Tidying up my life

I get more and more e-mails informing me that I have been invited to be someone's "friend" on Facebook or some other such technological monstrosity. I just wanted everyone to know, however, that I am no longer accepting new applications for friendship. This is partly due to the fact that, after 49 years, I have acquired a sufficient number of friends to meet my requirements and I no longer have any unmet psychological needs.

In the past, it is true, I have made various levels of friendship publicly available. There is, first,

• The General Friendship Plan, which involves a general acknowledgment of your existence, and other privileges including personal greetings when meeting in public.
• The Silver Friendship Plan, under which I include you in my computer address book and promise to remember your name.
• The Legacy Gold Friendship Plan, in which I will pay at least passing attention to any births, deaths, and weddings in your immediate family. This level also includes a guarantee that I will remember the names of your spouse and children, and that I will invite you over for dinner occasionally.
• The Friendship Executive Circle, which includes a spot on my cellphone speed dial.

But the number of friends I have accumulated over the years is so substantial that it has caused me to consider actually purging my list of friends and paring it down to something more manageable.

So don't be surprised if you get an e-mail from me indicating that, in my effort to tidy up this one aspect of my life, you have been identified as unneeded and that I am therefore uninviting you from my life.

There is a possibility that a few positions could come open upon the death of any of my current friends. In that case, it might be possible to make a few additions. So if you know any of my current friends, you'll know what you need to do to improve your chances.

Like every other person I know, I have an increasing need for efficiency. It's just one of the costs of living in the modern world.