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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.

-Dave Barry

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Although It Was Constructed

Dave Barry

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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.

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Never Be Afraid To Try Something New. Remember That A Lone Amateur Built The Ark. A Large Group Of Professionals Built The Titanic.

Maybe Somebody Finally Shot The Dog.

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The Places Where Trails Do Not Exist Are Not Well Marked.

Dear Hotel People: We Don't Need A Cheeseball Clock-radio. We Need Places To Plug Stuff In. Thank You.

Warning: This Is Assuming Your Spouse's Name Is Margaret.

Your Job Is To Give People A Reason To Keep Reading.

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.

Spiders So Large They Appear To Be Wearing The Pelts Of Small Mammals.

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.

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.

The Porpoises Said Hello To Molly. She Told Them All Her Teeth Were Green.

I Had No Shoes And I Pitied Myself. Then I Met A Man Who Had No Feet, So I Took His Shoes.

Reporters Aren't Stupid. We Were Standing Around Talking About Which Of The 900 Health-care Proposals That Nobody's Going To Accept Is That Day's Hot News. They Know How Silly That Is. But That's What They Do.

I’ve Noticed That One Thing About Parents Is That No Matter What Stage Your Child Is In, The Parents Who Have Older Children Always Tell You The Next Stage Is Worse.

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

Cats Are Independent, By Which I Mean Smart.

Most Of The Presidential Candidates' Economic Packages Involve 'tax Breaks,' Which Is When The Government, Amid Great Fanfare, Generously Decides Not To Take Quite So Much Of Your Income. In Other Words, These Candidates Are Trying To Buy Your Votes With Your Own Money.

It Was Not Easy Victory In The America Cup. Our Boys Spent Years Experimenting With Different Designs For Their Boat Before They Came Up With The Innovative Idea Of Having A Submerged Nuclear Submarine Tow It.

Directors Are Always Changing Things At The Last Minute. Actors Will Do A Scene, And The Director Will Say, ‘okay, That Was Perfect, But This Time, Bob, Instead Of Saying “what’s For Dinner?” You Say, “wait A Minute! Benzene Is Actually A Hydrocarbon!” And Say It With A Norwegian Accent. Also, We Think Maybe Your Character Should Have No Arms.

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And Now, The Superstore - Unequaled In Size, Unmatched In Variety, Unrivaled Inconvenience.

We Kids Feared Many Things In Those Days - Werewolves, Dentists, North Koreans, Sunday School - But They All Paled In Comparison With Brussels Sprouts.

You Have To Be Careful On The Deck, Because Of The "hatches," Which Are Holes Placed Around A Sailboat At Random To Increase The Insurance Rates.

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.

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

One Of The Issues That We Professional Newspaper Columnists Are Required By Union Regulations To Voice Grave Concern About Is The Federal Budget Deficit, Which We Refer To As The "mounting" Deficit, Because Every Extra Word Helps When You Have To Produce A Certain Number Of Gravely Concerned Newsprint Inches.

One Popular New Plastic Surgery Technique Is Called Lip Grafting, Or 'fat Recycling,' Wherein Fat Cells Are Removed From One Part Of Your Body That Is Too Large, Such As Your Buttocks, And Injected Into Your Lips. People Will Then Be Literally Kissing Ass.

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

Do Not Put This Product In A Big Vat And Drop Rats Into It From A Cat-walk.

Most Guys Believe That They're Supposed To Know How To Fix Things. This Is A Responsibility That Guys Have Historically Taken Upon Themselves To Compensate For The Fact That They Never Clean The Bathroom. A Guy Can Walk Into A Bathroom Containing A Colony Of Commode Fungus So Advanced That It Is Registered To Vote, But The Guy Would Never Dream Of Cleaning It, Because He Has To Keep Himself Rested In Case A Mechanical Emergency Breaks Out.

In The Old Days, It Was Not Called The Holiday Season; The Christians Called It "christmas" And Went To Church; The Jews Called It "hanukka" And Went To Synagogue; The Atheists Went To Parties And Drank. People Passing Each Other On The Street Would Say "merry Christmas!" Or "happy Hanukka!" Or (to The Atheists) "look Out For The Wall!"

You Kids Have Fun, And Be Home By Thanksgiving!" Our Parents Would Call To Us On Halloween Night, As We Staggered Out The Front Door, Weighed Down By Hundreds Of Pounds Of Concealed Vandalism Supplies, Including Enough Raw Eggs To Feed Somalia For Decades. By Morning, Thanks To Our Efforts, The Entire Neighborhood Would Be Covered With A Layer Of Congealed Shaving Cream And Toilet Paper That, Around Certain Unpopular Neighbors' Homes, Was Hundreds Of Feet Thick. This Is How The Appalachian Mountains Were Formed.

The Coyotes Made Too Much Noise Last Night And Kept Me Awake. Please Eradicate These Annoying Animals.

Megahertz: This Is Really, Really Big Hertz.

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."

