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Before Going On A Diet You Should Consult Your Doctor, Or At Least Send Him Some Money.

-Dave Barry

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Before Going On A

Dave Barry

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Before Going On A Diet You Should Consult Your Doctor, Or At Least Send Him Some Money.

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I Am Much More Likely To Care About Someone Trying To Be Funny And Give Them Some Credit For Whatever He Or She Did That Was Remotely Funny Than I Am To Be Mused By Somebody Declaring This Isn't Funny, That Isn't Funny, This Sucks. If You Want To Write Humor, You're Going To Have To Get Used To That.

We'll Try To Cooperate Fully With The Irs, Because, As Citizens, We Feel A Strong Patriotic Duty Not To Go To Jail.

As Far As Outlining Is Concerned, I Don't Outline Humor. I Might Right Down A Word Or Two To Remind Myself Of A Punch Line I Thought Of, But The Actual Structure Of A Piece I Really Don't. I Don't Think It Would Really Help Me Because For Me The Process Is Joke, Joke, Joke, Joke.

The Doctor Looked At My Cardiogram And Made That "hmmmm" Noise That Doctors Are Taught In Medical School So They Won't Come Right Out And Say "uh-oh!"

U.s. News Organizations Observe The Anniversary Of September 11 With Investigations About The Nation's Continuing Vulnerability To Terrorism. First, The New York Daily News Reports That Two Of Its Reporters Carried Box Cutters, Razor Kinves, And Pepper Spray On Fourteen Commerical Flights Without Getting Caught. Then Abc News Reports That It Smuggled Fifteen Pounds Of Uranium Into New York City. Then Fox News Reports That It Flew Osama Bin Laden To Washington, D.c., And Videotaped Him Touring The White House.

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.

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

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

On Valentine's Day, Millions Of Men Give Millions Of Women Flowers, Cards And Candy As A Heartfelt Expression Of The Emotion That Also Motivates Men To Observe Anniversaries And Birthdays-fear.

I Tried Sniffing Coke Once, But The Ice Cubes Got Stuck In My Nose.

What Was Life Like In The Colonies? Probably The Best Word To Describe It Would Be "colonial".

Newspaper Readership Is Declining Like Crazy. In Fact, There's A Good Chance That Nobody Is Reading My Column.

His Body Rigid With Terror As He Waited For The Savages To Something Horrible To Him—bash His Head With Clubs, Or Stab Him With Spears, Or… …or Tap Him On The Shoulder.

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

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.

You Can't Have A Bad Time At Disney World. It's Not Allowed. They Have Hidden Electronic Surveillance Cameras Everywhere, And If They Catch You Failing To Laugh With Childlike Wonder, They Lock You Inside A Costume Representing A Beloved Disney Character Such As Goofy And Make You Walk About In The Florida Heat Getting Grabbed And Leaped On By Violently Excited Children Until You Have Learned Your Lesson.

Although A Science Fair Can Seem Like A Big "pain" It Can Help You Understand Important Scientific Principles, Such As Newton's First Law Of Inertia, Which States: "a Body At Rest Will Remain At Rest Until 8:45 P.m. The Night Before The Science Fair Project Is Due, At Which Point The Body Will Come Rushing To The Body's Parents, Who Are Already In Their Pajamas, And Shout, 'i Just Remembered The Science Fair Is Tomorrow And We Gotta Go To The Store Right Now!'"

Auto Racing Is Boring Except When A Car Is Going At Least 172 Miles Per Hour Upside Down.

A Perfect Parent Is A Person With Excellent Child-rearing Theories And No Actual Children.

Perfect Parents

Like All Writers, My Greatest Inspiration, My Ultimate Muse, Is A Deadline.

The Old System Of Having A Baby Was Much Better Than The New System, The Old System Being Characterized By The Fact That The Man Didn't Have To Watch.

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 Son Wouldn't Go Get Heroin. If He Did Or Didn't, It Wouldn't Have Anything To Do With Whether It Was Legal Or Illegal.

