If you've been to a bookstore in the last decade, you've probably noticed that there is a Complete Idiot's Guide for everything. They started as a way for helpless computer users to learn how to mail wang jokes to each other without deleting their office hard drive, but they've grown into a phenomenon. There are complete idiots' guides for adoption, voodoo, extra-terrestrial life, breastfeeding... there's a damn book called The Glove Compartment Guide for Dummies, and the following are even stranger.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Being Psychic

This features ''Idiot-Proof steps to learn how to visualize unseen objects and events.''  This might sound like everything you need to open a spoon-bending business, but think about how irresponsible this book is.  Do you want complete idiots wandering around with psychic mind powers?  Every day our brains are not being melted into paste by supervillains is another day we just got lucky, and now thanks to this book, we have to worry about morons firing invisible rays out of their heads on accident.

The next guide we need is the Complete Idiot's Guide to Sending Notes Back in Time, because we need to get a letter to the past that says, ''Dear primitive people: This may sound silly, but if you discover the secret to unlocking fantastic mind powers, please hide this information from the stupid.''

Before the public runs into the street in panicked fear of the growing number of invincible, stupid psychic mutants, we might not be in that much trouble.  It's possible that this book will only unlock the ability to foresee future idiocy.  I'm... I'm getting a psychic vision.  I see... me... sitting down on the hot stove... then slipping comedically on a banana peel and landing with my head in a bucket.

The Compete Idiot's Guide to Beanie Babies

Finally, a book about collecting lobster-shaped beanbags without all the genius baggage.  Because let's face it, before the Complete Idiot's Guide to Beanie Babies came out, every time you bought a book teaching you how to collect stuffed animals, you looked like a pompous asshole.  The clerk would ring you up, ''That will be $19. 95, and I guess you think you're better than me, jerk.  Maybe I could get you an extra bag to help carry out your ego.''

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Vampires

This is the book you need if you're plagued by mystical blood-sucking creatures of the night, but want your tiny brain's hand held while it learns how to defeat them.  This might be taking advantage of complete idiots, since as you know, vampires were long ago made extinct by the Easter Bunny's hunter-killer cyborgs.  That's why there isn't a Completely Level-Headed Non-Insane Person's Guide to Vampires, and even if there were, it would just be one page long with a graph illustrating how you should quickly run in the opposite direction from any approaching Dracula.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Walking for Health

Call me a master detective if you want, but if you've written a book about walking that's 320 pages long, go ahead and leave the words ''Complete Idiot's Guide'' out of the title.  I'd sort of figured that out already.  However, the book itself may be more redundant than its title since most walking enthusiasts already own Learning to Walk for Space Geniuses.  Here's an excerpt: ''When taking your second step, apply the coefficient value of your left foot's instep to the degree of incline from the second pulsating vein in the forehead of your giant oversized brain's head.''

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Enhancing Self-Esteem

I understand and acknowledge that the term ''Complete Idiot'' in the titles of these books might be a cute nickname for people who only suffer from partial idiocy, but when a person is trying to improve their self-esteem with a book, the last thing they need is to get called names every single time they do it.  That's like throwing a raging kegger for recovering alcoholics or printing fitness tips on a hot dog.  If keeping the ''Complete Idiot'' brand name in the title was so important to the author, it should have been called ''Enhancing Self-Esteem for the Complete Idiot Who May Also Have Interesting Hobbies and Pleasant Breath.''

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Homeschooling

Many parents are interested in homeschooling their children to keep them out of public schools because, let's face it, public school curriculums are just the thinly disguised teachings of Joseph Stalin and his cousin Satan.  Free Consumer Tip: If the first step of taking charge of your child's education is to admit to yourself and a bookstore clerk that you're an idiot, you're also going to need The Complete Idiot's Guide to Reserving In Advance Your Messed Up Kid's Appearance on Jerry Springer.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Impeachment of the President

This book covers the Clinton scandal that rocked both the blowjob and regular world, and also explains the complexities involved in impeaching a president.  It's nice that idiots want to be ready for anything, but impeachment doesn't come up as often as you might think.  And in theory, complete idiots are not in charge of it.  Read the book if you want, just don't expect a phone call from your nation's leaders saying, ''Complete idiot!  Please explain this to us, your country needs your help!''

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Decoding Your Genes

Decoding genes is complicated work; there's a reason why RV parks don't have centrifuge hookups.  Because very rarely does a person need to power their trailer's genetic engineering devices while they visit the World's Largest Pancake Museum.  Hopefully, by the time you're ready to start messing around inside a person's DNA, you've been educated past the point of doofusness, simply for the sake of our gene pool.  Because how long will it take after morons learn the secrets of genetics before their children are manufactured to have mud flaps and barbecue-sauce dispensing tails?

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Being Vegetarian

Vegetarianism has baffled people for many years.  Underwear labels and their singing, dancing fruit have all but destroyed the line we were once able to draw between vegetable and animal.  To save you $20, 352 pages and a trip to the bookstore, idiots looking to become vegetarians can read the following sentence, after this one. In general, the key to being a vegetarian is this: If your food would at one point have tried to eat you and you are not fertilizer, send it back.