My partner and I just returned from Australia, where we celebrated our tenth anniversary. Fortunately, since he travels for work, and since I’m a miles whore who will open any kind of account (credit card, checking, sperm bank) for free frequent flyer miles, this gave us enough mileage to fly business class.

Many of us have probably had some occasion to ride in the front of the bus on a domestic flight, which mostly consists of some free booze and a seat with almost as much legroom as coach seats had in 1978. But business or first class internationally, on the Airbus A-380? It’s like you’ve died and become the Sultan of Brunei.

Okay, there aren’t any solid gold fixtures on an A-380. Or Death to America posters (usually). And no virgins waiting to be deflowered, although I have heard rumors about what goes on among the flight attendants when we’re all asleep.

But there are egg-shaped seats (that turn into lie-flat beds) so far apart you could stage Riverdance in between them. Nonstop almost-delicious meals and snacks. Enough cocktails and wine to require the presence of a liver transplant surgeon. Designer amenity kits. Pajamas (the size of which are determined by your flight attendant, which can be incredibly flattering or a giant bitch slap). Ever-changing mood lighting. A small lounge and snack bar. And so many first-run movies on your personal entertainment system that you feel like Louis B. Mayer sitting in his private screening room firing underlings.

Sandy and I had never been on the A-380 (since they’re only used for flights that are long enough to require haircuts and a calendar). But I think we should do ALL our travel this way.

I would like to arrive for work fresh from enjoying a truffle omelet and a Bloody Mary. I would like to travel to my in-laws’ house while watching Moneyball, swathed in a duvet. I would like to make a supermarket run wearing Qantas PJ’s and an eye mask that makes me look like a pretentious homeless bank robber. Performing my day-to-day travel via the A-380 would mean that I arrived fresh, sparkling, and slightly tanked.

So if someone could lend me $300 milllion, I’d really appreciate it. I’ll pay you back, really. ‘Cause opening enough credit cards to get a $300 million cash advance should get me a shitload of miles.

Are you one of those irritating people who knew, from a very young age, what you wanted to do with your life?

If you are, and you achieved that career goal, well, bully for you, congratulations and get off my website.

But if you didn’t know who you wanted to be, or you knew and never quite got there, I think you and I may have a profound kinship that should be celebrated over appletinis and fried cheese.

You see, for my money, there’s nothing wrong with standing in your bedroom in your 20′s (or 30′s, and well, actually, maybe your 40′s) singing, “Who am I, anyway…am I my resume?”

This is a Chorus Line reference, and if you didn’t get it, clearly “Broadway Star” was not the future career you envisioned. Broadway Star WAS one of the future careers I envisioned. Along with Trumpet Virtuoso, Nationally Syndicated Newspaper Columnist, Travel Writer, Advertising Mogul and Television Sitcom Creator.

Personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with not being clear about your goals. I mean, from a very young age it was obvious to me that I was destined for greatness (although this appeared to be news to everyone else, who considered my litany of widely varied career options a desperately unfocused need for attention). As far as I was concerned, it just wasn’t clear how that greatness was gonna manifest.

Example: after being blown out of the water by a trumpet player who had the temerity to upstage me at the high school state band finals (a minority student who, by my calculations at the time, should have been busy dealing smack or selecting a tasteful gang tattoo), I decided to abandon the dream of becoming the next Miles Davis.

Example: following an audition for the Six Flags theme park show, where I sang Some Enchanted Evening while performing a tap combination, and the judges just stared at me open-mouthed, I determined that my fame did not lie on the Broadway stage.

Example: when the editor of the college newspaper found my column too “breezy” for the school newspaper (even after I reminded him that it was a humor column, not a series of op-eds on the Iran Hostage Crisis), I concluded that newspaper syndication was a pipe dream.

Although I knew there was something great out there for me, I was always ready and willing to move on to the next career possibility.

Hmmm. It’s funny. Now that I look back, perhaps I wasn’t being patient in my search for greatness. Maybe I was just being too willing to give up. Maybe I was being too thin-skinned. Because, truth be told, whenever somebody implied I wasn’t good enough, I not only believed them, I agreed with them and then ran home to eat Ding Dongs and cut myself.

In fact, I became so good at this self-flagellation that when the actress Tracey Ullman called me in to meet with her about a spec script I had written for her HBO series, and she praised me to what felt like a ridiculous and distinctly unwarranted degree, I tried to unwrap a Ding Dong right there.