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.

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

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.

I Have Always Dressed According To Certain Basic Guy Fashion Rules,including: Both Of Your Socks Should Always Be The Same Color, Or They Should At Least Both Be Fairly Dark.

Some [soccer] Players Suffer Four Or Five Fatal Injuries Per Game. That's How Tough They Are.

More And More Products Are Coming Out In Fiercely Protective Packaging Designed To Prevent Consumers From Consuming Them. These Days You Have To Open Almost Every Consumer Item By Gnawing On The Packaging.

No Man Had Ever Knocked Little Richard Down. But Of Course Ammm Was Not A Man.

Line Printer Paper Is Strongest At The Perforations.

I Have Never Had A Point In My Life To Make. I'm Just Trying To Entertain The Reader.

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.

Many Things Have Been Written, Including By Me, Linking Humor And Pain. Mostly, In My Case, The Humor Part Keeps Me Sane. If I Spent All My Hours Writing Things Like "fatal Distraction," I'd Become A Brooding, Erratic Melancholic. I'd Be Raskolnikov.

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

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

I Think Superman Should Go On The Larry King Show And Announce That He Would Come Back To Life If People In All 50 States Wanted Him To.

Someone Was Tapping On The Window.

The Badness Of A Movie Is Directly Proportional To The Number Of Helicopters In It.

You Know How On The Evening News They Always Tell You That The Stock Market Is Up In Active Trading, Or Off In Moderate Trading, Or Trading In Mixed Activity, Or Whatever. Well, Who Gives A

Geographically, Ireland Is A Medium-sized Rural Island That Is Slowly But Steadily Being Consumed By Sheep.

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.

'i'm Sorry,' Guys Are Always Telling Women, 'but I'm Just Not Ready To Make A Commitment.' Guys Are In A Permanent State Of Nonreadiness. If Guys Were Turkey Breasts, You Could Put Them In A 350-degree Oven On July Fourth, And They Still Wouldn't Be Done In Time For Thanksgiving.

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.

I Believe Many Harley Guys Spend More Time Revving Their Engines Than Actually Driving Anywhere; I Sometimes Wonder Why They Bother To Have Wheels On Their Motorcycles.

What I Want To Know Is: Why Is It Important To Have Visible Stomach Muscles? I Grew Up In An Era (the Paleolithic) When People Kept Their Stomach Muscles Discreetly Out Of Sight.

The Russians Will Never Be Able To Get Their Missiles Thought The Dense Protective Layer Of Delayed Flights Circling Over The United States In Complex, Puke-inducing Holding Patterns.

Never Have A Dog. Let's Not Beat Around The Bush Here: Dogs Are Morons.

In Foreign Countries Such As Italy, The Government Puts Strict-looking Speed Limit Signs Everywhere, But Nobody Ever Sees Them Because Light Does Not Travel Fast Enough To Catch The Italian Drivers.

Stuffwise We Are Not A Lean Operation. We're The Kind Of People Who, If We Were Deciding What Absolute Minimum Essential Items We'd Need To Carry In Our Backpacks For The Final, Treacherous Ascent To The Summit Of Mount Everest, Would Take Along Aquarium Filters, Just In Case.

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.

The Hawaiian Islands Were Discovered By Hardy Polynesian Sailors, Who Crossed Thousands Of Miles Of Open Ocean In Primitive Canoes, Braving Violent Storm-tossed Seas For Months At A Time. My Family And I Arrived By Modern Commercial Aviation, Which Was Infinitely Worse.

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

Please Try Not To Be Such A Wiener-head.

Fortunately The Boat We Rented Had A Motor In It You Will Definitely Want This Feature On Your Sailboat Too, Because If You Put Up The Sails, The Boat Tips Way Over, And You Could Spill Your Beer.

You Don't Have To Think Really Hard To Get The Joke. I Think Humor In General Appeals To All People.

When I Heated My Home With Oil, I Used An Average Of 800 Gallons A Year. I Have Found That I Can Keep Comfortably Warm For An Entire Winter With Slightly Over Half That Quantity Of Beer.

