There is no such thing as 1,000-thread-count Egyptian cotton bed sheets.

Did you already know? Were you already aware of this trifling yet entirely obnoxious little lie that is regularly foisted, like Sarah Palin's insufferable wink, on an unwary populace by a completely evil bedsheet manufacturing industry, drunk on power, black tar heroin and the tears of Chinese sweatshop slave laborers? I bet you did.

Indeed, it's an ongoing, nefarious ruse that effortlessly dupes housewives and sorority girls by the millions as they browse Bed, Bath & Beyond and Target and run their middle finger over the slippery pink sateen and coo about how if 500-thread-count is yummyslippery like dime store baby oil, then 1,000 must be twice as Barbie-liscious. Right?

Wrong. Of course, anything beyond 300 or 400 threads is complete BS, total fakery, often less soft or comfortable, wherein they cheat the verbiage by twisting multiple threads or adding extra layers or coating the threads with oil wrung from dead baby seals (just a guess) and forcing them into entirely useless weavings until all meaning is lost and no one cares anymore and buying sheets is basically an insufferable crapshoot, and the industry goes ha ha snicker.

It's just one of those things, one of those everyday, widespread consumer-oriented lies that have anchored themselves in the culture like some sort of contemptuous tumor, one of a million myriad obstacles you gotta navigate around, through, up and over just to make it through the day and try and sleep at night without slipping off the goddamn bed in a fit of oh-my-God-why-did-I-buy-these-stupid-things.

(Oh, and beds? Mattresses? Those posh, $5,000 ones with the four-inch pillowtops and gold-dipped European springs that have been individually licked by eunuch gnomes? Also a total lie. After about a grand for a great, basic mattress, your body has no clue what it's riding on, and that includes Charlie Sheen and Stoya. Just FYI).

On it goes. Recently was I at Walgreens perusing the candy-colored collection of hardcore chemicals known as consumer sunblocks, all those supposedly safe, healthy, body-protecting lotions, liquids and sprays, nearly every one claiming something quite happily impossible (100 percent waterproof! Total sun block! Does not cause instant blindness in monkeys, we think!), all of them so full of marketing gloss that you're meant to believe one shot of Bullfrog™ Super Waterproof MegaSport SunPreventer Extreme II lets you go traipsing completely naked through sub-Saharan Africa for a month, never suffering so much as a freckle.

It's a crock. According to the non-profit Environmental Working Group, upwards of 92 percent of sunblocks on the shelf are so full of misdirection and deception that you're better off skinny-dipping in the Gulf of Mexico and draping yourself across the sun. OK, maybe not that bad. But close.

Did you read? The EWG's (not very scientific, but still pretty damning) report that reveals how only a handful of sunblocks actually work reasonably well in protecting you from the seriously damaging stuff, like broad spectrum UV rays, melanoma and most of Arizona and Texas? Go ahead, douse yourself in Banana Boat SPF 75 Ultra Sport. The number means almost nothing. Isn't that reassuring? Someone should tell the FDA about this. Oh wait.

What else you got? Food expiration dates? A lie. Ethanol? Lie. Clean coal? Lie. Coke mini? Total bulls-- lie. Bottled water? Massive, unconscionable lie, still and forever. The Bible? Cute cluster bomb of childish oral-tradition mythology told by angry, sexless white men and then translated from multiple dead languages and re-written and re-edited countless times throughout history for the sake of power and political gain and to control the ignorant masses via guilt, shame and fear. Oh, and also a lie. But, you know, a well-intentioned one. Sort of.

So many lies, so many sighs. Quickly doth the question emerge: What the hell do you do about it all? How do you parse and move and breathe? Just how abused and infuriated do you want to feel, on a daily basis? Can you choose?

As if the BP oil spill, the Tea Party and the Texas State Board of Education aren't depressing enough, as if there aren't far too many large-scale events and sour prognostications whipsawing around the culture, nasty devolutions you have no real control over but which nevertheless seem like a loaded gun aimed squarely at the quivering, asthmatic hunk of bunny lint that once was your sense of hope.

Now you gotta deal with the daily pronouncements about how some basic product or service you thought you didn't really have to think or worry about, is actually yet another thing you have to think or worry about. Sure enough, it turns out they're trying to rob you blind and give you cancer and set your dog on fire. Ain't it always the way?

How long can you hold out? How strong is your laughter and how light your step? How much of the ongoing slasher flick nightmare of existence do you actually want to buy into as an actual slasher flick nightmare, and how much can you see as a sweet coming-of-age tearjerker about the little species that could?

Because here's the thing: once you get caught in the madhouse maze, everything begins to look evil and despicable, every product and service, person and politician, movie star and homeless ranter appears to be a minion of the devil out to slash your tires and steal your popcorn.

The good news is, it's not really true. The good news is, most of what we worry and stress about never actually comes to pass. The vast majority of fears are unfounded, the dire threats to our lifeblood turn out to be whimpering clowns who only wanted a moment of attention because they're lonely and sad. Just like everyone else.

The good news is, the good news is still outweighing the bad. The good news is, if everything were as dire and hellbound as the Christian fundamentalist right, the eco-maniac left and the libertarian nutball fringe say it is, we would've blipped out a thousand years ago in a puddle of whining, bloodshed and severely sunburned shoulders. Isn't that reassuring? I have no idea. Who wants lip balm?

Mark Morford's new book, 'The Daring Spectacle: Adventures in Deviant Journalism,' is now available at daringspectacle.com, Amazon, BN.com, and beyond! Join Mark on Facebook and Twitter, or email him. He never reads the comments.

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