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I Buy A Tractor Two Years Ago, And Four-fifths Of The Tractor Manual Is About Not Tipping Over, Not Raising The Bucket High Enough To Hit High-tension Wire... Not Killing Yourself, Basically. And In That Manual, I Found Out - And It Cost Me A Thousand Dollars - That When The Tractor Is New, 10 Hours Into Use Of The Tractor, You Have To Re-torque The Lug Nuts. If You Don't, You Will Oval The Holes. This Is Buried Between The Moron Warnings. I Never Found It. I Take The Tractor In For Its Regular Servicing, And They Say My Wheels Are Gone. How Am I Supposed To Know That? "it's In The Manual."

-P. J. O'Rourke

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I Buy A Tractor

P. J. O'Rourke

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I Buy A Tractor Two Years Ago, And Four-fifths Of The Tractor Manual Is About Not Tipping Over, Not Raising The Bucket High Enough To Hit High-tension Wire... Not Killing Yourself, Basically. And In That Manual, I Found Out - And It Cost Me A Thousand Dollars - That When The Tractor Is New, 10 Hours Into Use Of The Tractor, You Have To Re-torque The Lug Nuts. If You Don't, You Will Oval The Holes. This Is Buried Between The Moron Warnings. I Never Found It. I Take The Tractor In For Its Regular Servicing, And They Say My Wheels Are Gone. How Am I Supposed To Know That? "it's In The Manual."

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Vegetables Are Something God Invented To Let Women Get Even With Their Children.

You Can Learn All About The Human Condition From Covering The Crime Beat In A Big City - You Don't Need To Go To Beirut For That - But A Foreign Correspondent Begins To Understand Poverty From A Different Perspective.

The Weirder You're Going To Behave, The More Normal You Should Look. It Works In Reverse, Too. When I See A Kid With Three Or Four Rings In His Nose, I Know There Is Absolutely Nothing Extraordinary About That Person.

The Complexity Of Economics Can Be Calculated Mathematically. Write Out The Algebraic Equation That Is The Human Heart And Multiply Each Unknown By The Population Of The World.

You Don't Despair About Something Like The Middle East, You Just Do The Best You Can.

You May Be Surprised To Discover You're Rich, Especially If You're Broke.

Government Isn't A Good Way To Solve Problems ... [g]overnment Is Concerned Mostly With Self-perpetuation And Is Subject To Fantastic Ideas About Its Own Capabilities. ... [g]overnment Is Wasteful Of The Nation's Resources, Immune To Common Sense And Subject To Pressure From Every Half-organized Bouquet Of Assholes. ... [g]overnment Is Distrustful Of And Disrespectful Toward Average Americans While Being Easily Gulled By Americans With Money, Influence Or Fame.

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I'm Old Enough To Remember When The Air Over American Cities Was A Lot Dirtier Than It Is Now.

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Political Stuff Is All About His [hunter S. Thompson] Reaction To A Situation. And My Stuff Is Much More Externally Driven.

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First And Foremost: Feed People.

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Authority Has Always Attracted The Lowest Elements In The Human Race

[ I'm] Humorist, I Guess. Or Really More Of A Reporter. A Reporter Who Reports On Funny Things.

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There Is One Thing Women Can Never Take Away From Men. We Die Sooner.

Smoking Cigarettes Seems To Alarm Peace Activists Much More Than Voting For Reagan Does.

Only One Way To Cover A Story Like This, And Make That A Double, Bartender, Please.

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Passover Is My Idea Of A Perfect Holiday. Dear God, When You're Handing Out Plagues Of Darkness, Locusts, Hail, Boils, Flies, Lice, Frogs, And Cattle Murrain, And Turning The Nile To Blood, And Smiting Firstborn, Give Me A Pass, And Tell Me When It's Over.

The Sport Of Skiing Consists Of Wearing Three Thousand Dollars Worth Of Clothes And Equipment And Driving Two Hundred Miles In The Snow In Order To Stand Around At A Bar And Get Drunk.

Golf Combines Two Favorite American Pastimes: Taking Long Walks And Hitting Things With A Stick.

