The doorbell rang, shattering the stillness of Sid's afternoon. He rose uneasily from his armchair sanctuary and, after an epic struggle, stumbled to the front door.

"Good afternoon, Mr. McAlister," cooed the suited stranger. "My name is Barry Hester, and I represent the Giga Corporation's Neurosciences Department. How are you this afternoon?"

Sid shrugged slothfully but was interrupted before he could summon a proper answer.

"Excellent," responded Barry as he plowed through his scripted routine like a brakeless bulldozer in a mudslide. "Allow me to explain why I'm here. GigaCo is test marketing an innovative new product, and we thought you'd be interested in a discount subscription to our revolutionary Smart Amplification Gizmo for Encephalons, or SAGE for short."

Sid blinked blankly, longing for the lotus-like oblivion of his La-Z-Boy chair.

"SAGE is a cutting-edge contraption which clinical testing suggests will augment your analytical adroitness an amazing 25 percent." Barry produced what appeared to be a symmetrically dented colander with a tangle of wires protruding from it.

Sid nodded noncommittally, punctuating his apathy with a mild grunt of indifference.

"For only five dollars a month, this dandy doodad will compliment your creativity by nearly a quarter." Barry dredged inside his briefcase, unearthed a colorful glossy brochure, and offered it to Sid expectantly.

Sid avoided direct eye contact with both Barry and his sales propaganda. Instead, he shifted his beer from one hand to the other, adjusted his deeply distressed belt, and unsuccessfully resisted the urge to scratch himself.

"Did I mention the introductory subscription comes with a complimentary GigaCo beer stein?" Barry stroked his chin tentatively as he often did when he improvised.

Sid reluctantly motioned for Barry to come inside.

Sid tapped anxiously on the VideoCon remote control as he paced back and forth across his den. Every now and then he pirouetted ponderously around the discarded copies of The Atlantic Monthly and The Economist that cascaded down from his overutilized bookshelf and littered the floor.

"Barry, this is Sid McAlister. Yep, you sold me that SAGE subscription a few weeks ago. How is it? To tell the truth, that's why I'm calling..."

Sid's eyes widened as he listened intently to the transmission from the other end.

"Really? That would explain why I felt the urgent need to write the Associated Press and plead my case for the Oxford comma. So all of this extra mental capacity is just consumed by needless worrying, eh?"

Sid fidgeted with the remote's brightness control as he rocked back and forth nervously on his heels.

"Yeah, that makes perfect sense -- add some more mental capacity so I can tackle these worries effortlessly, and that'll take the edge off. But how much will it cost me?" Sid braced himself for the bad news, but a supernova smile suddenly erupted across his face instead.

"Free? Thanks, Barry. I was worried about how I was going to optimize my stock portfolio's asset allocation in light of the recent surge of beta volatility, but that'll be a breeze now..."

Barry straightened out his suit and smoothed over his scruples before ringing the doorbell at the McAlister residence. The door eventually opened after a prolonged period of silence. Unshaven and unkempt, Sid motioned for Barry to enter inside.

"I got your message. How you holding up, pal?"

Sid forced a smile, thereby revealing a garland of dried up condiments scattered throughout his ragtag beard.

"Hold tight there, buckaroo, and we'll get you straightened out in no time. So, what precisely are your symptoms again?"

Sid cast his eyes downward and shook his head like a dilapidated metronome. "A murky malaise has eclipsed my elan vital, Barry. I've seen the potential that I've flippantly squandered, and I weep for what I might have been."

"Come again?" stumbled Barry, thumping his chin uneasily. He strongly suspected that he might need to deplete his improvisational reserves this time around.

"I could have been a scientist, unyielding in my quest to expand the frontiers of knowledge. I could have been an author, revealing the inner mysteries of the human soul in a courtly cadence. I could have been a painter, capturing the transitory truths that dance about our daily lives and preserving them for eternity. Instead, I was a wastrel, a slacking lollygagger."

"But with the SAGE, you can be any of those things you choose," Barry protested.

"And therein lies the problem: I can be any one of those things, but not all. I must choose, and in this age of overcompartmentalized specialization and hyperspecialized compartmentalization, I feel paralyzed by the prospect of that choice."

"Well, as a last resort, we could always reverse the SAGE's effects and discontinue the subscription."

"That would be for the best," conceded Sid stoically.

Barry gave a solemn nod as he studied the SAGE and removed a single red wire with surgical precision. "There, put it on for thirty seconds, and you'll be back to normal in no time."

Sid did as he was instructed. After the thirty seconds elapsed, Sid threw off the colander in disgust. It rolled unevenly across the floor, its once symmetrical indentations warped beyond repair.

"Darn it, Barry, your cockamamie cure didn't work. My mental capacity is back to normal, sure, but I've still got these pesky memories of what could have been. That, that, malaise whatchamacallit, it's still there, choking my soul like an asbestos noose."

"Don't fret," said Barry, sensing his cue and rubbing his hands intently. "You're in luck, because it just so happens that the Giga Corporation also has the recently patented Recall Elimination Apparatus for Memory, otherwise known as REAM. It's not on special like the SAGE, but for a mere $10,000, REAM can erase those malignant memories permanently..."

"Now wait just a cotton-picking minute!" roared Sid, sensing that he was being set up.

"Yes?" countered Barry with feigned surprise.

"Do I get another complimentary beer stein?"