I worry for the safety of myself and others, because I am certain that sometime soon, probably walking to work in the Loop, I will see that one, final Titanic ad on the side of a bus, or hear the one, final playing of "Boy! This Water Is COLD!" (or whatever the title of that song is), and that will be it. My skull will burst like a melon dropped from the top of the Hancock Building, and somebody could get hurt by flying shrapnel. I can see it now - me on the elevator at the office:

"Well, what did you do this weekend, Louann?"

"Oh, Frank and I had a lovely time! We drove up to the Dells and toured a cheddar factory. We saw a fascinating IMAX film called ‘No Whey Out.’ When they poured those curds into the holding tank, I could practically smell the clotting milk! What did you do, Francine?"

"Oh, I went to see Titanic for the thirty-seventh time. It was -"

KER-SPLAT!

"What was THAT, Louann?"

"I don’t KNOW, Francine, but the guy in the corner no longer seems to have a head."

"Oh, how awful...Isn’t that Leonardo DiCaprio just a dream???"

"You don’t have to tell me, Francine...."

I don’t know if you get this way, but it happens to me all the time. Something becomes popular, then incredibly popular, then it reaches a frenzy-level and you cannot attend to matters of personal hygiene without seeing or hearing about it. By this point in a trend’s life-cycle, I am usually already living in the woods somewhere waiting for the whole thing to blow-over, preferably the woods in a country which has not yet invented media, like, say, England, which has three TV stations, all run by the government. (You can just imagine what TV is like when it’s government-operated: "And now on the BBC, ‘Tax Return Preparation IV: Crop Loss Deductions.’ Later this evening we present a documentary on the making of cheese entitled ‘No Whey Out...’")

There are many fads such as this which come ripping through the country like a burrito at 3 a.m. Some which spring to mind are gourmet coffee and bagel shops, cigar parlors, Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh, Friends, and, of course, that one which makes us slap our foreheads in a collective "what the hell were we thinking?" - Urkel. But Titanic seems to be worse than all of these put together. It is absolutely inescapable. I am certain that I could be on a train speeding through the tundras of Uzbekistan (I assume Uzbekistan has tundras... and trains, but feel free to correct me) and over the speakers of the train would be playing Radio National Uzbekistan, currently in hour 26 of its "Music from the Motion Picture Titanic Marathon." That is the kind of publicity $200 Million can buy you. (Actually, for $200 Million, you could probably buy Uzbekistan itself, if you wanted.)

This means that my usually method for weathering fads, which is fleeing the country, has not worked, which brings me to my current state - Total Titanic Overload (or TTO, which I am predicting will become an officially recognized syndrome by the medical community by the end of 1998).

I keep hoping people will get tired of it and it will fade away, but it doesn’t. Just when I think things are starting to wind-down, there’s another cover story, or another article in the Tribune or the Academy Awards, and it comes back. I can see no end to this madness: Titanic action figures, a Titanic animated series on Saturday morning, Titanic coffee-table books, Titanic brand ice beer, Titanic perfume - "Smell like Rose! (The young one.)," or, God forbid, Titanic II - "They thought an iceberg couldn’t hold a grudge. They were wrong."

The marketing possibilities are endless. What can I do? I have reached my breaking-point, but the rest of the world seems to just be getting started. So I have decided, if you can’t beat ‘em... Therefore, I am starting the West Chicagoland Titanic Fan Club. If you wish to join, please send $50 to me and I will return to you an authentic piece of the iceberg the Titanic hit that fateful night, along with a certificate of authenticity. Our first meeting will be this June in Uzbekistan. Until then, I will be in my freezer with an ice pick and some envelopes...