I sell banzai trees at a pushcart positioned in front of a dollar store. Today I overheard one woman say to another, "Have you seen what the Olson twins have done to themselves?"

I became interested more because I was intrigued that someone more passionately cared about the Olson twins than, say, the crumbling economy, SARS or a faux president. I have to admit, I have, from time to time, become frightened of their power, especially considering their parallels to Martha Stuart.

Martha Stuart was a model in her teens where the Olson twins are uber-models at the same age. Martha Stuart has her own magazine and, at a combined age that is still younger than Ms. Stuart, the twins have their own magazine. Having spent their lives in show business, the Olson twins are worth over a hundred million dollars. This amount is only rising. Ms. Stuart's empire is worth a billion dollars. It would appear the only threat that might plausibly frighten Ms. Stuart would be if the Olson Twins were to develop a craft division of their fast-growing empire.

I was hoping the woman would explain to her friend that The Twins had cast themselves with Betty White, Tim Conway and Steve Guetenberg in their made for TV Christmas special, "To Grandmother's House We Go." I remember how I guffawed when I saw this occur.

"No," I would protest. I felt that their casting themselves in a movie with Steve Gutenberg was a bad idea when I first saw it, too, I would assure them, but in this sense, The Twins are capitalist geniuses. In a sense, they are like Wal-Mart, buting cheap products and selling them for cheap prices. They are the vehicle through which they sell cheap products (Steve Gutenberg, Betty White, etc), for cheap prices and make millions of dollars in return. Brilliant.

"Twin A," the girl began to explain (unfortunately, I am unsure of which twin, Mary Kate or Ashley, she spoke so I find neutrality to be the best mechanism of explanation in this tale) "cut ten inches of her hair and dyed it brown."

This is what concerned her?

Lame.