Australia Is Not Very Exclusive. On The Visa Application They Still Ask If You've Been Convicted Of A Felony - Although They Are Willing To Give You A Visa Even If You Haven't Been.

Freedom Is Not Empowerment. Empowerment Is What The Serbs Have In Bosnia. Anybody Can Grab A Gun And Be Empowered. It's Not Entitlement. An Entitlement Is What People On Welfare Get, And How Free Are They? It's Not An Endlessly Expanding List Of Rights - The "right" To Education, The "right" To Food And Housing. That's Not Freedom, That's Dependency. Those Aren't Rights, Those Are The Rations Of Slavery - Hay And A Barn For Human Cattle.

Bachelors Know All About Parties. In Fact, A Good Bachelor Is A Living, Breathing Party All By Himself. At Least That Is What My Girlfriend Said When She Found The Gin Bottles Under The Couch. I Believe Her Exact Words Were, "you're A Disgusting, Drunken Mess." And That's A Good Description Of A Party, If It's Done Right.

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The Middle Eastern States Aren't Nations; They're Quarrels With Borders.

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All Lies Are Told With A Straight Face. It Is Truth That's Said With A Dismissive Giggle.

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There Aren't Many Political Humorists. Dave Barry Is Excellent, But He Doesn't Do It Much.

I'm A Member Of The Working Press; You'd Think I'd Know Better Than To Listen To Journalists.

I Don't Think I'll Ever Be A Real Boat Reporter. My Rolex Isn't Big Enough.

How Much Fame, Money And Power Does A Woman Have To Achieve On Her Own Before You Can Punch Her In The Face?

When A Thing Defies Physical Law, There's Usually Politics Involved.

Maybe A Nation That Consumes As Much Booze And Dope As We Do And Has Our Kind Of Divorce Statistics Should Pipe Down About "character Issues."

I Read Good. I Was An English Major.

Name Me, If You Can, A Better Feeling Than The One You Get When You've Half A Bottle Of Chivas In The Bag With A Gram Of Coke Up Your Nose And A Teenage Lovely Pulling Off Her Tube Top In The Next Seat Over While You're Doing A Hundred Miles An Hour In A Suburban Side Street.

Everybody Wants To Save The Earth; Nobody Wants To Help Mom Do The Dishes.

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The Sky Was So Clear That The Starlight Cast Shadows, And So Many Sparkles And Glitters And Glints Appeared Above Us That It Looked Like Something Really Expensive Had Been Dropped And Shattered In Heaven - God's Steuben Ashtray, Maybe.

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Maybe A Vague President And An Incompetent And Somewhat Corrupt Administration Is What The Nation Needs.

Men Generally Pay For All Expenses On A Date ... Either Sex, However, May Bring A Little Gift, Its Value To Be Determined By The Bizarrness Of The Sexual Request To Be Made Later That Evening.

You'll Note That Politicians No Longer Spend Money, They Invest It. Don't Worry About Paying More To The [irs]. You Aren't Being Taxed; You're Taking A Plunge On A Fly-by-night Stock Issue.

Whereas Rolling Stone, I Just Never Had Anything To Do With Them. I'd Stop By The Office Maybe Twice A Year.

Something Is Worth What Somebody Will Pay For It. Nothing Else, Nothing More, Nothing Less.

I Try To Only Ridicule People Who's Efforts Are Sincere. Very Little Trouble Has Been Caused In The World By Insincere Efforts. An Occasional Seduction Maybe. There Were Very Few Insincere Stalinists Or Nazis.

It's Much Better To Have Your Arguments Dismissed Because You Might Be Joking Than To Have Your Arguments Dismissed Because You're Not Telling The Truth.

Telling The Truth

The Proper Behavior All Through The Holiday Season Is To Be Drunk. This Drunkenness Culminates On New Year's Eve, When You Get So Drunk You Kiss The Person You're Married To.

I Went Back To Bumming Around New York, Writing Freelance Stuff For Car & Driver And Such.

