Isn't it always the case? Just when you think things are as bad as they can get, something really terrible happens, and you look back with nostalgia at the ``good old days.''

So, you know how it seemed like there was nothing more annoying than an inbox full of junk e-mail, which you'd have to spend - oh, the superhuman effort involved - minutes and minutes cleaning up?

It was so hard, wasn't it? You'd have to move the cursor to check off all those penile-implant and mortgage missives and then hit the ``delete'' key?

Well, guess what? It turns out we were living in a state of ``bliss'' and we didn't even know it.

That spam you so detest when it's confined to your screen now may be coming to your home. Like a virus that spreads from one species to another, spam is leaving the cyber world and jumping into the real one.

I read about this latest threat to our sanity on NewScientist.com, which earlier this week reported on a paper titled, ``Defending Against an Internet-based Attack on the Physical World.''

In it, the researchers describe how easy it is for malevolent forces to get hold of your home address, and, using various computer programs, subscribe you to an almost unlimited number of catalogs.

And you thought the relentless Crate & Barrel and Victoria's Secret mailings were annoying. Just wait. You'll have to cross a mountain of J. Crew and J. Jill and Restoration Hardware and Ballard Design just to get into your own living room.

``We have been living in a state of bliss, spoiled by the lack of any concerted attacks that utilize these new services, search engines in particular,'' the researchers write.

NewScientist.com reports that this nightmare scenario has, in fact, already happened - albeit to a deserving target, one Alan Ralsky, a self-confessed junk e-mailer.

His home address was published in a newspaper, and angry victims began entering it into as many online catalog forms as they could find. ``A week later,'' NewScientist.com writes, ``he was receiving thousands of letters a day.''

And they weren't love letters, either.

The question, of course, is what is the risk you face of such an onslaught?

In part - and this is my own hypothesis, not some researcher's - it may depend on how jerky or disliked you are, and whether you are currrently in high school, or appearing on a reality TV show.

Although the researchers are totally negative about so-called snail mail spam, I think it actually could help the economy.

Grocery stores could see an uptick in business, as the need for paper bags (to hold the catalogs intended for recycling) grows.

And you know all those dot-commers who lost their jobs? They could find work in a new computer-related field as professional junk-mail sorters.

And, of course, people exposed to new catalogs may start buying more.

Hmmm. I never thought about a trellis, as I live in an apartment building, but it sure looks nice in this Smith and Hawken catalog.

Uh, oh. This spam mail could get really dangerous.