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.

Elsewhere In Italy Is The Lovely City Of Venice, Which Each Year Attracts Millions Of Visitors Despite The Fact That It Is Basically An Enormous Open Sewer.

As Sensitive And Broad-minded Humans, We Must Never Allow Ourselves To Be In Any Way Judgmental Of The Religious Practices Of Other People, Even When These People Clearly Are Raving Space Loons.

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. We Traditionally Do This In My Family By Driving Around The Parking Lot Until We See A Shopper Emerge From The Mall, Then We Follow Her, In Very Much The Same Spirit As The Three Wise Men, Who 2,000 Years Ago Followed A Star, Week After Week, Until It Led Them To A Parking Space.

My Point Here, Young Couples, Is That Baby-having Is Extremely Serious Business, And You Probably Don't Have The Vaguest Idea What You're Doing, As Is Evidenced By The Fact That You're Reading A Very Sloppy And Poorly Researched Book.

Here's A Man Who Was Twice Elected To The Most Powerful Position On Earth Despite Needing A Teleprompter To Correctly Identify What Year It Was.

Greyhound Bus Lines Motto: "we Stop For Some Damn Thing Every 200 Yards."

There's Only One Way Kids Will Wear Helmets, And That's If Their Parents Are Nagging Them To. They Will Never Wear Helmets Because Some State Passes A Law Requiring It.

Everybody In New York, Including Police Horses, Dresses Fashionably, And Whenever I'm There, Even In My Sharpest Funeral-quality Suit With No Visible Ketchup Stains, I Feel As Though I'm Wearing A Hefty Trash Bag. And It's Last Year's Hefty Trash Bag.

I Want To Gag Sometimes When I See Who "we" Are Recommending That People Vote For, And Not Just As A Libertarian.

Millions Of Americans Own Dogs, Because They Are Good-natured, Simple, And Easily Amused. I Am Referring Here To The Americans. The Dogs Are Not Exactly Mensa Members Either, But They Definitely Make Better Pets Than Tropical Fish.

What, Exactly, Is The Internet? Basically It Is A Global Network Exchanging Digitized Data In Such A Way That Any Computer, Anywhere, That Is Equipped With A Device Called A 'modem', Can Make A Noise Like A Duck Choking On A Kazoo

Most Married Couples, Even Though They Love Each Other Very Much In Theory, Tend To View Each Other In Practice As Large Teeming Flaw Colonies, The Result Of Being That They Get On Each Other's Nerves And Regularly Erupt Into Vicious Emotional Shouting Matches Over Such Issues As Toaster Settings.

Derangement Is The Only Possible Explanation For Owning A Cat, An Animal Whose Preferred Mode Of Communication Is To Sink Its Claws Three-quarters Of An Inch Into Your Flesh.

In Those Days, Most People Read Newspapers, Whereas Today, Most People Do Not. What Caused This Change? One Big Factor, Of Course, Is That People Are A Lot Stupider Than They Used To Be, Although We Here In The Newspaper Industry Would Never Say So In Print.

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

For The Benefit Of Those Of You Who Have Real Jobs And Are Not Involved In The News Business, I Should First Explain That . . .

It Is Important To Be Nice. But Sometimes Niceness Can Be Misconstrued As Weak. Should We Be Nice To Everybody? Should We Be Nice Only When Others Are Nice To Us? Here Are Some Interesting Views About Being Nice. Read These Nice Quotes And Turn On Your Niceness.

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.

England Manufactures Most Of The World's Airline Food, As Well As All The Food You Ever Ate In Your Junior-high-school Cafeteria.

First, A Few Words About This Title. It Isn't Easy, Coming Up With Book Titles. A Lot Of The Really Good Ones Are Taken. Thin Thighs In 30 Days, For Example. Also The Bible.

Your Friends Love You Anyway.

The Bad News Was That The Yard Contained A Dog. A Very, Very Large Dog, Wide And Hairy, Like A Cross Between A Rottweiler And A Goodyear Blimp.

