Background Image

...

All The Big Corporations Depreciate Their Possessions, And You Can, Too, Provided You Use Them For Business Purposes. For Example, If You Subscribe To The Wall Street Journal, A Business-related Newspaper, You Can Deduct The Cost Of Your House, Because, In The Words Of U.s. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger In A Landmark 1979 Tax Decision: Where Else Are You Going To Read The Paper? Outside? What If It Rains?

-Dave Barry

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

All The Big Corporations

Dave Barry

...

All The Big Corporations Depreciate Their Possessions, And You Can, Too, Provided You Use Them For Business Purposes. For Example, If You Subscribe To The Wall Street Journal, A Business-related Newspaper, You Can Deduct The Cost Of Your House, Because, In The Words Of U.s. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger In A Landmark 1979 Tax Decision: Where Else Are You Going To Read The Paper? Outside? What If It Rains?

Views: 39097

Topic

More From Dave Barry

You Men Out There Probably Think You Already Know How To Dress For Success. You Know, For Example, That You Should Not Wear Leisure Suits Or White Plastic Belts And Shoes, Unless You Are Going To A Costume Party Disguised As A Pig Farmer Vacationing At Disney World.

The Other Major Kind Of Computer Is The "apple," Which I Do Not Recommend, Because It Is A Wuss-o-rama New-age Computer You Basically Just Plug In And Use.

It Takes A Minimum Of Six People, Working In Close Harmony, To Successfully Flush A Nautical Toilet. That's Why Those Old Ships Carried Such Large Crews.

I Can Win An Argument On Any Topic, Against Any Opponent. People Know This, And Steer Clear Of Me At Parties. Often, As A Sign Of Their Great Respect, They Don't Even Invite Me.

Funny Inspirational

The Primary Function Of The Government Is - And Here I Am Quoting Directly From The U.s. Constitution - 'to Spew Out Paper.'

If Charles Lindbergh, Flying With No Instruments Other Than A Bologna Sandwich, Managed To Cross The Atlantic And Land Safely On A Runway Completely Covered With French People, Why Are Today's Airplanes, Which Are Equipped With Radar And Computers And Individualized Liquor Bottles, Unable To Cope With Fog?

Without Good Grammar, The United States Would Have Lost World War Ii.

Leonard Aster Thanked Fighting Prawn And The Mollusk Tribe For Their Hospitality. “you Mean,” Said Fighting Prawn, “for Not Killing You?” “yes,” Said Leonard. “it Was Very Gracious Of You.” “do You,” Said Leonard, “i Mean, Does You Tribe, Shake Hands?” “no,” Said Fighting Prawn. “we Kiss On The Lips.” “oh,” Said Leonard, Looking Very Alarmed.

What May Seem Depressing Or Even Tragic To One Person May Seem Like An Absolute Scream To Another Person, Especially If He Has Had Between Four And Seven Beers.

Buying The Right Computer And Getting It To Work Properly Is No More Complicated Than Building A Nuclear Reactor From Wristwatch Parts In A Darkened Room Using Only Your Teeth.

Chair Lifts Need To Be In Some Places So That We Can Get To Wonderful Views Without Having To Hike To Them.

Japan Has A Low Crime Rate, Unless You Count The Fact That Approximately Every Fifteen Minutes The Entire Cabinet Gets Indicted For Taking Bribes.

Generally The Pythons Are Better Than Anything Else At Killing.

If Swimming Is So Good For Your Figure, How Do You Explain Whales?

I Really Need To Know Where I'm Going With Fiction To Write It In A Way That At Least I'm Happy With. And I Really Think That A Lot Of Fiction Books End Badly Because Terrific Writers Said, "i'll Just Figure It Out" And Plunge In, But Have Created So Many Problems That They Are Kind Of Impossible To Solve. I Mean, I'm Talking Really Good Writers Do This And You Can Tell When They Got To The End They Either Had To Do Something Preposterous Or They Just Don't Really Resolve Things. So For Fiction I Spend A Lot More Time Outlining And For Humor I Really Don't Do Much Of It.

The Word Aerobics Comes From Two Greek Words: Aero, Meaning “ability To,” And Bics, Meaning “withstand Tremendous Boredom.

I Guess Nobody Assumes Anybody Is A Libertarian. It's A More Complex Political Discussion Than Most People Are Used To, To Explain Why You Think The Way You Do About Public Education Or Drug Laws, And Why It's Not As Simple As Being For Or Against Something.

I Haven't Been Able To Slam-dunk The Basketball For The Past Five Years. Or, For The Thirty-eight Years Before That, Either.

At Least Once Per Year, Some Group Of Scientists Will Become Very Excited And Announce That: •the Universe Is Even Bigger Than They Thought! •there Are Even More Subatomic Particles Than They Thought! •whatever They Announced Last Year About Global Warming Is Wrong.

If Peter Was Nine, And A New Boy Came To St. Norbert’s Home For Wayward Boys Who Said He Was Ten, Why, Then, Peter Would Declare Himself Eleven. Also, He Could Spit The Farthest. That Made Him The Undisputed Leader.

