This July, while my more sensible neighbors traveled to Disney World or the Grand Canyon, I took a trip on the 911 express to our very own Lakewood Hometown Health Spa for a surprise appendectomy.  There I exchanged my disintegrating intestinal accessory for five (count 'em - five!) fun and antibiotic-filled days.

A week in rehab followed this excursion to Planet Morphine, though I never once saw any paparazzi or tabloid reporters which was a real ego blow.  My recovery stay, at the no-stairs, all-on-one-floor home of a friend, was quietly therapeutic and utterly uneventful.  Back in my up-and-down Lakewood house, I further enjoyed about a month of moving very slowly and feeling as if I'd done entirely too many sit-ups.  The horrific part of "what I did on my summer vacation," however, was not my adventures in Doctorland (it's the new theme park for aging baby boomers), but what I saw on television.

Normally I don't see much television.  To watch TV, a person pretty much has to sit down and stay in one place for a while.  I've never been too good at that, but having my body sliced open and put back together with nine metal staples greatly enhanced my ability to restrict my movement.  NPR, my iPod and videos from the library helped save what little sanity I claim, but sometimes there was insufficient energy to do anything except turn on the TV.  And what did I see?  Endless vignettes of Americans afflicted with mucus, restless legs, toenail fungus and worse.

I'm sorry, people.  All of this falls under the heading of "too much information," and all will be banned when I assume my rightful place as Empress of the Known Universe.  Turn on your TV after my ascendancy and there will be no mucus or fungus of any kind, no yogurt for irregularity, maybe no irregularity at all.  And absolutely no scenes featuring the urinary difficulties of men and women who look as if they should know better than to be sharing this with us.  Some things we don't need to witness, including the gauzily romantic scenes involving (you know) E.D.

While I'm hurling decrees, I think I'll ban gum chewing in public, and cell phone use just about everywhere.  Not only are there some aspects of others' lives we don't need to witness, we don't need to listen to them, either.

We also don't need to listen to other people's music.  (I use the word quite loosely here.)  Moving beyond mere decrees to magical powers, when I am Empress, my head sorcerer will recite a spell that instantly makes everyone driving or living on my street aware of the fact that if their windows are open, mine probably are as well.  Ask nicely and I'll have him do it for your street, too.  All will be able to see the sound seeping into their neighbors' air space and be gifted with the consideration to mind their volume.

Another spell for the greater good of our community would cause any trash dropped to the ground to immolate on impact and thus terrify the litterer into behaving better.  If that doesn't do it, we'll rework the spell to incinerate the guilty party along with whatever was tossed aside.  I'm thinking only two or three low-life slobs would need to be cinderized before word gets around that there's a new Empress in town and she, already testy about being stapled, has zero tolerance for littering.