THE MECHANICAL clock is falling behind time because it is one ball short of an hour, the artificial wave makes her nauseous, and when she caught me eyeing the wonders of the Mini Potti toilet that you can carry in your pocket, my wife threatened to withdraw my check-writing privileges.

Each of us, I'm sure, has his or her own private quirk - sneaking a glimpse at the Jerry Springer show, perhaps, or watching the gloop go up and down in a lava lamp, or tuning into the candidates' debate on TV. My weakness is mail order.

The average mail order catalog is a cornucopia of wondrous gadgets and gimmicks to ease our earthly burdens, such as the Kwik-Park foolproof system for reversing into tight parking spaces, or a revolving car seat to help you get out of the thing once you've gotten it jammed between two other vehicles and a tree.

There's the trimmer for getting rid of "unsightly nose and ear hair," and the huge, rectangular magnifying glass that can turn my 14-inch TV screen into a 33-inch jobbie. Also on offer is the "miracle pillow" that is guaranteed to save my marriage - something I'll surely need if I order up any of this stuff.

The thing is, I am quite financially responsible when the family budget sheet is in the red, which is most of the time. The trouble starts when the finances creep 17 cents or more into the black at the same time as I am perusing the mail order magazines. I have three closets full of the results.

It's amazing how much stuff you can accumulate in closets that haven't been cleaned out since the days when hash was the way your mother used you as a garbage disposal for leftovers, coke was the dime-a-bottle gunk you drank to wipe out the taste, and pot was what your stomach became after too much hash and coke.

This all came to light at the Webb household when my wife Elizabeth began slim-lining our possessions for our move to the countryside. She opened the closets, and I haven't heard the end of it since.

Out tumbled a slide projector never used in 26 years, a metronome, a volleyball, Monopoly sets from 14 countries including Greece and Egypt, remnants of carpets that have long since gone to loom heaven, seven transformers, a toy tiger, three ping-pong balls, five lamp shades, two boxes of electrical plugs, three French hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.

That was just the front hall closet. Next came the one with the mechanical clock. At the time, about when Jimmy Carter was leaving the peanut farm for Atlanta, it seemed like a good idea - a timepiece made of notched bits and slides and 60 stainless steel balls to depict the hour and minute in a unique way.

It never quite matched up to expectations, mainly because in the process of putting it together I lost one of the steel balls down a wide crack in the living room floor. The result was a 59-minute hour. It made keeping up with TV schedules rather impossible, except on a planet with a 23-hour 36-minute day.

The clock was summarily retired alongside the slide projector. When I mail ordered that one up, I neglected to consider that I had no slides because I had no camera. That was because I had no money left after buying the projector.

The closet storehouses went on abuilding. Next came the artificial wave, which I sent off for because I thought it would be fascinating to watch wave formations 10 times slower than normal with a viscous blue fluid in a plastic, motorized rectangle, rocking back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. . .

Elizabeth's reaction was something along the lines of, "Have you finally gone completely and totally stark raving bonkers?" After turning a couple or three interesting shades of green, she ordered it condemned to the garbage bin. Instead, I stored it - guess where?

Alas, she has just rediscovered it and is none too happy for having done so. Out goes the artificial wave, along with the Boris Spassky computerized chess set (fine by me - I never won, even at the kindergarten setting), the light box that flashes red, green and blue when hooked up to your stereo, and a long-life light bulb that a mayfly outlived.

It is heartbreaking to relinquish these possessions, being as they have become sort of family heirlooms, or even inanimate pets. I refused to be drawn when Elizabeth asks what family member I abhor so deeply as to make them the beneficiary of these items in my will. (She says she'll settle for the house, car and cats.)

Meanwhile, my wife watches the family exchequer with the same sort of hawkeyed interest that I suspect Hillary reserves for the Oval Office humidor. Never mind. Her attention will shortly be diverted to carpets or kitchen cabinets or other such trivia, and meanwhile new mail order catalogs roll in.

I haven't give up on the Mini Potti, an idea whose time has surely come. Consider: "A revolutionary disposable unisex personal urination pouch, for male or female, young or old." You can keep it in your pocket, or purse, or even the glove compartment of your car.

This stuff apparently consists of a substance that turns pee into a sort of jelly, and you simply drop it into a garbage can. Mind-boggling.

I can see a wee hitch here. If you get caught short on the bus or at a wedding or at a McDonalds with a "toilets out of order" sign, you are likely to cause a bit of a stir if you haul out your Mini Potti and have a go right then and there.

Now if you have had the foresight to have brought along your genuine imitation cheetah-design animal throw cloth (see page 3, price 30 bucks), you can simply toss it over your person for a bit of privacy, turn on your million-candlepower Nite Tracker (page15) to find your Mini Potti, and you're in business to do your business.

Meanwhile, I'm checking the catalog for a book on "How to Defend Yourself and Your Friends on Indecent Exposure Charges for Fun and Profit." I'll let you know.

Thought for the Day: There's two theories to arguing with a woman. Neither one works.

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