This Is An Especially Good Time For You Vacationers Who Plan To Fly, Because The Reagan Administration, As Part Of The Same Policy Under Which It Recently Sold Yellowstone National Park To Wayne Newton, Has "deregulated" The Airline Industry. What This Means For You, The Consumer, Is That The Airlines Are No Longer Required To Follow Any Rules Whatsoever. They Can Show Snuff Movies. They Can Charge For Oxygen. They Can Hire Pilots Right Out Of Vending Machine Refill Person School.

Skiing Combines Outdoor Fun With Knocking Down Trees With Your Face.

Your Friends Love You Anyway.

I Say We Scrap The Current System And Replace It With A System Wherein You Add Your Name To The Bottom Of A List, And Then You Send Some Money To The Person At The Top Of The List, And Then You... Oh, Wait, That Is Our Current System.

We Are Talking About Mutated Women, The Result Of Cruel Genetic Experiments Performed By Fashion Designers So Lacking In Any Sense Of Human Decency That They Think Nothing Of Putting Their Initials On Your Eyeglass Lenses. The Leading Cause Of Death Among Fashion Models Is Falling Through Street Grates. If A Normal Woman Puts On Clothing Designed For These Unfortunate People, She Is Quite Naturally Going To Look Like Revenge Of The Pork Person.

Editorials Are Written By People Who Have Agreed To Have Several Strong Opinions A Day And To Write Them Down, Provided They Do Not Have To Sign Their Names.

The Irs Wants You To Use This Form Because It Gets To Keep Most Of Your Money. So Unless You Have Pond Silt For Brains, You Want The Long Form.

Univac: A Device, Which Contained 20,000 Vacuum Tubes, Occupied 1,500 Square Feet And Weighed 40 Tons; There Was Also A Laptop Version Weighing 27 Tons.

My Mother Told Me, “son, It Is Better To Be Rich And Healthy Than Poor And Sick.” I Have Tried Very Hard To Heed Those Words.

Airline Food Is Not Intended For Human Consumption. It's Intended As A Form Of In-flight Entertainment, Wherein The Object Is To Guess What It Is, Starting With Broad Categories Such As "mineral" And "linoleum."

People Who Want To Share Their Religious Views With You Almost Never Want You To Share Yours With Them.

I Never Stop Running. I'm Not One Of The Weenies Who Drop Out Just Because The Electoral College Votes. I'm Still In The Race. I'm An Extremely Corrupt Candidate And I Stress That In Case Anybody In Our Reading Audience Is Interested In Sending Me Money.

Magnetism, As You Recall From Physics Class, Is A Powerful Force That Causes Certain Items To Be Attracted To Refrigerators.

Canada, As You Know, Is A Major Important Nation Boasting A Sophisticated, Cosmopolitan Culture That Was Tragically Destroyed Last Week By Beavers.

Avoid The Traffic By Using One Of The Park's Shuttle Buses And View The Elk Rut With A Park Ranger.

Do Not Spit Gum In The Drinking Fountains.

I Have Seen Women Walk Right Past A Tv Set With A Football Game On And - This Always Amazes Me - Not Stop To Watch, Even If The Tv Is Showing Replays Of What We Call A "good Hit," Which Is A Tackle That Causes At Least One Major Internal Organ To Actually Fly Out Of A Player's Body.

Although It Was Constructed In 1536, The New York Subway System Boasts An Annual Maintenance Budget Of Nearly $8, Currently Stolen, And It Does A Remarkable Job Of Getting New Yorkers From Point A To An Indeterminate Location Somewhere In The Tunnel Leading To Point B.

Infiniti Ads Are Part Of An Exciting New Trend Called "advertising Whose Sole Purpose Is To Irritate You."

Granted, This System Is Insane, But We Must Not Let Sanity Stand In The Way Of Airport Security.

For Dad, The Perfect Father's Day Would Be One In Which He Didn't Even Realize That It Was Father's Day, Because Nobody Was Making Him Appreciate Gifts He Didn't Want, Or Read Greeting Cards Filled With Lame Father's Day Poetry.

We Americans Live In A Nation Where The Medical-care System Is Second To None In The World, Unless You Count Maybe 25 Or 30 Little Scuzzball Countries Like Scotland That We Could Vaporize In Seconds If We Felt Like It.

The Democrats Seem To Be Basically Nicer People, But They Have Demonstrated Time And Again That They Have The Management Skills Of Celery.

When I Write My Annual Tax Column, Some Ex-irs Agent Will Complain, "there You Go Irs Bashing Again." They're Always Saying That They're Just Doing Their Job. Someone I Know Once Said, "you Could Get Another Job."

There Are Also A Number Of Humans Living Up There (canada), And In Many Ways They Have A Lifestyle Quite Similar To Ours, Including Such Traditional American Activities As Driving Japanese Cars.

My Wife, Like Many Women, Actually Likes Wrapping Things. If She Gives You A Gift That Requires Batteries, She Wraps The Batteries Separately, Which To Me Is Very Close To Being A Symptom Of Mental Illness.

Funny Christmas

Here's My Proposal, Which Is Based On The Tv Show Survivor: We Put The Entire Congress On An Island. All The Food On This Island Is Locked Inside A Vault, Which Can Be Opened Only By An Ordinary American Taxpayer Named Bob. Every Day, The Congresspersons Are Given A Section Of The Tax Code, Which They Must Rewrite So That Bob Can Understand It. If He Can, He Lets Them Eat That Day; If He Can't, He Doesn't.

