It’s happened to everyone at some point – you are sleeping at home, minding your own business just as your state of consciousness implies, and some stranger breaks in intent on doing you harm. Or to ask you to stop snoring.

Either way, you’re not asking questions and instead reaching for your shotgun. Then it hits you. You keep your shotgun in the closet, up on a shelf, completely unmindful of the constant threat of people breaking in intent on doing you harm. And you think, “We can put a man on the moon, even send him up there with a weapon, yet there is no device capable of allowing me to sleep comfortably knowing that my shotgun is within easy reach.”

Be vexed no more, my NRA friend. The good people at Home Back-up Protection, LLC of Newark, Delaware are well aware of your plight, and they’ve done something about it.

No longer will you have to worry about not having your shotgun near you, and thus constantly vulnerable to strangers breaking in intent on doing you harm. For when you flip off the lights, your mind will be eased gently into sleep with the knowledge you’ve got potent firepower racked bedside thanks to the Back-Up Shotgun Racking System.

This is the kind of simple yet ingenious design that will have you thinking, “Why didn’t I think of a device that allows me to sleep as comfortably with a shotgun by my side?”

The adjustable rack (available at www.the-backup.com) is connected to two flat brackets that slip gently between mattress and bedspring (and if you sleep on a futon, you are a hippie and undeserving of a bedside shotgun rack). The two C-shaped curves at the end of these brackets gently cradle your shotgun with no need of pesky latch or lock. The Back-Up is a holster for your bed, turning your sleeping area into a lethal firing range. Mr. Break-In Guy, meet Mr. 30-Aught-6 with a spray pattern guaranteed to make it difficult to get you out of the carpet after police leave.

No longer will you have to toss and turn with the 9mm that just wasn’t designed to fit comfortably under a pillow. Now you can put that pistol in the nightstand where it belongs, letting your spouse go for your backup piece if, for some reason, your first few shots go wild in the dark.

The makers of the Back-Up do suggest you not use the device when there are children in the home, leaving you completely vulnerable to the break-in guys just waiting for that night you choose not to sleep with your shotgun. Or you can just tell the kids not to touch daddy’s boomstick. Yeah, that sounds good.

To order your very own Back-Up Shotgun Racking System, and thus return to the kind of sleep you had before kicking the booze and painkillers, visit www.the-backup.com. Just one night of paranoid-free peace will have you believing the rest of the world is in for a pretty Goddamn big shock if it thinks it can just walk into your bedroom in the middle of the night and soundlessly take that shotgun from its rack and make you one with the bedding. Because that just won’t happen.

It’s been almost a week now and still so many people are trying to come to grips with what happened. And it’s not easy. Life will never be the same.

Brett Favre retired. Oh, seeing that in black and white is more painful than I thought. And things are just so bleak, I mean, the NFL without Brett Favre, one of the hundreds of quarterbacks who ever played, it’s incomprehensible and … please, just give me a minute. I have to collect myself here.

OK, thank you. I don’t mean to be so emotional, but I am replaying in my mind Brett’s three-hanky press conference in which he and a nation had to come to grips with a Brett-less NFL. Is it really possible? Is it? When the league starts up again in September, will we really be able to plunk down that $175 for a ticket (not including $15 facility fee and $11.50 handling charge) and wonder if we can really bring ourselves to watch a sport in which there is no Brett Favre? And is football really a sport anymore? Without Brett, it’s just a game. A simple meaningless game that will have us asking every Sunday, and Monday nights, and some Thursdays, whether it’s all worth it.

As I watched Brett struggle to find the words to express his depth of emotion (and truly, there are no words, except for maybe, “As you’ve known for days, I’m retiring”), I too was overcome with emotion. All I could think about was how hard this was on Brett, how unfair life truly was to take a man from what he loved. Oh, time, you are a cruel mistress.

Here he was, a man in his prime, just 38 or whatever, faced with years and years of leisure in front of him. While the rest of us struggle to make enough money to retire, keeping busy as fry cooks and Wal-Mart greeters well into our 70s, Brett has to find a way to fill the time in a way that will take into account the millions of dollars he’s made as a quarterback.

