The other day I was laying in bed and imagining being adrift on the ocean on a roughly bed-shaped raft when my iPhone buzzed. It was alerting me that I'd received an email ... in this case, an email from myself. From the past. Four years in the past, to be exact. You see, back then I'd used a service called FutureMe to send myself a message; I had completely forgotten about it until it showed up in my inbox.

I'm still not sure what to make of the message or its significance.

My past self openly wishes that I could write him back, as I possess information about how his future will unfold. This seems to be a particular concern of his, as he mentions a conversation with a then-coworker about fate and how he wants to believe in it.

My past self also asked me a slew of questions I'm no closer to answering now. And he hopes that I will have broken free from certain attachments and patterns that still grip me ... though I may, in fact, be a little more aware of what those attachments and patterns really are. (Then again, I may not be.)

Finally, my past self closes by saying it was great for us to get back in touch and he asks that I remember him as he remembers the Rays that came before him. By that, I think he meant fondly but to be honest, he's not really someone I want to hear from anymore.

It seems like I am always needing to do my laundry. No matter how thoroughly I attack the mountain of dirty clothes that lives in my bedroom, it always comes back ... sometimes with a vengence.

For this reason, I often feel like I am treading water when it comes to laundry. Most of the time, I rely on the rough balance that exists between the amount of socks and underwear I possess and the frequency at which I must do laundry to avoid getting too far behind. Sometimes I will wait until I have literally worn every article of clothing I own then spend an entire day washing it all. Other times I will put off doing laundry by simply purchasing new socks and underwear.

But tonight's laundry challenge wasn't related to the size of the load, but rather its cost. Not only had the washing machine and dryer in the basement of my building recently undergone a significant price increase, but my personal supply of quarters had been dwindling too. As a result, I was exactly three short of the the 11 required to successfully wash and dry one load.

Unfortunately, the change compartment in my car did not have the required coins. This meant that I had to obtain three quarters through other means. With my bank closed, there was only one course of action that made sense to me: visit the drug store up the road and purchase something using the cash I was lucky to have on hand ... something that, after Marion County's 7-percent sales tax, would net me between 75 and 99 cents in change. (After some debate, I settled on a 99-cent bag of honey-roasted peanuts.)

Anyway, so after obtaining the necessary coinage, placing my dirty clothes in the washer and adding my detergent, I noticed a warning I had never seen before:

Immediately, I wondered what could possibly be so serious about putting the detergent in after the laundry that it would cause the manufacturers of this coin-operated washing machine to go to such trouble in emphasizing the danger of doing it. Oh well, I shrugged. I don't have much respect for the proper way of doing things anyway.

So I don't know if this gives you a peek into the American male consumer's psyche or just my own, but I've noticed that several products are being marketed on the basis of their (alleged) old-school masculine bona-fides.

Perhaps more troubling is that this appears to be working on me.

Consider a few months ago when I bought a stick of Mitchum deodorant because it had a sticker on it that said something like, "If you only go to the doctor when you think you're dying, you're a Mitchum man."

Or last week when I purchased a bottle of Old Spice body wash that included the following nugget of wisdom: "Old Spice — If your grandfather hadn't worn it, you wouldn't be here."

Or perhaps this Canadian Club whisky ad that I stumbled across today and find strangely compelling, even though there's no way the main image is anything but contemporary:

It reads:

YOUR MOM WASN'T YOUR DAD'S FIRST
He went out. He got two numbers in the same night. He drank cocktails. But they were whisky cocktails. Made with Canadian Club. Served in a rocks glass. They were effortless. DAMN RIGHT YOUR DAD DRANK IT

Hmmm...

• One can Coke Zero Cherry
• One wild cherry Yoplait yogurt
• One cup of coffee
• One Chipotle BBQ Snack Wrap with grilled chicken
• One Honey Mustard Snack Wrap with grilled chicken
• One small order of French fries
• 20-oz Minute Maid diet lemonade
• One cup of hot tea
• Some cottage cheese with pineapples
• One delicious cupcake
• One can Diet Cherry Dr Pepper
• One peanut butter Gatorade nutrition bar

• One Lo-Carb Monster Energy Drink
• One blueberry Yoplait yogurt
• 1/2 Chocolate-covered Dunkin' Donuts donut
• One Caesar Salad
• One Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger
• Five chicken nuggets
• One Diet Coke
• One cup of hot tea
• One pre-workout fruit smoothie
• One post-workout protein bar
• One Caesar Salad
• One Blue Moon (medium)
• 6-oz sirloin, medium
• Garlic mashed potatoes