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A few years ago I read through the often hilarious two best-selling volumes of Letters From a Nut by "Ted L. Nancy" (rumored to be Jerry Seinfeld, who wrote the intro material), collections of facsimiles of actual letters written by Mr. Nancy to various companies and agencies, with detailed proposals outlining Mr. Nancy's business and personal plans (requesting permission of a hotel chain, for example, to allow him to bring his own kitchen-sized fridge with him when lodging, or asking a bus company to allow him to travel on board while costumed as a giant stick of butter [or banana, I forget which]. The letters in reply, by turns equally whimsical or in sober warning, were often as amusing as the initial letters themselves.

Two episodes from those books came to mind this morning when I heard a radio report about a trademark-dilution case decided by the Supreme Court. In one, Mr. Nancy wrote, I think, to Coke and Pepsi about his plans to bottle his own low-calorie colas (projected names: "Kiet Doke" and "Piet Depsi"). In the other, he hoped to open a tiny eatery with slot machines across the road from Nevada's much larger Whiskey Pete's (he intended to call his joint "Whiskey Pat's", and after receiving a warning letter from Whiskey Pete's, offered to "compromise" by switching to "Bourbon Joe's").

So when I heard an NPR news announcer this morning describe a Supreme Court decision over a dispute between Victoria's Secret and a mom-and-pop Kentucky sex-toy emporium (which called itself at one point "Victor's Little Secret"), I knew that for me to read such a story on-air without laughing might prove well-nigh impossible.