I Hate To Speak For The Whole Society, But I Will. I'm A Journalist, It's My Job. There's Been Something Of A Reaction Against Political Correctness. Needless To Say, The Government Hasn't Caught Up Yet.

I Don't Know What You Can Possibly Do For Less Than $50 To Have Somebody Come In Your House.

If Mozart Had Power Tools, There's No Telling How Great His Music Might Have Been.

There Was Nowhere To Sit Except The Bunk, Which Was Covered With Rotting Food, And A Wooden Stool, Upon Which Sat A Large Fur-covered Lump—an Old Cheese, Perhaps, Or A Dead Cat.

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 Don't Think The Press Has Done A Very Good Job Dealing With Government Spending.the Defense Department With The $9,500 Toilet Seat, That's Not The Problem Anymore. Medicare And Medicaid And Social Security Are The Problem. That's Us. That's Our Generation. There The Press Never Says A Word.

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.

Nevada Has A Very Dynamic Economy, With Gambling Being The Number-one Industry, Followed Closely By Blood Donorship.

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.

I Have Read That, On The Average, The Japanese Are Getting Taller, But At The Moment They Seem To Be About The Same Height As American Junior-high-school Students, Only With Fewer Guns.

Found A Smoldering Cigarette Left By A Horse.

What A Crock. I Could Easily Overemphasize The Importance Of Good Grammar. For Example, I Could Say: Bad Grammar Is The Leading Cause Of Slow, Painful Death In North America, Or Without Good Grammar, The United States Would Have Lost World War Ii.

Here In Miami, On Weekends, Amusement-seekers Will Come To The Marina, Set Up Folding Chairs, And Spend A Highly Entertaining Day Watching Boat Owners Perform Comical Maneuvers Such As Forgetting To Set Their Parking Brakes And Having Their Cars Roll Down The Ramp And Disappear, Burbling Gaily, Below The Surface.

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.

In More Than 20 Years Of Opening Beers With Guys, I Have Never Seen The Swedish Bikini Team Show Up. Almost Always, The Teams That Show Up In Beer Drinking Situations Consist Of Guys Who Have Been Playing League Softball And Smell Like Bus Seats.

The Internet: Transforming Society And Shaping The Future Through Chat.

Nobody Understands How Hard It Is, Being A Captain.

American Business Long Ago Gave Up On Demanding That Prospective Employees Be Honest And Hardworking. It Has Even Stopped Hoping For Employees Who Are Educated Enough That They Can Tell The Difference Between The Men's Room And The Women's Room Without Having Little Pictures On The Doors.

After The War, Prohibition Was Passed, And With Liquor No Longer Legally Available The Nation Plunged Headlong Into The Great Depression.

Babies And Other Hazards Of Sex: How To Make A Tiny Person In Only 9 Months, With Tools You Probably Have Around The Home.

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.

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

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

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.

...and Suddenly It Hits You: Human Skin Is Actually Made Up Of Billions Of Tiny Units Of Protoplasm, Called "cells"! And What Is Even More Interesting, The Ones On The Outside Are All Dying! This Is A Fact. Your Skin Is Like An Aggressive Modern Corporation, Where The Older Veteran Cells, Who Have Finally Worked Their Way To The Top And Obtained Offices With Nice Views,are Constantly Being Shoved Out The Window Head First, Without So Much As A Pension Plan,by Younger Hotshot Cells Moving Up From Below.

Professional Marriage Counselors Agree That The Most Productive And Mature Way To Deal With Marital Anger Is To Stomp Dramatically From The Room. You Want To Make Your Move Before The Opponent Does, Because The First Person To Stomp From The Room Receives Valuable Argument Points That Can Be Redeemed For Exciting Merchandise At The Marital Prize Redemption Center.

If You Tell Most People What Libertarians Think, They Immediately Assume That You Cannot Mean It All The Way, That You're Really Just Taking A Position For Argument's Sake.