But then, sometime in my 30’s, I turned the corner. I began working in television marketing and realized that I was pretty darn good at it.

And then I decided to write a memoir. And I didn’t give up. Even as everyone around me clucked their tongues and said, “Well, at least you’ll get it out of your system.” (After all, I create promos for television series for a living – I couldn’t possibly write something entertaining that was longer than 60 seconds. Could I?) And even as my partner, who was trying to protect me, said, “Don’t be hurt if it doesn’t happen. About 1% of authors actually get published.”

But I kept pushing forward.

And then an agent at William Morris decided to represent me.

And the editor of The Help bought the book.

And Sony and Adam Sandler’s company optioned it as a TV series.

And wow…as I look at those things, I realize that I finally achieved a teeny, tiny bit of greatness.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m hardly retiring on the profits. I’m not lunching with Oprah (sadly) or The Kardashians (praise Jesus). But I published a book. And I’m writing two more.

So maybe I’m just a late bloomer. And if you’ve taken a similar route, maybe you are, too. Because, look, if I can finally achieve some miniscule measure of fame and success, maybe the only thing stopping you is a razor blade and a box of Ding Dongs.

Me:  “Oh my God, look – 60% off a coffee enema!”

Virtually Everyone Within Earshot:  “You really need to see someone about this.”

I am, as almost anyone will attest (if properly threatened) a man of extraordinary taste. Regrettably, I am a man of ordinary means.  And short of a career in shoplifting – which, although chock full of excitement, danger, and hard-to-remove security tags, also comes brimming with untimely incarceration and the bothersome issue of morality – I realized years ago that if I wanted to live in the kind of style to which I’d like to become accustomed, I had no choice but to embrace coupons.

And that notion always seemed like a giant, inconvenient, badly dressed bummer.

Until Groupon came along.

Did you know that these daily deals – offered on everything from fast food to facelifts – can fill you with enormous satisfaction and pride in your own fiscal cunning? You are, after all, getting liposuction for 60% off.

Of course, the fact that I don’t really need liposuction – or that giving it as a gift can set a friendship back ten years – is really beside the point. And since these coupon clubs like Groupon, Living Social and Travelzoo have apps that you can check from your phone – first thing in the morning, on the toilet – there’s really no limit to the amount of money you can save.

Which appears to be the problem.

As someone who has now amassed an impressive collection of pilates classes, psychic readings, bouncy house rentals and beekeeping suits, I’m saving so much money that I’m going broke.

Me:  “Look, a customized bobblehead for just $69 – regular $149!”

Anyone With Sense:  “I’m taking away your phone.”

Of course, it’s not like I have a problem. I mean, sure, I have taken to keeping a log of my purchases and their expiration dates so that things don’t slip through the cracks.

And I’ve begun to forgo group outings, because all my dinner coupons are for two.

And I do occasionally drive all over town to three different branches of a store because they’ll only accept one coupon per visit.

And there’s that pesky issue of refusing to go to any establishment for which I do not currently possess a voucher.

But I am just someone who appreciates the value of a dollar. Someone with a keen eye for financial conservatism.  Someone who understands that a defibrillator at 72% off is the kind of bargain that just doesn’t come along every day.

Now if I can just find someone who’s having a heart attack.

Oh, wait, my partner’s opening the VISA bill. That should do the trick.

Lately, it has come to my attention that I have, over the course of my fairly long and completely stupid life, constantly envisioned myself to be grander, wiser, more successful, and less of a boob than I actually am.

And I’m starting to think I should be concerned about it.

Those of you who’ve read my first book know that the image problems started around age eight – the year when I first began pretending to be Endora from Bewitched.  Now, given my youth at the time, my stunning dearth of friends, a virtual cavalcade of bullies, and my mother (enough said), this particular detour through Crazytown could probably be written off as only slightly disturbing.

But it continued. As a teen and young adult, I was constantly imagining myself as various celebrities – from music superstars to fashion icons to authors. And while knowing where all the swells in applause were on the Liza Minnelli Live at Carnegie Hall album – so I could grandly sweep from the hallway (backstage) into the living room (onstage) to take my bows – might be considered a tad disquieting in a sixteen-year-old, they were downright alarming when I was old enough to knock back a whisky sour.

And now, as a middle-aged man, they have, apparently, worsened. What was once (according to a therapist) an unconscious device to help me cope with alienation and discover my place in the world has now ballooned into what appears to be Dial 911-level psychosis. To the consternation of those around me, I now imagine myself to be Oprah – albeit a tall, gawky, deeply un-tan facsimile.