Mike Had Called Me And Said He Could Offer Me Less, And I Said, "you're On!" Because I Was Really Excited With What Mike Kelly Was Doing, And Now What Cullen Murphy Is Doing With Atlantic. It's A Really Cool Magazine.

A Hat Should Be Taken Off When You Greet A Lady And Left Off For The Rest Of Your Life. Nothing Looks More Stupid Than A Hat.

The Problem Isn't A Congress That Won't Cut Spending Or A President Who Won't Raise Taxes. The Problem Is An American Public With A Bottomless Sense Of Entitlement To Federal Money.

Let's Reintroduce Corporal Punishment In The Schools - And Use It On The Teachers.

If The Dollar Weakens, Then Presumably All The Things That We Make In The United States - Buicks, For Instance - Can Be Sold Cheap All Over The World, And Everyone Will Be Buying Our Goods, And We'll Get All Sorts Of Yen-denominated, Or Yuan-denominated, Or Euro-denominated Securities, And Then Everybody Else Will Be Worried.

I Think Michael O'donoghue Felt He'd Said What He Wanted To Say. In Fact, Nobody Thought We Could Spin It Out Long Enough To Make A Book.

Hunter S. Thompson And I Are Old Friends, But What We Do Is So Different. There Are Surface Similarities That Really Have To Do With Us Being Frustrated Poets.

Smoking Crack Is A Way For People Who Couldn't Afford College To Study The Works Of Charles Darwin.

African Famine Is Not A Visitation Of Fate. It Is Largely Man-made, And The Men Who Made It Are Largely Africans.

I Buy A Tractor Two Years Ago, And Four-fifths Of The Tractor Manual Is About Not Tipping Over, Not Raising The Bucket High Enough To Hit High-tension Wire... Not Killing Yourself, Basically. And In That Manual, I Found Out - And It Cost Me A Thousand Dollars - That When The Tractor Is New, 10 Hours Into Use Of The Tractor, You Have To Re-torque The Lug Nuts. If You Don't, You Will Oval The Holes. This Is Buried Between The Moron Warnings. I Never Found It. I Take The Tractor In For Its Regular Servicing, And They Say My Wheels Are Gone. How Am I Supposed To Know That? "it's In The Manual."

Women Are Successful In The Business World Because The Business World Was Created By Men. Men Are Babies. And Women Aregood With Kids.

Off They Go On This Sort Of Camping Trip To Iwo Jima, Where They're Taken Around And Shown Where All The Battles Took Place. It's Very Moving. Disgusting Little Island, Though. Still An Active Volcano. Stinks Of Sulfur. There Are Dead Japanese Everywhere Under That Island. It's Icky. But I Knew I Would Never Have Another Chance To Go, So I Took The Job.

Social Security Is A Government Program With A Constituency Made Up Of The Old, The Near Old And Those Who Hope Or Fear To Grow Old. After 215 Years Of Trying, We Have Finally Discovered A Special Interest That Includes 100 Percent Of The Population. Now We Can Vote Ourselves Rich.

Never Wear Anything That Panics The Cat.

Stay Away From Girls Who Cry A Lot Or Who Look Like They Get Pregnant Easily Or Have Careers.

Moscow Has Changed. I Was Here In 1982, During The Brezhnev Twilight, And Things Are Better Now. For Instance, They've Got Litter. In 1982 There Was Nothing To Litter With.

The Forces Of Safety Are Afoot In The Land. I, For One, Believe It Is A Conspiracy - A Conspiracy Of Safety Nazis Shouting "sieg Health" And Seeking To Trammel Freedom, Liberty, And Large Noisy Parties. The Safety Nazis Advocate Gun Control, Vigorous Exercise, And Health Foods. The Result Can Only Be A Disarmed, Exhausted, And Half-starved Population Ready To Acquiesce To Dictatorship Of Some Kind.

Tabasco Sauce Is To Bachelor Cooking What Forgiveness Is To Sin.

There Is A Remarkable Breakdown Of Taste And Intelligence At Christmastime. Mature, Responsible Grown Men Wear Neckties Made Of Holly Leaves And Drink Alcoholic Beverages With Raw Egg Yolks And Cottage Cheese In Them.

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