When the phone rang at 5:30 a.m. on a recent Sunday morning, my wife and I were both sound asleep. Since she does most of the talking in our house, it's on her side of the bed. As she struggled to find the buttons in the dark, I turned over and lifted up on an elbow, already running mental scenarios about kids and grandkids, earthquakes, wildfires, you know the tape loop that begins to play in your brain at moments like this.

She finally hit the talk button and a recorded voice was able to say "President Barack Obama has " before she hung up. I uttered a scatological expletive. Neither of us said anything else, and after a quick trip to the john, we both tried to go back to sleep.

Fat chance.

Laying there with my eyes closed, trying not to shift around too much just in case she was actually able to fall asleep, peeking every once in a while at the big red LED numbers on the clock and wondering how it could still be only 5:37, I couldn't help but wonder how many of my friends and neighbors in Homer were awakened by this robo-caller which was clearly programmed by one of those ignoramuses Jay Leno seems to encounter every time he wanders out on the street with a microphone. You know the ones, can't identify a picture of Dick Cheney or name a single supreme court justice, but know the names of every contestant on Dancing With the Stars. "A four hours earlier than Eastern time? Really? I had no idea. "

The image of the poor camel, the burlap sacks strung across his back as the farmer adds one stalk of straw at a time, leapt into my mind. His cries of pain as the load, already more than he can bear, gets microscopically heavier with each stalk. And when the crack of bone is finally heard he bellows so loud that the farmer is startled, jostling the sacks and inadvertently knocking off half-a-pound of straw, but it's too late.

I've had all I can take.

The calls at ridiculous hours are bad enough. But then there is that item on Ebay I absolutely need, and at a price so low I'm drooling onto the keyboard. Scrolling down to the shipping information I see it. "We do not ship to Alaska or Hawaii."

Or the $7 package of office paper I tried to order from Office Depot online, only to discover that they want $24.87 to ship it to me.

I suppose the worst was the girl at the car rental counter in the Miami airport who took a look at my driver's license and informed me with a charming smile that they don't rent to people from outside the country.

No, that wasn't the worst. The worst was the teenage check-out girl at COSTCO in Modesto, Calif., who took a look at the check I wrote and said, "We only take checks from the United States."

I knew better than to try and argue with her, let alone give her the geography lesson she had obviously slept through in school, so I asked to see a manager. While we waited for one to arrive I asked casually if she had ever seen a map of the United States.

Her pretty face clouded over into a frighteningly ferocious scowl, and she said "You don't have to get nasty about it!"

Maybe our bi-polar United States Senators, Begich and Murkowski, could bury the hatchet long enough to write a piece of legislation requiring that anyone selling anything online ship to every state in the Union. I know it costs FedEx and the Post Office more to fly those 747s all the way to Anchorage, so I'm willing to pay a bit more for my shipping, but let's be reasonable.

Actually, now that I think of it, they fly those 747s up here anyway. The great polar route and all that.

But let's not quibble. I'm a reasonable man. I just want what every other citizen of our country gets. A chance to buy things and have them sent to my home for a reasonable cost.

Oh yeah, and not to be awakened at ungodly hours by phone calls from someone who doesn't know what time it is where they live, never mind where I live.

Marty Leichtung has lived (and tried to sleep) in Homer since 1970. He retired after 30 years on the Slope and is an avid cyclist.