Imagine as Brett rises on an NFL Sunday morning, realizing that halfway across the world from his Tuscan villa, large men are beating themselves senseless without him. And has he slowly picks at his breakfast on the veranda, wondering if he should spend a few days in Greece or perhaps tour the Italian Alps for a while, you just know his thoughts will stray to Green Bay and he will think, “I’ll have to check the Net later to get some scores.” And I wonder how Brett will deal with that moment when football once again tugs at him, and I pray that maybe by that time there will be an ESPN Italiano allowing Brett to see those play the game that was stolen from him, not counting the times he has a bunch of friends over to the farm for a game of touch.

Brett, I just wanted you to know that even though you won’t ever play in the NFL again, save for when you are paid $50,000 to participate in an old-timers game, every American – no, every citizen on the globe – admires you for your bravery to retire comfortably at 38. I can’t think of another man or woman who would willingly make the same decision, unless they too were forced to subsist on personal appearances, speaking engagements and lucrative autograph sessions.

I will never forget you, Brett Favre. You are an inspiration to us all.

Was at the gym this morning and saw a sad sad sight. There was a man there lifting incredibly heavy weights who looked to be healthy but was wearing a tank top that came to just above his six-pack abs. And it was obvious his nylon shorts had not been the right size for years, showing far too much of his thick muscled thighs.

It's so sad to see people who can no longer afford clothes that fit. Let me know if you can assist this gentleman. With just a few dollars, we can hlep him buy clothes that will adequately cover his steroid-enhanced physique. And maybe someday we will live in a world where everyone who spends 10 hours in a gym will be able to afford extra large T-shirts and shorts so they won't have to spend so much time staring at themselves in the mirror, wondering how their lives would be if dressed like everyone else.

Thank you in advance.

If there is one thing we know about Oprah Winfrey, the guru of our times, it is that she believes in one simple philosophy: “I shamelessly self-promote, therefore I am.”

While relatively 6.5 billion people live their lives in relative quiet, giving to their fellow man in ways that do not require a media empire, Oprah prefers network coverage every time she does something nice.

The latest example – the TV show Oprah’s Big Give. She has chosen 10 people to make dreams come true for those who have faced extremely hard times, turning stuff like foreclosures and the deaths of loved ones into the feel-good show of the year.

Sure, Oprah could merely toss a million bucks at families lucky enough to have suffered untold hardships, but that would not be Oprah enough. Instead, in Oprah’s Big Give, the person who gives the best and hardest wins.

Yup, Oprah has turned charity into a competition. Kinda makes you wish you were recently diagnosed with cancer while not qualifying for insurance at any of the three jobs you work because you had to take time off while clearing legal troubles created by your ex-husband who hasn’t paid child support in 12 years.

In Big Give, competitive givers must fulfill dreams to Oprah standards. Which likely means in addition to the No. 1 Oprah standard: “When giving, make sure it is broadcast and later available for downloading on iTunes.”

And if you don’t give hard enough and long enough to satisfy Oprah, consider yourself gone. The last giver standing wins one million bucks as well as the chance to fawn all over Oprah for being so damn generous.

As if Oprah would be putting any of her cash into this endeavor. If nothing else, Oprah will take home more far more than a million bucks from this show thanks to so many suckers who would gladly tattoo “In Oprah we trust” on the body part of her choosing.

Her altruism is directly proportional to the amount of media coverage it would generate. And since she has her own talk show, magazine and production company, she couldn’t fart without it appearing in the “Ways Oprah enriched us today” column at oprah.com.

Bill Gates can give a billion dollars to world health and maybe be the subject of a press conference or two. Millions of Americans give weekly to United Way and other charities, some in excess of 10 percent of their salaries, and are happy knowing they are doing some good.

It was a bit surprising when Oprah started a school for African women, mentioning it once or twice on her talk show, as well as in her magazine. Pretty muted by Oprah standards. But that’s because she was saving it for a Major Television Event: Oprah goes to Africa for a global group hug. She shows off these young, poor African women because, with a little Oprah magic, they sure clean up nicely.

(And of course when it is discovered one of the teachers is abusing students, Oprah disappears until she can conduct another carefully orchestrated press conference where, surrounded by happy smiling young African women, she explains she was shocked and saddened when she was told about it, and to whom should she make out the check?)

No doubt Oprah’s Big Give will reel in big ratings, a testament to the number of people who need to get off their ass and get a job instead of watching so much daytime TV.

I always thought the worst thing Oprah could have done for America was to give us Dr. Phil. But it looks like her Big Give will top it.

Can’t help but think of this timeless philosophical puzzle – if Oprah gives to a rainforest, does it make a sound? Hell yes, and probably a book series as well.