For A While I Got Into The South Pacific Theater Of World War Ii. I Read "american Caesar" By William Manchester, The Biography Of General Macarthur. Because Of That I Ended Up Reading "tales Of The South Pacific" By James Michener And Then Because Of That Reading His "hawaii." That Is What Happens.

I Did All This Stuff That Was Illegal When I Was A Kid. I Drank Beer When I Was 15. I Smoked Cigarettes When I Was 13. I Drove To New York City When I Was 14 - Don't Tell My Son. Those Things Were Against The Law, But I Did Them Anyway. I Didn't Become A Heroin Addict, Although I Probably Could Have Gotten Heroin Somehow. I Don't Think My Son Would Buy Heroin At Any Price. He Knows What It Is, And He Knows How Stupid It Is.

...hell, Which As Every Frequent Traveler Knows, Is In Concourse D Of O'hare Airport.

My Problem With Chess Was That All My Pieces Wanted To End The Game As Soon As Possible.

Are We Ever Going To Have A Federal Tax System That Regular People Can Understand?

The Great Thing About Golf - And This Is The Reason Why A Lot Of Health Experts Like Me Recommend It - You Can Drink Beer And Ride In A Cart While You Play.

My Theory Is That There Is A Finite Amount Of Intelligence In A Family, And You're Supposed To Gradually Transfer It To Your Children Over A Period Of Many Years. This Is Why Your Parents Started To Get So Stupid Just At The Time In Your Life When You Were Getting Really Smart.

The Best Way To Understand This Whole Issue Is To Look At What The Government Does: It Takes Money From Some People, Keeps A Bunch Of It, And Gives The Rest To Other People.

The Issue We Are Reluctant To Talk About Is Even More Sensitive Than Condoms. The Issue - And I Will Try To Be Tasteful Here - Is That Sometimes It Seems Like Maybe The President Of The United States Is Kind Of Dumb. If You Get What I Mean. What I Mean Is, I Am Not Totally Confident That The President Would Get What I Mean, Unless Several Aides Explained It To Him. And Even Then, He Might Forget.

I Will Vote For The First Candidate Who Promises To Use Nuclear Missiles Against Linkedin.

I'm Not Saying That Women Don't Think About Sex Also. I'm Saying That Women Are Capable, For At Least Brief Periods Of Time, Of Not Thinking About Sex, And That Most Guys Are Not.

If It Weren't For Marriage, Men And Women Would Have To Fight With Total Strangers.

At The Height Of Rush Hour, People On The London Underground Actually Say "excuse Me." Imagine What Would Happen If You Tried An Insane Stunt Like That On The New York City Subway. The Other Passengers Would Take It As A Sign Of Weakness, And There'd Be A Fight Over Who Got To Keep Your Ears As A Trophy.

Have You Noticed That Whatever Sport You're Trying To Learn, Some Earnest Person Is Always Telling You To Keep Your Knees Bent?

Dogs Make Good Pets Because They Are Very Loyal

There's Tremendous Pressure, If You're In That [goverment] System, To Be Involved And Be Interested And To Care About It. There's No Room To Say, "this Is Stupid."

It Is A Well- Known Fact That Although The Public Is Fine When Taken Individually, When It Forms Itself Into Large Groups, It Tends To Act As Though It Has One Partially Consumed Pez Tablet For A Brain.

I Love The Olympics, Because They Enable People From All Over The World To Come Together And--regardless Of Their Political Or Cultural Differences--accuse Each Other Of Cheating.

I've Never Actually Given Birth To A Child, But I Suspect That Going To A Justin Bieber Concert With A Child Is Close.

Ask Any Real Estate Broker To Name The Three Most Important Factors In Buying A Property, And He'll Say: "location, Location, Location." Now Ask Him To Name The Chief Justice Of The United States Supreme Court, And He'll Say: "location, Location, Location." This Tells Us That We Should Not Necessarily Be Paying A Whole Lot Of Attention To Real Estate Brokers.

Dogs Would Make Totally Incompetent Criminals. If You Could Somehow Get A Group Of Dogs To Understand The Concept Of The Kennedy Assassination, They Would All Immediately Confess To It. Whereas You'll Never See A Cat Display Any Kind Of Guilty Behavior, Despite The Fact That Several Cats Were Seen In Dallas On The Grassy Knoll Area, Not That I Wish To Start Rumors.

I Was Really Bummed When I Got To The Last One Of Tony Hillerman Navajo Detective Books.

Magnetism Is One Of The Six Fundamental Forces Of The Universe, With The Other Five Being Gravity, Duct Tape, Whining, Remote Control, And The Force That Pulls Dogs Toward The Groins Of Strangers.

If Everybody Were A Guy, The Human Race Could Easily Get By On Less Than One Twentieth The Current Number Of Shoes.

Sharks Are As Tough As Those Football Fans Who Take Their Shirts Off During Games In Chicago In January, Only More Intelligent.

It Always Rains On Tents. Rainstorms Will Travel Thousands Of Miles, Against Prevailing Winds For The Opportunity To Rain On A Tent.

Back Then, The Entire Internet Consisted Of Two Slow, Boxcar-sized Univac Computers About 50 Feet Apart, Connected By A Wire. It Would Take One Of These Computers An Entire Day To Send An Email To The Other One, Which Would Immediately Delete It, Because It Was A Viagra Ad.