Look, In Particular, At The People Who, Like You, Are Making Average Incomes For Doing Average Jobs- Bank Vice Presidents, Insurance Salesmen, Auditors, Secretaries Of Defense- And You'll Realie They All Dress The Same Way, Essentially The Way The Mannequins In The Sears Menswear Department Dress. Now Look At The Real Successes, The People Who Make A Lot More Money Than You- Elton John, Captain Kangaroo, Anybody From Saudi Arabia, Big Bird, And So On. They All Dress Funny- And They All Succeed.

I'm Happy To Start On One Topic And End On Another One Entirely, As Long As It's Funny.

Bill Clinton, Who, To His Credit, Has Established A Clear And Consistent Foreign Policy, Which Is As Follows: Whenever The President Of The United States Gets Anywhere Near Any Foreign Head Of State, Living Or Dead, He Gives That Leader A Big Old Hug. This Has Proven To Be An Effective Way To Get Foreign Leaders To Do What We Want: Many Heads Of State Are Willing To Sign Any Random Document That President Clinton Thrusts In Front Of Them, Without Reading It, Just So He Will Stop Embracing Them.

But My Point Is That Competitive Eating Is A Real Sport, And I Considered Taking It Up. But When I Thought About What This Would Mean Sitting Around For Hours, Stuffing My Face With Unhealthy Food I Realized It Was Basically The Same Thing As Journalism.

I Believe That We Parents Must Encourage Our Children To Become Educated, So They Can Get Into A Good College That We Cannot Afford.

I Never Start A Section Of The Story Without Knowing How It Will End. I Also Consciously Try To Shape The Story As Though It Were A Movie.

Meetings Are An Addictive, Highly Self-indulgent Activity That Corporations And Other Large Organizations Habitually Engage In Only Because They Cannot Actually Masturbate.

This Was Years Ago, I Think During The Early [ronald] Reagan Years. I Came Up With A Plan That Everybody Just Pay $8.95 In Taxes. Cheating Would Be Allowed. But The Incentive To Cheat Wouldn't Be Nearly As Great If You Only Had To Pay The $8.95. There Were A Few People Who Would Have To Pay Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars Under This Plan. I Think It Was Mark Goodson And Bill Todman, The Guys Who Do The Quiz Shows. But Almost Everybody Else Would Be Off Really Cheap.

Scientists Tell Us That The Fastest Animal In The World, With A Speed Of 120 Mph, Is A Cow Dropped Out Of A Helicopter.

But From The Perspective Of The Aging Parent, There Is No Major Difference Between Four And Fifteen, Except That When Your Child Is Four, His Motoring Privileges Are Restricted To Little Toy Fisher-price Vehicles Which Are Unlikely (although I Would Not Totally Rule It Out In America) To Sue You.

I Shared This Insight With Some Other Boat Owners, And They All Agreed That, Definitely, Putting Your Boar Into The Water Is Asking For Trouble. Most Of Them Have Had Their Boats Sitting In Their Driveways Long Enough To Be Registered Historical Landmarks.

I Also Saw A Huge Expansion Of The Internet, With Many Major Corporations, Afraid Of Being Left Behind, Spending Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars To Develop World Wide Web Sites In A Frantic Scramble To Reach The Vast New Consumer Market Of Web Use

Trails Need To Be Wider So People Can Walk While Holding Hands.

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

We Operate Under A Jury System In This Country, And As Much As We Complain About It, We Have To Admit That We Know Of No Better System, Except Possibly Flipping A Coin.

Flipping A Coin

Is There A Medical Rule That Requires Doctors-office Personnel To Treat You As Though You Have The Iq Of A Cheeto?

There Are Two Distinctive Classes Of People Today, Those Who Have Personal Computers, And Those Who Have Several Thousand Extra Dollars Apiece.

Congress Shall Also Create A Tax Code Weighing More Than The Combined Poundage Of The Largest Member Of The House And The Largest Member Of The Senate, Plus A Standard Musk Ox.

If The People In Europe Are Soooooo Smart, How Come So Many Of Them Can't Seem To Locate The Deodorant, Huh?

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

The Science Fair Has Long Been A Favorite Educational Tool In The American School System, And For A Good Reason: Your Teachers Hate You.

Men Have No Cause To Criticize Women About The Way They Are About Weddings. Because Men Are Like That About Sports, But It Never Ends. At Least Women, After The Wedding, Say It Wasn't That Big A Deal And They're Never Going To Look At The Dvd Again. Men Never Stop Being Crazy About Sports.

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.

By The Eighties, A Lot Of Radio Stations Had Started Playing "sixties" Music. They Called It "classic Rock," Because They Knew We'd Be Upset If They Came Right Out And Called It What It Is, Namely "middle-aged-person Nostalgia Music.

Talking About Golf Is Always Boring. Playing Golf Can Be Interesting, But Not The Part Where You Try To Hit The Little Ball; Only The Part Where You Drive The Cart.

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