribe to the magazine.

That day’s mail also included Men’s Journal, which constantly reminds me how to be a “real” man – had fascinating articles on the idiot who sang to bears, right up until the moment they ate him. Can’t finish MJ without back-page research on the latest combat flashlight or other expensive, almost useless trinkets. I always wonder about all those ads for male enhancement and if that is the real reason for the magazine’s publication. Curious.

My eyes were so tired by then, I barely scanned the latest catalogs from Cabela’s and Lands’ End.

But the mail also included the Mount Everest of magazines, the New Yorker. I don’t know how anyone keeps up with the New Yorker. I haven’t even started on the Hollywood edition and that came out Oct. 20.

The best I can do is read the brief Talk of the Town essays, then the cartoons (worth the price of admission) and the movie reviews. Naturally, one must check the table of contents for articles be either read immediately (very rare unless it is a Roger Angell ode to baseball) or placed on the ever-present pile (more likely) on the coffee table for eventual consumption or disposal.

The Cobb Manor rule is that you can’t throw out a New Yorker, read or unread, unless it is three months or one season past publication. If you haven’t read that 40-page treatise on the India-Pakistan political problem within three months, chances are excellent you never will.

I have saved the Dec. 8 New Yorker edition with the page open to the endless report on the David Kelly affair. Kelly was the British scientist who took the suicidal fall for the Blair government’s argument about “yellow cake” and the justification for the Iraq invasion.

Sure I want to know about it, for the next argument with South Carolina conservative (and poisoned pen pal) John Purcell, but do I really have the time? I simply cannot keep up with this avalanche of information.

This was but a single day’s mail. What about tomorrow?

Now that I am retired, I might have to hire a part-time personal assistant to read my damned mail.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.