One Night In Tokyo We Watched Two Japanese Businessmen Saying Good-night To Each Other After What Had Clearly Been A Long Night Of Drinking, A Major Participant Sport In Japan. These Men Were Totally Snockered, Having Reached The Stage Of Inebriation Wherein Every Air Molecule That Struck Caused Them To Wobble Slightly, But They Still Managed To Behave More Formally Than Americans Do At Funerals.

The Ultimate Camping Trip Was The Lewis And Clark Expedition.

In My Experience, If You Go To A Hospital For Any Reason Whatsoever, Including To Read The Gas Meter, They Give You A Tetanus Shot.

You And Teacher,” Said Molly. “yes,” Said Peter. “she’s Very Clever. You’ll Like Her.” “i’m Sure,” Said Molly.

Don't Emphasise Money If You Don't Have Much; Be Happy

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.

I Find Myself Having These Conversations Where I Go...you Know, The Guy, In That Place. The Guy In The Place With The Thing, You Know. And It Becomes This Game Of Charades. And Then Finally, We Realize That I Mean The Pope.

I Realize That I'm Generalizing Here, But As Is Often The Case When I Generalize, I Don't Care.

The More Boring A Newspaper Is, The More It Is Respected. The Most Respected Newspaper In The United States Is The New York Times, Which Has Thousands Of Reporters Constantly Producing Enormous Front-page Stories About Bauxite...the [new York] Post Would Write About Bauxite Only If Famous Celebrites Were Arrested For Snorting It In An Exclusive Manhattan Nightclub.

Epcot Center Also Features Pavilions Built By Various Foreign Nations, Where You Can Experience An Extremely Realistic Simulation Of What Life In These Nations Would Be Like If They Consisted Almost Entirely Of Restaurants And Souvenir Stores.

We Don't Shoot Somebody Soon, I'm Gonna Forget How

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

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

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

And That's The Wonderful Thing About Family Travel: It Provides You With Experiences That Will Remain Locked Forever In The Scar Tissue Of Your Mind.

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

I'm Always Writing New Books So I Don't Dwell On The Ones I've Already Done. I Think That's A Habit From Being A Newspaper Guy Because You're Always Writing Columns And You Can't Reflect On The Ones You've Already Done.

Eating Rice Cakes Is Like Chewing On A Foam Coffee Cup, Only Less Filling.

The Problem Was That Panama Technically Belonged To Colombia, Which Refused To Sign A Treaty Leasing It To The United States. So Roosevelt Sent A Gunboat Filled With Marines Down To Panama, Just On The Off Chance That A Revolution Might Suddenly Break Out, And Darned If One Didn't, Two Days Later. Not Only That, But The Leaders Of The New Nation Of Panama-talk About Lucky Breaks!-were Absolutely Thrilled To Have The United States Build A Canal There. 'really, It's Our Pleasure,' They Told The Marines, Adding, 'don't Shoot.'

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

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.

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.

Can We Move This Conversation Along, I'm Getting Frightfully Tired Of 'hoa'.

I Read Warren Zevon's Bizarre Biography, "i'll Sleep When I'm Dead." His Wife, Crystal Zevon, Posthumously Published A Journal He Wrote And Some Interviews With Ex-band Members. Like [keith] Richards's Book "life," It's Brutally Honest.

If You Tell The Reader It's Funny, Then The Audience Is Like An Audience At A Stand-up Comedy Club And They Expect You To Be Funny, And If You're Not, They Notice. Whereas If You Read A Regular Op-ed About Israel Or The Family Or Medicine, You're Not Starting With The Assumption That You're Supposed To Laugh.

There's An Old Saying Among Scientific Guys: "you Can't Make An Omelet Without Breaking Eggs, Ideally By Dropping A Cement Truck On Them From A Crane."

Sir,” James Asked, “what Are We Going To Do?” “we’re Going To Look For Water,” Said Alf. “and Food?” Said Tubby Ted. “water First,” Said Alf. “we Can Go Days Without Food.” “we Can What?” Tubby Ted Shouted.