If A Woman Has To Choose Between Catching A Fly Ball And Saving An Infant's Life, She Will Choose To Save The Infant's Life Without Even Considering If There Are Men On Base.

I Took An Estimated Two Thousand Years Of High School French, And When I Finally Got To France, I Discovered That I Didn't Know One Single Phrase That Was Actually Useful In A Real-life French Situation.

One Key Lesson Of History Is That Virtually Anything, Including Afternoon Or Evening Thundershowers, Causes Germany To Invade Belgium.

Modern Cyberspace Is A Deadly Festering Swamp, Teeming With Dangerous Programs Such As 'viruses,' 'worms,' 'trojan Horses' And 'licensed Microsoft Software' That Can Take Over Your Computer And Render It Useless.

Black Stache Had No Love For The Queen, No Love For Women Of Any Sort, Except For His Ma. He Had A Real Soft Spot For His Ma, And Was Truly Sorry For The Time He’d Marooned Her.

Disney Resort And World And Compound, A Place Where Your Dreams Really Do Come True, If You Dream About Having People Wearing Enormous Cartoon-animal Heads Come Around To Your Restaurant Table And Act Whimsical And Refuse To Go Away Until You Laugh With Delight.

When I Read That I Had To Go To Gettysburg.

Americans Who Travel Abroad For The First Time Are Often Shocked To Discover That, Despite All The Progress That Has Been Made In The Last 30 Years, Many Foreign People Still Speak In Foreign Languages

Inspirational Life

There Shall Be A National Anthem Containing Incomprehensible Words And A High Note That Normal Humans Cannot Hit Without Risk Of Hernia.

I Actually Like South Florida. I Never Lived In A More Interesting Place Than This. I've Never Met A Wider Range Of People. I Guess When I Came Here I Thought There Were Cubans And Then There Were People From New York And That Was Miami. Now I Know That It's Cubans, People From New York, And Some People From New Jersey.

It's Very Slow For Me To Create Humor. It Takes Me A Long Time To Write A Humor Piece. It Takes Days.

I Tell People View The Federal Government As A Source Of Entertainment. It's A Lot Easier.

The Mollusks—generous Hosts When They Weren’t Trying To Kill You.

Lobsters Displays All Three Of The Classic Biological Characteristics Of An Insect, Namely: 1. It Has Way More Legs Than Necessary. 2. There Is No Way You Would Ever Pet It. 3. It Does Not Respond To Simple Commands Such As "here, Boy!"

Many People Have Trouble Sticking To Their Resolutions, And There Is A Simple Scientific Explanation For This. In 1987, A Team Of Psychologists Conducted A Study In Which They Monitored The New Year's Resolutions Of 275 People. After One Week The Psychologists Found That 92 Percent Of The People Were Keeping Their Resolutions; After Two Weeks We Have No Idea What Happened Because The Psychologists Had Quit Monitoring.

Excellence Is The Trend Of The '80s. Walk Into Any Shopping Mall Bookstore, Go To The Rack Where They Keep The Best-sellers Such As Garfield Gets Spayed, And You'll See A Half-dozen Books Telling You How To Be Excellent: In Search Of Excellence, Finding Excellence, Grasping Hold Of Excellence, Where To Hide Your Excellence At Night So The Cleaning Personnel Don't Steal It, Etc.

On Behalf Of The Newspaper Industry I Wish To Announce Some Changes We're Making To Serve You Better. When I Say 'serve You Better,'' I Mean 'increase Our Profits.' We Newspapers Are Very Big On Profits These Days. We're A Business, Just Like Any Other Business, Except That We Employ English Majors.

Playing An Unamplified Electric Guitar Is Like Strumming On A Picnic Table.

The Planes Are Crowded And Noisy And Late, And Everybody Hates Everybody. If Armed Terrorists Had Tried To Hijack Any Of The Flights I've Been On Lately, We Passengers Would Have Swiftly Beaten Them To Death With Those Hard Rolls You Get With Your In-flight Meals.

With Humor You Have So Many Options With Topics And Length, I Mean I Can Write Humor Essays In Books Now And They Can Be As Long As I Want Them To Be.

The Internet Is A Giant International Network Of Intelligent, Informed Computer Enthusiasts, By Which I Mean, "people Without Lives." We Don't Care. We Have Each Other.... While You Are Destroying Your Mind Watching The Worthless, Brain-rotting Drivel On Tv, We On The Internet Are Exchanging, Freely And Openly, The Most Settings, Uninhibited, Intimate And, Yes, Shocking Details About Our "config.sys."

There Is A Breed Of Fashion Models Who Weigh No More Than An Abridged Dictionary.

Once Again We Find Ourselves Enmeshed In The Holiday Season, That Very Special Time Of Year When We Join With Our Loved Ones In Sharing Centuries-old Traditions Such As Trying To Find A Parking Space At The Mall.

As You Know, Birds Do Not Have Sexual Organs Because They Would Interfere With Flight.

As The Saying Goes: "if You're Not Part Of The Solution, You're A Newspaper Columnist."

Kids Have *_____ Never* Taken Guidance From Their Parents. If You Could Travel Back In Time And Observe The Original Primate Family In The Original Tree, You Would See The Primate Parents Yelling At The Primate Teenager For Sitting Around And Sulking All Day Instead Of Hunting For Grubs And Berries Like Dad Primate. Then You'd See The Primate Teenager Stomp Up To His Branch And Slam The Leaves.

