How to Awesomefy Your Doppelganger

Once upon a time, if you were shopping for weird stuff, you turned to the newspaper and magazine classifieds. But things have changed. Now, you can buy just about anything on the internet.

Even yourself.

Back in "the day," classified ads ruled. Somebody, somewhere, was always willing to sell an old couch, or a rifle, or one lone orphaned bookend. Classified ads were educational, as well. That's where many of us learned the valuable lesson underlying alluring advertisements such as, "Learn how not to be gullible! Send $5 cash to..."

There were (and still are) flea markets, too, in case you were in need of a large box of assorted nails, some commemorative railroad plates, or a barely-used set of encyclopedias that was missing the volume "ROO to SWA."

A few years later on, late-night TV inherited the role of odd item shopper's mecca, causing thousands of Americans to perk up, sit up and shop: "You know, Pearline, I think it's about time we owned a kitchen knife that can cut through random pre-formed masonry." But time continued to march, and late-night TV was soon supplemented by dedicated shopping channels, which successfully combined the concepts of instant gratification with insane, out-of-control levels of endless, crushing consumer debt.

And then came email and the internet. Suddenly, marketers didn't even bother waiting for you to want something. No, they just pushed loud, bold, colorful emails at you, over and over and over, and over and over, until you caved in, collapsed on the carpet in a surrendering fetal ball, and started keying in credit card numbers.

And now, everything is available on the internet. It's all out there, somewhere. Books. Music. Food. Everything is for sale (shipping & handling not included). Cigars, cars and car parts. Pets or furs, or furniture, or pots. Or pot. Vacuums and vacations and vitamins and vice. Drugs. Booze. Everything's for sale. Brides from Moscow. Members of Congress. (mishandling not included)

So, I thought I'd seen it all. I thought I'd seen everything that could possibly be bought.

I was wrong.

Last week, while searching the internet for a few vials of tiger blood and some freeze-dried Adonis DNA, I was drawn to an ad that invited me to Awesomefy my life. Me! Awesomefy my life! Today!

I have to admitilate - my intriguishness was piquefied. I clicked the ad.

The link tookify me to a website that offered to teach me how to take charge of my own destiny by "Quantum Jumping" (as opposed to taking charge of my own destiny by "clicking the 'Back' button"). Quantum Jumping, said the website, is the process of "jumping" back and forth between billions of parallel dimensions, where there are billions of parallel You's. These You's are your doppelgangers, your cosmic twins, each having taken a different existence-path. They are all you, but each on an alternate trajectory, each with different skills, different stains on their quantum carpet, different CD collections and, with any luck, different credit card numbers that would still belong to you, in a quantum sort of way.

Now, speaking of destiny-management, let's dip into current events for a moment. Like everyone else who has no family, or hobbies (or appointments, dates, restraint, self-respect, or TV remote control), I've been following the news coverage of Charlie Sheen. Here's a famous, successful, talented TV and movie star who, if you believe the tabloids, is about two quantum hops away from doppelganging Caligula during Rush Week at Ba'al University.

To be sure, I'm nobody to be giving anybody advice. But maybe, just maybe, Charlie could use a little Q-Jumping. Who knows? He might bump into a version of himself that's more like a young Mickey Rooney, or that Timmy kid from "Lassie." I think it's fair to say that Charlie could do worse than give Quantum Jumping a go; otherwise, he's liable to get himself declared a controlled substance and end up in a little bottle with a child-proof cap.

I don't know about you, Charlie, but I'd be bored stiff if I had to live out the rest of my life on a medicine cabinet shelf in somebody's suburban bathroom.

Anyway, the founder (I'll call him "Bob") of the "How To Quantum Jump" site has a name that sounds like an old Iron Butterfly album, and he's from one of those countries that eschewed democratic principles in lieu of managing massive Customer Service call-in centers.

Bob claims that a person, say, you, who wants to be, say, a writer, can use Quantum Jumping to bounce around alternate universes until they find a parallel version of themselves (a doppelganger) who happens to be a brilliant, successful writer in that universe. Then, I suppose, you just eat that doppelganger's head, click your heels together three times, jump back to your own universe, and start cashing royalty checks and fielding offers from Oprah's Book Club.

According to Bob, over 180,000 customers have made successful Quantum Jumps, where they hooked up with their doppelgangers, spent a little quality time with themselves, ate their own heads, scored some instant career skills, and popped back into our dimension ... after, I'm sure, their pre-jump matriculation checks had cleared.

At his website, Bob displays his stellar qualifications by staring straight ahead a lot and holding out his arms like that left-most singer when The Village People launched into "YMCA." Bob insists that Quantum Jumping is within everyone's grasp, through the cosmic principle of "thought transference" and, of course, the more temporal principle of cash transference.

Obviously, Bob's credentials include much more than simply having a very long name and being able to stare at stuff. (I mean, let's face it. Charlie Sheen's credentials could include staring. Before lunch, anyway.) Prior to making insane claims about alternate universes and head-eating, Bob worked in Silicon Valley, and he once published an important paper, entitled "Meditation vs. Tequila."

Or maybe that was Charlie Sheen.

Should you choose to sign up for one of Bob's seminars, you'll learn that all physical matter is the result of particles vibrating at certain frequencies (a theory known in some academic spheres as "Schrodinger's Jello"). During the next session ... assuming you sprang for the 2-day package ... you'll learn that, to change one's current reality, all one needs do is change the frequency of one's thoughts. (This is not to be confused with changing the frequency that one actually has thoughts. But I see no reason to drag Congress back into this.)

The website's "mission statement" boasts that the company's goal is to spread enlightened ideas to 500 million people, so that everyone can get "a little more awesome." (Awesomer?) To that goal, the company offers a series of brochures and tracts designed to help you Awsomefy your life, as well as an extended weekend retreat that they call the "AwesomenessFest," which they say with a straight face.

Really.

Alert Shopper's Shopper Alert: Apparently, Bob's budget only covers the first 500 million doses of Awesomicity (doppelgangers not included). And, according to an unsubstantiated rumor, there are only about 3 dozen doses left, thanks to an ad hoc party hosted by all three Charlie Sheens. So call now!

Who knew? Who knew that, on the world wide web, you could buy you? As I said, I was wrong. Who knew you could just jump on the internet, learn how to jump around alternate universes, then jump on about 2,500 of your own quantum twins, chomp down on their heads, jump back home, and end up starring in your own sitcom entitled, say, Two-and-a-Half Thousand Men?

Only in America.

But, as the old saying goes, there's nothing new that ends well in the sun.

Or something like that. However that old saying goes. I never learned much about the Solar System ... when I was a kid, my family was missing volume "ROO to SWA."