Why Don’t You Lift The End?” Said Alf. “it’s Me Back, Alf,” Complained Mack. “you Know How It Troubles Me.” “no More Than Mine Troubles Me,” Said Alf. “but I Said It First,” Said Mack.

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.

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 Think Twitter Is Kind Of Fun, It's Not Deep And It Never Will Be, But It's A Great Way To Communicate One-liners And To Sort Of See What People Are Laughing About. It's A Terrific Source Of Misinformation.

Eventually Everyone Has To Die, Except Elvis.

During Bomb Drills, We Students Were Told To Crouch Under Our Desks. Apparently The Desks Used In Classrooms In The Fifties Were Made Of An Exceptionally Missile-resistant Variety Of Wood. During The Cold War Years I Often Wondered Why It Never Occurred To Our Defense Planners To Protect The Entire Nation From Nuclear Attack By Simply Covering It, From Sea To Shining Sea, With A Huge Strategic Classroom Desk.

Perhaps You Are Thinking: 'but A Tank Costs Several Million Dollars, Not Including Floor Mats. I Don't Have That Kind Of Money.' Don't Be Silly. You're A Consumer, Right? You Have Credit Cards, Right? Perhaps You Are Thinking: 'yes, But How Am I Going To Pay The Credit-card Company?' Don't Be Silly. You Have A Tank, Right?

As You Get Older; You've Probably Noticed That You Tend To Forget Things. You'll Be Talking With Somebody At A Party, And You'll Know That You Know This Person, But No Matter How Hard You Try, You Can't Remember His Or Her Name. This Can Be Very Embarassing, Especially If He Or She Turns Out To Be Your Spouse.

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

When Your Super Bowl Guests Arrive, They Should Find A Mound Of Potato Chips Large Enough To Conceal A Pony Sitting In Front Of The Television. For Nutritional Balance, You Should Also Put Out A Bowl Of Carrot Sticks. If You Have No Carrot Sticks, You Can Use Pinecones, Or Used Electrical Fuses, Because Nobody Will Eat Them Anyway. This Is No Time For Nutritional Balance: This Is The Super Bowl, For God's Sake.

I Don't Like Anything Unsigned In A Newspaper That Purports To Be The Opinion Of Some Group If We Don't Know Who The Group Is. It's Laughable To Say That The Miami Herald's Editorials Or Any Newspaper's Editorials Represent Any Views Other Than Those Of The People Writing Them, So Why Don't We Tell Everybody Who They Are?

Rembrandt's First Name Was Beauregard, Which Is Why He Never Used It.

How Do These Celebrities Stay So Impossibly Thin? Simple: They Have Full-time Personal Trainers, Who Advise Them On Nutrition, Give Them Pep Talks, And Shoot Them With Tranquilizer Darts Whenever They Try To Crawl, On Hunger-weakened Limbs, Toward The Packet Of Rice Cakes That Constitutes The Entire Food Supply In Their 37,000-square-foot Mansions. For Most Celebrities, The Biggest Meal Of The Day Is Toothpaste (they Use Reduced-fat Crest).

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.

Humor Is An Escape, Because You Cannot Think About Your Problems When You Are Trying To Be Funny; So, In Essence, "being A Humorist" Gives You A Valid Excuse To Hide From Your Pain.

She Goes To Frederick's Of Hollywood At The Mall And Purchases An Explicit Lingerie Outfit So Sheer That You Could Read An Appliance Warranty Through It In An Unlit Closet.

You Can Be The Smartest Person In The World - Which Bill Clinton Is, And If He's Not, His Wife Is - And Care More Than Anybody Else In The World - Which He Does, I Don't Doubt That For A Minute. And You Can Care So Much That You're Willing To Be Dishonest - You Can Tell People One Thing But Do Another Because You Really Know It's For Their Own Good. And You'll Still Screw It All Up. Because The Whole Premise Of What You're Doing Is Wrong!