If You're Like Most Members Of The Baby Boom Generation, You Decided Somewhere Along The Line, Probably After About Four Margaritas, To Have Children. This Was Inevitable. Mother Nature, In Her Infinite Wisdom, Has Instilled Within Each Of Us A Powerful Biological Instinct To Reproduce; This Is Her Way Of Assuring That The Human Race, Come What May, Will Never Have Any Disposable Income.

Flying From The United States To Tokyo Takes Approximately As Long As Law School.

Nobody Cares If You Can't Dance Well. Just Get Up And Dance.

Classical Music Gradually Lost Popularity Because It Is Too Complicated: You Need Twenty-five Or Thirty Skilled Musicians Just To Hum It Properly. So People Began To Develop Regular Music.

The Japanese Tend To Be Far More Co-operative And Docile And Group-oriented. It Would Be Easier To Get The Entire Population Of Tokyo To Wear Matching Outfits Than To Get Any Two Randomly Selected Americans To Agree On Pizza Toppings.

What I Like Best About The Telephone Is That It Keeps You In Touch With People, Particularly People Who Want To Sell You Magazine Subscriptions In The Middle Of The Night.

Violence And Smut Are Of Course Everywhere On The Airwaves. You Cannot Turn On Your Television Without Seeing Them, Although Sometimes You Have To Hunt Around.

There Comes A Time When You Should Stop Expecting Other People To Make A Big Deal About Your Birthday. That Time Is Age 11.

There Comes A Time

We Journalists Make It A Point To Know Very Little About An Extremely Wide Variety Of Topics; This Is How We Stay Objective.

Nobody In The United States Knows What Either A "meter" Or A "kilogram" Is. The Whole Reason Why We Fought The Cold War Was So We Wouldn't Have To Learn The Metric System.

With A Novel, You Have To Have A Story. It's Much More Important To Have It Matter To The Reader What Happens To People, And It Has To Make Sense And End In A Way That Is Satisfying. So I Spend A Lot More Time Thinking About That. Then The Writing Itself Usually Is Easier For Me, Because I Know Where It's Going.

Your Hand And Your Mouth Agreed Many Years Ago That, As Far As Chocolate Is Concerned, There Is No Need To Involve Your Brain.

The Easiest Way To Make A Fruitcake Is To Buy A Darkish Cake, Then Pound Some Old, Hard Fruit Into It With A Mallet. Be Sure To Wear Safety Glasses.

The Most Valuable Function Performed By The Federal Government Is Entertainment.

To People Who Make Moving Ads That Block The View Of Websites: Not Only Will We Not Buy From You, But We Want Shrews To Eat Your Liver.

In The Words Of A Very Famous Dead Person, 'a Nation That Does Not Know Its History Is Doomed To Do Poorly On The Scholastic Aptitude Test.

Weddings Are Crazy. When You Get Right Down To It, A Wedding Is A Party, And Not An Important Party, Really. But For Young People, It Becomes The Biggest Thing In Their Lives. After It's Over, They Realize It Wasn't That Big A Deal.

Let's Talk About How To Fill Out Your 1984 Tax Return. Here's An Often Overlooked Accounting Technique That Can Save You Thousands Of Dollars: For Several Days Before You Put It In The Mail, Carry Your Tax Return Around Under Your Armpit. No Irs Agent Is Going To Want To Spend Hours Poring Over A Sweat-stained Document. So Even If You Owe Money, You Can Put In For An Enormous Refund And The Agent Will Probably Give It To You, Just To Avoid An Audit. What Does He Care? It's Not His Money.

The Only Kind Of Seafood I Trust Is The Fish Stick, A Totally Featureless Fish That Doesn't Have Eyeballs Or Fins.

A Person Who Is Nice To You, But Rude To The Waiter, Is Not A Nice Person.

The United States Tried, By Depressing The Clutch Of Diplomacy And Downshifting The Gearshift Lever Of Rhetoric, To Remain Neutral, But It Became Increasingly Obvious That The Nation Was Going To Get Into A War, Especially Since It Was Almost 1812.

I've Come To Realize That You're Going To Get Criticized No Matter What. Somebody Will Always Hate What You Write, Especially If You Write Humor For A Fairly Broad Audience. Somebody Will Always Find It Not Funny And Declare You're Not Funny Anymore. And Sometimes People Are Just Crazy.

Toaster: A Gift That Every Member Of The Family Appreciates. Automatically Burns Toast.

Aside From Velcro, Time Is The Most Mysterious Substance In The Universe.

I Love Halloween. It Reminds Me Of My Happy Childhood Days As A Student At Wampus Elementary School In Armonk, N.y., When We Youngsters Used To Celebrate Halloween By Making Decorations Out Of Construction Paper And That White Paste That You Could Eat.

Until I Became A Parent, I Thought Children Just Naturally Knew How To Catch A Ball, That Catching Was An Instinctive Biological Reflex That All Children Are Born With, Like Knowing How To Operate A Remote Control Or Getting High Fevers In Distant Airports.

