It was a typical day -- chop wood, carry water -- when I got a pop-up from Symantec: "Your Norton virus definitions are about to expire. Renew now?"

I thought virus definitions went on forever like the giant tortoise or Dick Clark. Evidently, they have to be renewed any time Norton demands "payment."

The Internet was such a good idea on paper. Now we tiptoe through the day afraid of spyware and macros and worms -- oh, my. It's enough to make you become a plumber.

What do hackers get out of the virus anyway? They're not even around to enjoy their evil. It's like ordering a pizza to someone else's house:

"I'll bet they're opening the door right now ... I'll just bet ..."

Norton promotes itself the same way our government does: "malicious threat" ... "security risk" ... "buy this or die!" Norton is even now spreading new viruses should we fail to pony up. So it goes.

But we have to guard our computer, because that is where we store our brains. I myself wouldn't know to use the bathroom if it weren't for Office Calendar.

Have you ever walked in to find your computer thinking? What is it whirring about? Norton?

The whole thing was prophesied by the 1986 thriller "Maximum Overdrive," in which machines reign terror on B-rate actors. You don't believe that appliances have a life of their own? Then how do you explain the cords being tangled up when you get home?

You can't walk into a public bathroom without lights turning on and toilets flushing. One day we'll go to leave the restroom and hear a voice boom out behind us: "Don't you give your back to me!"

I clicked the Norton update button because it was either that or click the Norton update button. A moment later: "Norton has detected a newer version of your software. Upgrade now?"

I shut down other programs while Norton burrowed into my registry. Same thing happened when I installed Microsoft Word. Call me old-fashioned, but I believe that Word processors should process words. They don't have to import spread sheets, open pdfs, create HTML, order stamps, do my taxes, or lodge a tracking chip in my epidermis.

When you arrive in heaven, the Pearly Gates will be just as they described, only the word "Pearly" will be replaced by "Bill," whom you will find there wearing a monocle and stroking his Persian cat.

Norton asked me to reboot and suggested that I perform a full-system scan OR ELSE!

My computer had ten intermediate security threats, the equivalent of orange-red in the Fox News Terrorism Chart (somewhere in the distance George Orwell is kicking himself for not thinking of that).

Once I quarantined these dangers, I was free to start Photoshop and find that Norton had vaporized my fonts!

Reinstalling Photoshop, I got this: "File K724P4.dll is a shared file. Continue with delete?"

It's the kind of message that precedes The Big Blue Screen of Death. What we need is a program to catch you when you do something stupid...

"You've just performed a bonehead move. Recover using Bonehead Deluxe?"

Without such a program, I relied on the same system that I use to make all my life decisions: eeeny meeny miny moe.

Photoshop rebooted the computer, and upon reentry, Norton gave me error LU1845, which means, I'm sure you know, that one of the suites had a processing error and would I like to REINSTALL NORTON!

At that moment I faced the very real threat of a computer crash -- my throwing the damn thing out the window. It took three rounds of eenie meenie miney moe, including a tie-breaker, for me reinstall and re-re-reboot.

Right now everything is chop-wood-carry-water, but you know Computer Rule #1: Just because it works today doesn't mean that it will work tomorrow. I'm starting to think that Norton is the virus, and next time it asks me to download anything -- including the cure to my own cancer -- I will immediately become a plumber.

I've got bad feng shui. Found out last week from Freddy, my feng shui guy. You can tell how pretentious you are by the number of "my people" in your life: my gardener, my plastic surgeon, my feng shui guy.

Chi comes from a word meaning "almost half of Chinese." It also means "wind water," and can we really trust these people with the Olympics?

Freddy didn't warm to my house. It started with the unflushed toilet and went downhill from there. He pranced through the halls, smoldering his sage at my Trouble Spots.

"All these browns and blacks," he said. "Are you shooting for depression?"

I kept my mouth shut, which any married man will tell you is good feng shui.

Freddy recommended some depression-free colors -- eggshell, moccasin, alice blue -- but none of them sounded heterosexual. So it goes.

Freddy followed his divining nose through my home, saying tisk-tisk. No. Really. The actual words: "tisk, tisk." The laundry on my Stairmaster meant that my mind is cluttered (to say nothing of my waist). The TV in my bedroom prevented a good night's rest. The gnats above my sink said it's time to do the dishes.

Freddy didn't see the humor in my garden gnomes or the painting above my toilet -- Kurt Vonnegut's version of the sphincter.

"Come on," I said. "Most people think it's an asterisk."

Tisk tisk.

Here's a question: What's the difference between feng shui and, say, obsessive-compulsive disorder? Maybe Howard Hughes was a feng shui master...

"You'll close the front door with a Kleenex, but not the first Kleenex, the third. Except on Fridays, when I visit with Rain Man..."

Freddy was "shoulding" all over the place. Dinettes should have copper near the base. Bedrooms should not be above the kitchen, which upsets the chance of childbirth (oh, if contraception were that easy). Your bed should face the rising sun, a direction that varies over the year, the point being to always carry a compass.

