OK, ALL you aging Hollies fans, sing along with me: "Look through any window, yeah, what do you see?" I'll tell you what I see. UPS trucks, FedEx trucks, DHL trucks, scurrying all about our neighborhood.

What is generating all this activity? Christmas is long over, yet still they come. There can't be that many birthdays at that many houses that often. Although I am a huge fan of shopping on the Internet, even I can't eat that many Aunt Sallie's pralines. Could all this activity be from . . . home businesses?

Apparently not, if you ask insurance agents. Although UPS thought enough of the exploding home- and small-business market to snap up Mailboxes, Etc., and FedEx gave the same explanation for buying Kinko's, the impression I get from agents and company folks is that this entire home-business thing is considered a no-show. When I ask students in insurance classes to guess how many of their homeowners clients have home businesses, I get mostly blank stares, then guesses between 10% and 80%. I believe the term for these estimates is "WAG." ( "W" for "wild" and "G" for guess. I'll leave the "A" to your imagination.)

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