Because Of Some Defect In My Motor Skill, I Can Never Completely Wrap [gifts]....if I Had Been An Ancient Egyptian In The Field Of Mummies, The Lower Half Of The Pharaoh's Body Would Be Covered Only By Scotch Tape.

For Most Celebrities, The Biggest Meal Of The Day Is Toothpaste (they Use Reduced-fat Crest).

People Don't Think Of Writers As Sex Objects. The Women Who Write To Me And Suggest That We Ought To Have Sex Usually Turn Out To Be, Like, Eighty. And Their Letters Always End With, "just Joking."

Don't Get Me Wrong. I Like Disney World. The Rest Rooms Are Clean Enough For Neurosurgery, And The Employees Say Things Like "howdy, Folks!" And Actually Seem To Mean It. You Wonder: Where Do They Get These People? My Guess: 1952. I Think Old Walt Realized, Way Back Then, That There Would Eventually Be A Shortage Of Cheerful People, So He Put All The Residents Of South Western Nebraska Into A Giant Freezer With A Huge Picture Of Jiminy Cricket On The Outside, And The Corporation Has Been Thawing Them Out As Needed Ever Since.

Of All The Wonderful Things Government Says, That's Always Been Just About My Favorite. As Opposed To If You Get To Keep The Money. Because What You'll Do Is Go Out And Bury It In Your Yard, Anything To Prevent That Money From Creating Jobs. They Never Stop Saying It.we Will Say, "this Is Expected To Create X Number Of Jobs." On The Other Hand, We Never Say That The Money We Removed From Another Part Of The Economy Will Kill Some Jobs.

Microsoft Has A New Version Out, Windows Xp, Which According To Everybody Is The 'most Reliable Windows Ever.' To Me, This Is Like Saying That Asparagus Is 'the Most Articulate Vegetable Ever.'

Eternal Boyhood Is The Dream Of A Depressing Percentage Of American Males, And The Locker Room Is The Temple Where They Worship Arrested Development.

Trails Need To Be Reconstructed. Please Avoid Building Trails That Go Uphill.

Remember How He Handled The Iran-contra Never Ending Scandal From Hell? He Went On National Television, The President Of The United States, And Said It Wasn't His Fault, Because He Was Not Aware, At The Time, Of What His Foreign Policy Was.

We Have Always Had Dogs, And They Have Faithfully Performed Many Valuable Services For Us, Such As: 1. Peeing On Everything. 2. When We're Driving In Our Car, Alerting Us That We Have Passed Another Dog By Barking Real Loud In Our Ears For The Next 114 Miles. 3. Trying To Kill The Avon Lady.

Far Too Often, We Fathers Avoid The Subject Because It's So Awkward. The Subject I Am Referring To Is: Buying Gifts For Women. This Is An Area Where Many Men Do Not Have A Clue. Exhibit A Was My Father, Who Was A Very Thoughtful Man, But Who Once Gave My Mother, On Their Anniversary, The Following Token Of His Love, His Commitment, And-yes-his Passion For Her: An Electric Blanket.

The Major Parties Could Conduct Live Human Sacrifices On Their Podiums During Prime Time, And I Doubt That Anybody Would Notice.

Dogs Need To Sniff The Ground; It's How They Keep Abreast Of Current Events. The Ground Is A Giant Dog Newspaper, Containing All Kinds Of Late-breaking Dog News Items, Which, If They Are Especially Urgent, Are Often Continued In The Next Yard.

The Population Of Earth Has Reached 7 Billion People, Every Single One Of Whom Send You Irritating Emails To Join Something Called "linkedin."

Big Business Never Pays A Nickel In Taxes, According To Ralph Nader, Who Represents A Big Consumer Organization That Never Pays A Nickel In Taxes.

People Are Afraid To Own Their Own Homes. People Are Afraid Their Own Government Will Catch Them Fixing Their Houses.

The Voice Belonged To Mr. Pzyrbovich, An Algebra Teacher Who Was Always Called Mr. P, For Obvious Reasons. He Has A Heavy Accent, Which A Lot Of Kids Said Made Him Hard To Understand, Although To Be Fair Some Of These Kids Would Have Never Understood Algebra Anyway.

Dinner Special - Turkey $2.35; Chicken Or Beef $2.25; Children $2.00

Your First Job Is To Prepare The Soil. The Best Tool For This Is Your Neighbor's Garden Tiller. If Your Neighbor Does Not Own A Garden Tiller, Suggest That He Buy One.

The Simple Truth Is That Balding African-american Men Look Cool When They Shave Their Heads, Whereas Balding White Men Look Like Giant Thumbs.

It Was You Readers Who Really Came Through, Proving Once Again That When The American People Decide To "get Involved" In A Problem, It Is Best Not To Let Them Have Any Sharp Implements.

I Think If You Use Twitter And Social Media As Your Main Source Of Information You Are An Idiot, But I Think Most People Who Use It Know Better, So I Kind Of Enjoy It.

Common Criticism Of The Internet Is That It Is Dominated By The Crude, The Uninformed, The Immature, The Smug, The Untalented, The Repetitious, The Pathetic, The Hostile, The Deluded, The Sefl-righteous, And The Shrill. This Criticism Overlooks The Fact That The Internet Also Offers - For The Savvy Individual Who Knows Where To Look - The Tasteless And Borderline Insane.