Runny faucets represent a loss of fortune, as evidenced by how much I was paying Freddy. Wilting plants are bad feng shui; burning the hillside indoors is not.

In the office, place your lamp on the right side of the computer if you are right-handed, and if you are left-handed, seek help immediately. Before turning on your lamp, blink three times and say, "Om mani padme hum." If you live in the southern hemisphere, reverse the order of everything.

You'll need an aquarium, but it must contain feng-shui-certified fish purchased, in person, in Taiwan. The fish will swim in directions dictated by their horoscopes.

We returned to the living room, where Freddy gasped in alice blue. Exposed beams! Turns out that financial strain comes from exposed beams. How much strain depends on the height of the ceiling, the type of wood, and WHAT KIND OF JOB YOU HAVE.

Freddy recommended, with a straight face, that I knock out a wall and remodel. I listened, with a straight face, as he walked away stroking his emerald pendant, a talisman to keep away the sane. Freddy is no longer on the list of "my people." He has since been replaced by "my guard dog."

Feng shui goes on to dictate what you should eat, the scent of your clothing, when to procreate and how. If you stick with it, though, you will find your life evolving to accommodate the mystifying ways of the chi. You're getting the hang of it when your home is simplified to four padded walls and a box of Kleenex.

My career in nagging started early, in Dad's Plymouth Volare:

"Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?"

Until my dad, doing 80, finally said, "Yes, we are there, Jason. And you can step out any time you'd like."

Mom didn't give in either. She'd just rub her fingers together and say, "Honey, what's this? World's smallest violin."

So it goes.

Marriage brought more lessons. My wife and I debated the philosophy of decorative towels until I prevailed with this argument: "Anything you say bounces off me and sticks to you."

Even our love life suffered my grousing. During sex I would always start in: "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?"

You can see why Ventura Unity issued me a "complaint bracelet." Unity is a New Thought church, which means you think for yourself (sorry, middle states). It's hard to concentrate on the message, though, because reverend Cathy Norman is, to speak in clerical terms, a hot chickie mama. Picture Heather Locklear with a heart.

"Happiness," says Cathy, "is an inside job. It's not what you look at but what you see."

To think that I had avoided this place over a mix-up about their opposition to "sects."

Yes, the bracelet. You wear this blue band on a wrist until you complain, at which point you switch arms and start over. Certain religions have you snap the bracelet and carry the welt as a reminder of your weakness.

Cathy handed me the bracelet, and I didn't say a word about its being made in China like everything else, including American flags and most of our honor-roll students.

I thought it would be easy to give up whining, the way I give up baseball every October after the Yankees lose the World Series. Turns out that society promotes complaining. Corporations devote entire departments to it...

"Hello, is this the Kellogg's Complaint Line? Yes, I'm calling about my Frosted Flakes. They were good, but they weren't grrrrreat!"

The problem is ego as suggested by Apostles John and Paul (Let It Be 4:3)...

"All I can hear, I-me-mine, I-me-mine, I-me-mine. Even those tears, I-me-mine, I-me-mine, I-me-mine."

"The antidote to complaining," says Cathy, "is to stop being such a jackhole." Kidding! She would never say that. Gratitude. Gratitude turns it around.

It's a good idea, for instance, to be grateful that your parts work. That's what my friend Mike says. He's in a wheelchair.

Not to toot my own horn, but I was snivel-free for two days until I encountered a major complication: people. They're everywhere!

In Ralphs I bumped carts with a fellow consumer and said, "Whoa, I hope you have cart insurance."

Not only did he fail to acknowledge my epically ingenious play on words, but he snorted!

"Sorry," I said. "I mistook you for a human."

Switch wrists. Begin again.

On the freeway, I blew it four times DURING THE SAME COMMUTE. It's amazing how many people who, despite years of behind-the-wheel experience, still don't get The Merge Concept.

Switch wrists. Begin again.

Day Four: Didn't even make it out of bed. My neighbor started his Nissan Titan at five a.m., and I pictured him being devoured by blunt teeth. What if I slashed his tires? Is that complaining?

The Unitics say that complaining is just a bad habit like grinding your teeth or watching "American Idol." At first it almost hurts to change your ways.

"Get that smile away. It burns. The world is awful, and that's the way we like it."

Fortunately, Cathy provides tech support, sharing stories, staffing a hotline. Some days we just sit in a circle and vent.

"My name is Jason Love, and I'm a recovering whiner. I've been clean now for three days..."

When you go 21 days without complaining, Unity gives you a graduation bracelet. Maybe it's like karate where you work your way up: red for not judging, brown for not lying, black for not cursing in traffic.

Reverend Locklear is right: My psyche is starting to change. The other day I caught myself whistling for no reason and practicing my golf swing in public. My therapist is not going to like this.

Seems like the world is a giant ink blot test: It says more about the looker than anything else. The question is, What will you focus on? Will you believe the world is full of outrage according to your pusher, Fox News; or will you recall, gentle reader, the enduring scripture of John and Paul...

"Let it be. Let it be. Let it be. Let it be."