As always, my readers are a lot more inventive than I am. Alice from Dumont e-mails, “Whenever friends want to take me on a grand tour of their big new addition, I shoot back, No way!  It’ll just make me sick with jealousy.  Stops ‘em dead in their tracks, and I don’t have to traipse through their mansion eating my heart out.”

Bernard of Haworth says he falls asleep every night by imagining shooting his more successful friends in the neck.  Says there’s just something about the image of a bullet piercing his buddy Charlie’s adams apple that relaxes the hell out of him.

And Vinnie up in Northvale has rescued himself at the age of 73.  He e-mails that last year he noticed that the tomatoes in his yard closest to the area where his great dane moves its bowels are by far the biggest.  So Vinnie has built himself the mother of all compost heaps and is winning  tomato contests up and down the East coast.  When his cousin Anthony brags about his new 48-foot yacht, Vinnie says, “Tony, any asshole can buy a boat.  Let me see you grow a tomato big as a basketball.” 

Hey, I’m not promising any of these ideas’ll work for you.  But who knows.  It’s a life long battle, pal.  You don’t want to go down without a fight.

And whenever you feel really down, think of me, E-man, biggest loser of all.  At least there’s one person you can feel superior to.  E-mail anytime with your problems or solutions to E-man@secondbestthemovie.com.  Remember, the only thing worse than being a loser is pretending you’re not.