I've Always Found Relationships, Men And Women, The Fact That They Are So Radically Different, And It Manifests Itself In So Many Different Ways, And Yet Somehow We Still Try To Live Together And Be Friends. I Find That Endlessly Valuable As A Source Of Material For Humor. Generally Dogs Are Always Funny In My Opinion. And The Federal Government - Just A Relentlessly Productive Source Of Humor.

The Scrub Sink...is The Place Where Doctors Wash Their Hands After They Operate So That They Won't Get Flecks Of Your Vital Organs On Their Lexus Upholstery.

Childbirth, As A Strictly Physical Phenomenon, Is Comparable To Driving A United Parcel Truck Through An Inner Tube.

Meetings Are Places Where Dead Ideas Rise From Their Graves And Eat The Brains Of The Living.

Note That Both Of These Papers [the New York Post And The New York Daily News] Are Big Sellers In A City Whose Residents Like To Go Around Saying They'd Never Live Anyplace Else On Account Of They'd Miss The Opera.

The First Animals To Be Successfully Domesticated Were Dogs, Which Were A Big Help Because They Would Bark All Night And Fetch Thrown Sticks, Thereby Freeing Humans From Having To Perform These Tedious Yet Vital Tasks.

It's A Real Smug Self-righteous Punk Kid Saying Nobody Has The Right To Tell Him What To Do And How Dare You Put A Sign Up Saying That I Can't Go On Your Property?

You Must Prepare Yourselves, Young People, Because Uncle Dave's Generation Is Getting Old. We Are Almost Ready To Go To The Retirement Home To Spend The Rest Of Our Days Tapping Our Bedpans Rhythmically In Time To "easy Listening" Rock 'n' Roll. We Must Pass The Torch On To You, And You Must Grasp It, Ideally By The End That Is Not On Fire.

The Method (of Learning Japanese) Recommended By Experts Is To Be Born As A Japanese Baby And Raised By A Japanese Family, In Japan. And Even Then It's Not Easy.

The Story Of The Eighties Will Be The Story Of The Reagan Administration And The Many Men And Women Who Served In It, Some Of Whom Are Already Out On Parole.

Snowboarding Is An Activity That Is Very Popular With People Who Do Not Feel That Regular Skiing Is Lethal Enough.

I Can Snap Your Spine Like A Toothpick.

Dogs Do Not Grasp The Concept Of House Cleaning.

Without Computers, The Government Would Be Unable To Function At The Level Of Effectiveness And Efficiency That We Have Come To Expect. . . . Today's Government Uses Computers Which Are Capable Of Cranking Out Millions Of Documents Per Day Without Any Regard Whatsoever For Their Content, Thereby Freeing Government Employees For More Important Responsibilities, Such As Not Answering Their Phones.

I Don't Have Any Insight Or Understanding On Anything About The Government. All I Think Is That It's Stupid - Which Is The One Perspective That's Almost Completely Lacking In Washington.

France: As A Professional Journalist, I Like The Idea Of A Society Where It Is Considered An Acceptable Occupation To Basically Sit Around And Drink.

If God Had Wanted Us To Be Concerned For The Plight Of The Toads, He Would Have Made Them Cute And Furry.

We Have Been Flooded With Postal Cards From All Over The United States And Several Parallel Universes. Just A Quick Glance Though These Cards Is Enough To Remind You Why This Great Nation, Despite All The Talk Of Decline, Still Leads The World In Tranquilizer Consumption.

You Can, Legally, Possibly Hit And Kill A Fellow Golfer With A Ball, And There Will Not Be A Lot Of Trouble Because The Other Golfers Will Refuse To Stop And Be Witnesses Because They Will Want To Keep Playing.

But That's Kind Of An Easy Stance To Be If You're A Humor Columnist, Because You're Tending To Make Fun Of The Government And The Powerful. I'm Sort Of A Soft-core Libertarian In That My Compass Is Generally Pointing Away From 'let's Let The Government Do This' Does It Matter To Me That It's Democrats Who Think We Need More Elaborate Programs That Involve Shifting Money From One Group To Another Group Or It's Republicans Saying We Need To Take A Harder Look At What Kinds Of Things People Are Watching On Cable Tv? Neither One Of Those Things Strikes Me As A Good Idea.

Funny, Isn't It? The Airlines Go To All That Trouble To Keep You From Taking A Gun On Board, Then They Just Hand You A Dinner Roll You Could Kill A Musk Ox With.

Aside From Velcro, Time Is The Most Mysterious Substance In The Universe. You Can't See It Or Touch It, Yet A Plumber Can Charge You Upwards Of Seventy-five Dollars Per Hour For It, Without Necessarily Fixing Anything.

If God Had Wanted Us To Spend All Our Time Fretting About The Problems Of Home Ownership, He Would Never Have Created Beer. This Is Not To Say That I Am Recommending That You Totally Ignore Your Responsibilities As A Homeowner And Just Sit Around All Day With A Can Of Beer In Your Hand. No Indeed, I Have Long Been A Believer In Purchasing Bottled Beer, And Pouring It Into A Chilled Glass.

Your Federal Government Needs Your Money So That It Can Perform Vital Services For You That You Would Not Think Up Yourself In A Million Years.

When I Say 'serve You Better,' I Mean 'increase Our Profits.' We Newspapers Are Very Big On Profits These Days.