Software Is Usually Accompanied By Documentation In The Form Of Big Fat Scary Manuals That Nobody Ever Reads. In Fact, For The Past Five Years Most Of The Manuals Shipped With Software Products Have Actually Been Copies Of Stephen King's The Stand With New Covers Pasted On.

I Had Arrived At The Airport One Hour Early So That, In Accordance With Airline Procedures, I Could Stand Around.

I'm Not Sure You Can Count As History, Was Keith Richards's "life," Which He So Modestly Titled It. I Did Find It A Fascinating Book. Keith's A Pretty Honest Fellow.

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

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 Irs Spends God Knows How Much Of Your Tax Money On These Toll-free Information Hotlines Staffed By Irs Employees, Whose Idea Of A Dynamite Tax Tip Is That You Should Print Neatly.

Never Try To Put All The Chemicals In The Entire World In Your Body At The Same Time.

I Don't Even Care What Bill Bryson Writes About Because He Will Make It Interesting. I Love "a Walk In The Woods," About The Appalachian Trail, But His Most Amazing Book Is "a Short History Of Nearly Everything."

...light Overcomes Darkenss. A Tiny Match Can Illuminate The Darkest Room. As Long As There Is Some Light Somewhere In The Universe, [darkness] Can Be Defeated.

Men's Magazines Often Feature Pictures Of Naked Women. Women's Magazines Also Feature Pictures Of Naked Women. This Is Because The Female Body Is A Beautiful Work Of Art, While The Male Body Is Lumpy And Hairy And Should Not Be Seen By The Light Of Day. Men Are Turned On At The Sight Of A Naked Woman's Body. Most Naked Men Elicit Laughter From Women.

Miami Drivers Will Attempt To Pass You Inside A Car Wash.

The Average Tax Payer Is Not A Big Voluntary Supporter Of The Arts. The Only Art That The Average Taxpayer Buys Voluntarily Either Has A Picture Of Bart Simpson On It Or Little Suction Cups On Its Feet So You Can Stick It Onto A Car Window.

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

I Was Reading This James Bond Book, And Right Away I Realized That, Like Most Books, It Had Too Many Words.

Thanks To Modern Medical Advances Such As Antibiotics, Nasal Spray, And Diet Coke, It Has Become Routine For People In The Civilized World To Pass The Age Of 40, Sometimes More Than Once.

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

The Story You Envision As You Start Out Is Always A Great Story; When The Facts Turn Out To Be Different From, Or More Complex Than, What You Expected, Your First Reaction Is Always Disappointment. That's When You Must Fight The Urge To Bend The Story To Your Preconceived Notions. First, It's Dishonest. And Second, In The End, The Truth Is Always The Best Story.

The Soviet Union At This Time Was Being Run By The Communists, A Group Of Men Fierce In Their Dedication To Wearing Hilariously Bad Suits. Their Leader Was Josef Stalin (russian For "joey Bananas")

I Think I Became Funny Because I Grew Up In The Bronx. I Was Small And Weak And Jewish Instead Of Large And Fierce And Puerto Rican. You Need Something.

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.

Never Assume That The Guy Understands That You And He Have A Relationship.

What Gets Me Is, I Waited In Line For An Hour To Do This. I Could Have Experienced Essentially The Same Level Of Enjoyment Merely By Sticking My Finger Down My Throat.

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?

The Information Encoded In Your Dna Determines Your Unique Biological Characteristics, Such As Sex, Eye Color, Age And Social Security Number.

In Fact, When You Get Right Down To It, Almost Every Explanation Man Came Up With For Anything Until About 1926 Was Stupid.

I Don't Want To Dis Anybody, But Someone Like Robert Parker. I First Read A Spenser Book Maybe 20 Years Ago And Then Read Every One That Came Out. I Did That With Tony Hillerman Too.