Of course, I’m not completely insane. Although my best friend Kirk does call himself Gayle, I am relatively certain that I am neither female, nor black, nor beloved. Yet I do believe that I have a life path similar to Oprah’s. Maybe I’m not supposed to spring free houses on deserving people, or pay for the secondary educations of 68,000 kids, or haul my fat out in a Radio Flyer on TV. But I do sorta think I’m supposed to encourage mankind to be their best selves, by simply sharing the ludicrous things I do and the lessons I glean when it all comes crashing down around me.

So, is this crazy? Should I be concerned?

For now, I think I’m just gonna keep on doing it and hope for the best. I figure that as long as I don’t start signing letters with a Big “O” or yelling at the president of Hermes when they won’t let me in after closing, I’m golden.

As a general rule, I do not endorse the act of falling off things as a method of personal growth. But I have to admit – sometimes, it does kinda work.

You see, I’ve always taken my body a bit for granted. I’m a busy guy, forever running to and fro as if in some alternate universe I’m actually important. And it is my nature to just assume that my body is along for the ride, a total team player when it comes to being tortured in ways that defy the Geneva convention. Like Super Dave Osborne or the I-have-no-other-talent stars of a Jackass movie , I think I’m invincible.

To my dismay, however, I just discovered that, apparently, I am not.

The weekend before last, I was in Palm Springs celebrating the birthday of a friend. When my best friend Kirk and I returned to the condo complex where my partner and I have a unit (which we rent out, since it’s worth roughly 7% of what we paid for it), I realized that I had forgotten the gate opener and could not get in.

This was not, unfortunately, the first time this had happened. My friend Kirk sighed with the exasperation of a vegan at Jimmy Dean’s house and said something to the effect of, “You are dumb as a stump.”  We waited a couple of minutes for someone to drive through so I could jump out and whisk through the gate; but no one came. And in my embarrassment at having forgotten the opener yet again, I said, “Ahh, I’ll just jump over the gate.”

After all, I’d done it before.

I used to have an actor acquaintaince who fell off his roof and was paralyzed – and in the sloooow process of recovery, became a much better person. And since that incident I’ve always said, “God, please don’t make me fall off a house to ‘get it’.”

But apparently, that is more or less what I needed to do.

As I climbed onto the massive gate opener arm and hoisted myself to the top of the 8-foot gate, I reminded myself not to let my legs swing too wildly, since I still had a big, fat bruise from the last time I’d tried this. Then, I threw my legs over the top of the fence. And that’s when everything began to go horribly wrong.

It was raining this night, and the iron was slippery, and when I swung my legs over the top, I lost my grip. My foot got caught in the bars of the gate.  And suddenly, I felt myself falling backwards, eight feet, and slamming onto the asphalt. On my back.

The wind was knocked out of me so badly that, for about 30 seconds, I couldn’t inhale. Kirk stood on the other side of the fence, unsure what to do. Scream? Call 911? Check with my lawyer to see what his share was?

I laid there on the pavement, gasping, as the gate slowly swung open and a car sailed through, turning sharply to avoid the body on the pavement (which was clearly an inconvenience for the driver, who couldn’t be bothered to wave).

Kirk ran through the open gate.

“Are you okay?”

I laid there, wiggling my hands and feet, pleased to note that I had not performed a full Christopher Reeve.

“I can’t breathe.”

Several hours later, following a full-body MRI and x-rays at the emergency room of Desert Regional Medical Center, I was given some terribly unearned good news: I had not broken anything or hemorrhaged. I did not have a brain injury (Kirk would argue this). What I did have was a lot of blunt force trauma on the tendons and muscles of my side and back that would require 3-4 weeks and a few fistfuls of Vicodin to heal.

And this healing time has, curiously, been a good thing. Because I now find myself being more aware of my surroundings and more careful within them. I’ve realized that I am not indestructible. And I find myself totally, incredibly grateful for this body I have. It may be long and gawky and not exactly a 10 on the Calvin Klein Underwear Model scale, but it works.  And I’m happy to be inside it, like an astronaut with a sparkly new spacesuit.

Of the many blessings I’m counting this holiday season, one of them is that – although I did have to fall off a roof, so to speak – I didn’t have to suffer the worst outcome to “get it”.

But just in case – remind me not to climb any ladders.