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Comments on this column:

As I read your letter it seemed obvious to me that Bubba was a fan of Merle Haggard and Johnny Paycheck, hence the antipathy to McCartney.

How do you really know that Bubba is a woman with a car lot? My reading is that Bubba probably doesn't have a bank account-- that while Bubba may have paid at least some of his debt to society, Bubba undoubtedly still owes both the IRS and the Seven-Eleven clerk he whomped over the head with the Slim-Jim bottle during the unsuccessful robbery. So from this viewpoint, Bubba's reluctance to take your check is entirely understandable, particularly since Bubba would have to look at gold-foiled angels and be reminded what a disappointment he/she had been to his/her mother.

R.R.

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A Master of the Wired World?

I just got my author's copies of a new book from Financial Times Management (London), MASTERS OF THE WIRED WORLD: Cyberspace Speaks Out.

What's remarkable is that this collection of manifestos about the new age a'dawning contains proclamations by Tony Blair, Al Gore, Charles Handy, Nicholas Negroponte, Arthur C. Clarke, Alvin Toffler ... and me.

Anne C. Leer, editor

To order, click here. Discounted price is $18.87 from Amazon.

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A few months ago, I, a compulsive music collector, slapped my own hands and told myself to never go near a cutout bin again.

And I haven't. But God help me, I discovered online auctions on the Internet, and they've pulled me back in.

eBay is the biggest and oldest. Amazon Auctions is the new kid on the block. They're fun and pretty safe. The seller pays the auctioneer a quarter, the item goes on auction, usually for a week, and users check in from time to time to see if they won. The buyers rate the sellers, and vice versa, so a bad rep eventually bars you from further auctions.

The auctions are used CD heaven -- jazz, rock, pop, classical. The first week I binge-bought a dozen. But I made one big mistake: I won an auction of a McCartney CD from someone named Bubba, then discovered in the small print that Bubba only takes money orders -- no checks, and no Visa.

This meant going to my bank to get a money order. And that meant leaving the house.

I protested in e-mail, begging Bubba to take my check. "It's a good check," I insisted. "Everyone takes my checks. There are angels on them, and gold foil. Hold onto it until it clears, then send me the CD. I -- I don't get out much."

Bubba was unmoved. "Do business with me, you play by my rules. I don't know I can trust you. Besides, I hate Paul McCartney more than you could ever know. I will not keep his CD in my house."

Then Bubba got cute. "Maybe you need to get out more, Michael. Smell the flowers. That's the glory of money orders."

The cute thing sealed it. Things had gotten exceedingly personal by this point. Bubba considered me the king of flakes, and I considered Bubba the poster child for anal retention. But I didn't dare show it, or Bubba could diss me to the auction and no one would take my bids again. I would have to keep my own money!

That night I tossed in the bed, asking Bubba rhetorical questions. "How come you need 100% assurances that my money is good, but I get no assurances you will even send me the CD? Have you never heard the phrase, 'The customer is always right'? Can't we all just get along?"

By morning my attitude had evolved to resignation. I did things I seldom do. I got dressed, left the house, drove a car to a grocery store, and asked at the customer service window, where they sell cigarettes and flowers and stamps, to buy a money order for $9.70 -- $6.50 for the CD, $3.20 for postage -- with my credit card.

"You can't buy a money order with a credit card, sir," the woman said.

"Why not?" I mean, I could sort of see why not, but -- really -- why not?

So I go to the cash machine, agree to pay $1.50 for my own money, return to the customer service counter, and pay an additional 49 cents for the money order, plus a 33 cent stamp to mail it.

Just then the woman behind me in line drops her grocery bag, and a 16 ounce jar of salsa tumbles to the floor, breaks open, and splatters tomato chunks, green peppers, and minced onions all over a row of potted azaleas. And my shoes and pants cuffs.

Smell the flowers -- wasn't that what Bubba said? Well, all I could smell was my money going up in smoke, and the acid fragrance of Pace Mild Picante Sauce.

But I guess I learned a lesson. The impersonal, robotized new world of e-commerce does not quite get around the problem of personalities:

Me -- I spent a day and a day's earnings to avoid visiting my bank, which offers free money orders and is only a half mile from home. To buy a record I, too, don't want to have around.

And Bubba -- who I found out later is a woman named Dolores who runs a used car lot, and has known more than her share of cheaters and weasels -- was bound and determined not to be cheated and weaseled by me.

And I think Paul McCartney once wrote her a bad check.