We Believe That Electricity Exists, Because The Electric Company Keeps Sending Us Bills For It, But We Cannot Figure Out How It Travels Inside Wires.

They Have A Lot Of Trouble With Pronunciation, Because They Can't Move Their Jaw Muscles, Because Of Malnutrition Caused By Wisely Refusing To Eat English Food, Much Of Which Was Designed And Manufactured In Medieval Times During The Reign Of King Walter The Mildly Disturbed.

I Report As A Machine; I Write As A Person. That Clear Dichotomy Softens The Transition.

A Full-grown Manatee, Which Can Weigh More Than 1,000 Pounds, Looks Like The Result Of A Genetic Experiment Involving A Walrus And The Goodyear Blimp.

I Liked Making People Laugh, And I Decided I Was An Atheist Early On. My Dad Was All Right With That. We Argued About It All The Time, But It Was Good-natured. He Was The Most Open-minded Human Being I've Ever Known.

The Spanish Government, Having Run Completely Out Of Money, Secretly Sold The Pyrenees To China, And Is Now Separated From France Only By Traffic Cones.

In My Experience, You Run Into Trouble When You Ask A Group Of Beer-drinking Men To Perform Any Task More Complex Than Remembering Not To Light The Filter Ends Of Cigarettes.

You Can Use The Internet To Find Out, From Anywhere On The Planet: Exactly How Much Coffee Is In A Certain Coffee Machine At Cambridge University In England; Exactly How Many Sodas Are Available In Certain Vending Machines At Certain Major Universities; And Much, Much More.

Cambridge University

I Now Realize That The Small Hills You See On Ski Slopes Are Formed Around The Bodies Of Forty-seven-year-olds Who Tried To Learn Snowboarding.

I Always Assumed That At Some Point I Would Have To Quit Making Jokes, Get A Real Job And Do Something Meaningful And Productive That Would Actually Benefit Society. Fortunately This Never Happened.

2. The Instant The Doors Open, You Want To Push Forward As Hard As Possible, In An Effort To Get Onto The Train Without Letting Anybody Off. This Is Very Important. If Anybody Does Get Off, It Is Legal To Tackle Him And Drag Him Back On.

Technically, Windows Is An "operating System," Which Means That It Supplies Your Computer With The Basic Commands That It Needs To Suddenly, With No Warning Whatsoever, Stop Operating.

As A Professional Journalist, I Am Always Looking For New Ways To Get Paid For Being Motionless.

Wood Heat Is Not New. It Dates Back To A Day Millions Of Years Ago, When A Group Of Cavemen Were Sitting Around, Watching Dinosaurs Rot. Suddenly, Lightning Struck A Nearby Log And Set It On Fire. One Of The Cavemen Stared At The Fire For A Few Minutes, Then Said: Hey! Wood Heat! The Other Cavemen, Who Did Not Understand English, Immediately Beat Him To Death With Stones. But The Key Discovery Had Been Made, And From That Day Forward, The Cavemen Had All The Heat They Needed, Although Their Insurance Rates Went Way Up.

Congress Is Thinking About Eliminating A Federal Program Under Which Scientists Broadcast Signals To Alien Beings. This Would Be A Large Mistake. Alien Beings Have Atomic Blaster Death Cannons. You Cannot Cut Off Their Federal Programs As If They Were Merely Poor People.

I'm A Big Believer In Anesthesia. I Think It Should Be Used For Every Medical Procedure, Indlucing Routine Physicals.

I Would Say That The Single Most Important Conclusion I Reached, After Traveling Through Japan, As Well As Countless Hours Reading, Studying, And Analyzing This Fascinating Culture, Is That You Should Always Tighten The Cap On The Shampoo Bottle Before You Put It In Your Suitcase.

Long, Long Ago, Before Eruptions Were Invented, The Molten Lava Had To Be Carried Down The Mountainside, Bucket By Bucket, And Poured Over The Sleeping Villagers. This Took Time.

The Older I Get And The More Fiction I Write, The More I Outline, The More I Think About Plot Before I Dive In And Plunge Too Far.

How Can You Be Afraid Of Women?” “those Ain’t Normal Women.

I Believe It Was Shakespeare, Or Possibly Howard Cosell, Who First Observed That Marriage Is Very Much Like A Birthday Candle, In That 'the Flames Of Passion Burn Brightest When The Wick Of Intimacy Is First Ignited By The Disposable Butane Lighter Of Physical Attraction, But Sooner Or Later The Heat Of Familiarity Causes The Wax Of Boredom To Drip All Over The Vanilla Frosting Of Novelty And The Shredded Coconut Of Romance.' I Could Not Have Phrased It Better Myself.

Skiers View Snowboarders As A Menace; Snowboarders View Skiers As Elmer Fudd.

I Called A Company And Asked To Speak To Bob. The Person Who Answered Said, "bob Is On Vacation. Would You Like To Hold?

Any Parent That Relies On Any Law To Help Him Parent Is An Idiot.

Never Lick A Steak Knife.

Never Trust Anything You Read In A Travel Article. Travel Articles Appear In Publications That Sell Large, Expensive Advertisements To Tourism-related Industries, And These Industries Do Not Wish To See Articles With Headlines Like: Uruguay: Don't Bother.

Trending Author

Dan Quisenberry

Christopher Alexander

Category