To Defend Western Europe We Have To Let The Pentagon Buy All These Tanks And Guns And Things, And The Pentagon Is Unable To Buy Any Object That That Costs Less Than A Condominium In Vail. If The Pentagon Needs, Say, Fruit, It Will Argue That It Must Have Fruit That Can Withstand The Rigors Of Combat Conditions, And It Will Wind Up Purchasing The Fx-700 Seedless Tactical Grape, Which Will Cost $160,000 Per Bunch, And Will Have An 83 Percent Failure Rate.

Your Guess Is As Good As Mine. Better Probably, Because You Haven't Had Four Beers.

I Feel That Nasal Spray Is A Wondrous Medical Achievement, Because It Is Supposed To Relieve Nasal Congestion, And By Gadfrey, It Relieves Nasal Congestion. What I'm Saying Is That It Actually Works, Which Is Something You Can Say About Very Few Other Aspects Of The Medical Establishment.

The Fact That Gene Weingarten And I And Bathroom Inventory Are Now Part Of Some Kind Of Matrix Of Poop Strongly Suggests That The Pulitzer Is Not What It Once Was.

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.

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.

I Care About Our Young People, And I Wish Them Great Success, Because They Are Our Hope For The Future, And Some Day, When My Generation Retires, They Will Have To Pay Us Trillions Of Dollars In Social Security

Thus The Metric System Did Not Really Catch On In The States, Unless You Count The Increasing Popularity Of The Nine-millimeter Bullet.

The Obvious And Fair Solution To The Housework Problem Is To Let Men Do The Housework For, Say, The Next Six Thousand Years, To Even Things Up. The Trouble Is That Men, Over The Years, Have Developed An Inflated Notion Of The Importance Of Everything They Do, So That Before Long They Would Turn Housework Into Just As Much Of A Charade As Business Is Now. They Would Hire Secretaries And Buy Computers And Fly Off To Housework Conferences In Bermuda, But They'd Never Clean Anything.

I Hate Rap Music, Which To Me Sounds Like A Bunch Of Angry Men Shouting, Possibly Because The Person Who Was Supposed To Provide Them With A Melody Never Showed Up.

Each Year, Millions Of Skiers Come To Colorado To Experience Its Superb Emergency Medical Facilities.

Your Modern Teenager Is Not About To Listen To Advice From An Old Person, Defined As A Person Who Remembers When There Was No Velcro.

For 41 Years I Have Gone With A Very Natural Hair "look" That Was Originally Popularized By Coconuts.

Those Who Can't Laugh At Themselves Leave The Job To Others.

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.

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

So When I Open The Door On Halloween, I Am Confronted By Three Or Four Imaginary Heroes, Such As G.i. Joe, Conan The Barbarian And Oliver North, Who Would Look Very Terrifying Except That They Are Three Feet Tall And Facing In Random Directions. They Stand There Silently For Several Seconds Before An Adult Voice Hisses From The Darkness Behind Them: "say 'trick Or Treat!

If, When You Talk To People, They Keep Backing Away From You, It's Because You're Too Close, Alright? So Don't Keep Advancing On Them Like A Human Glacier.

Most American Homes Have Alternating Current, Which Means That The Electricty Goes In One Direction For A While, Then Goes In The Other Direction. This Prevents Harmful Electron Buildup In The Wires.

As Long As Humanity Has Been Human, It Has Looked Toward The Heavens And Dreamed That Some Day, Some Way, There Would Be Giant Federal Contracts Involved.

Of Course, The Truth Is That The Congresspersons Are Too Busy Raising Campaign Money To Read The Laws They Pass. The Laws Are Written By Staff Tax Nerds Who Can Put Pretty Much Any Wording They Want In There. I Bet That If You Actually Read The Entire Vastness Of The Us Tax Code, You'd Find At Least One Sex Scene. ("yes, Yes, Yes!" Moaned Vanessa As Lance, His Taut Body Moist With Moisture, Again And Again Depreciated Her Adjusted Gross Rate Of Annualized Fiscal Debenture...)

The Olympic Movement Simply Cannot Allow The Russians To Become Estranged, Because Russia Is A Vital Part Of The World Sports Community, In The Sense Of Having Nuclear Missiles.

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

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