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Nature Is Located Mainly In National Parks, Which Are Vast Tracts Of Wilderness That Have Been Set Aside By The United States Government So Citizens Will Always Have Someplace To Go Where They Can Be Attacked By Bears. And We're Not Talking About Ordinary Civilian Bears, Either: We're Talking About Federal Bears, Which Can Behave However They Want To Because They Are Protected By The Same Union As Postal Clerks.

-Dave Barry

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Nature Is Located Mainly

Dave Barry

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Nature Is Located Mainly In National Parks, Which Are Vast Tracts Of Wilderness That Have Been Set Aside By The United States Government So Citizens Will Always Have Someplace To Go Where They Can Be Attacked By Bears. And We're Not Talking About Ordinary Civilian Bears, Either: We're Talking About Federal Bears, Which Can Behave However They Want To Because They Are Protected By The Same Union As Postal Clerks.

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The World Is Full Of Strange Phenomena That Cannot Be Explained By The Laws Of Logic Or Science. Dennis Rodman Is Only One Example.

Generally The Pythons Are Better Than Anything Else At Killing.

The Books All Say That Barracuda Rarely Eat People, But Very Few Barracuda Can Read.

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

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

When My Generation Was Your Age, We Took Crazy Risks. The Wildest Thing Was - Prepare To Be Shocked - We Deliberately Ingested Carbohydrates!

It Would Be Hard To Conceive Of Any Activity More Useless Than Stamp Collecting.

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I Am Absolutely Sick Unto Death Of Hearing People Say - They All Say This; It Must Be Item One On The Curriculum In Trend College - "i Just Hate To Talk To A Machine!" They Say This As Though It Is A Major Philosophical Position, As Opposed To A Description Of A Minor Neurosis. My Feeling Is, If You Have A Problem Like This, You Shouldn't Go Around Trumpeting It; You Should Stay Home And Practice Talking To A Machine You Can Feel Comfortable With, Such As Your Water Pik, Until You Are Ready To Assume Your Place In Modern Society.

If You Have A Big Enough Dictionary, Just About Everything Is A Word.

I Guess The Negative Thing That Happens To Me Is That I'm Old Now. They Said There Was A Generation I Was Too Young For And Now Some Will Say There's Probably 10 Generations I'm Too Old For. They'll Say, Isn't He Dead Or Retired Or Whatever? Or It Just Becomes Fashionable To Say "oh He's Not Funny Anymore," Which, I Don't Know, Maybe To Them I'm Not. I'm More Likely To Hear That Now Than I Am To Hear That I'm Unacceptably Risqué.

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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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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He Could Even Think About How Fast He Was Thinking About Things.

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

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

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At Certain Times Each Year, We Journalists Do Almost Nothing Except Apply For The Pulitzers And Several Dozen Other Major Prizes. During These Times You Could Walk Right Into Most Newsrooms And Commit A Multiple Axe Murder Naked, And It Wouldn't Get Reported In The Paper Because The Reporters And Editors Would All Be Too Busy Filling Out Prize Applications.

If You Surveyed A Hundred Typical Middle-aged Americans, I Bet You'd Find That Only Two Of Them Could Tell You Their Blood Types, But Every Last One Of Them Would Know The Theme Song From The Beverly Hillbillies.

I Read The Whole Jack Reacher Series By Lee Child. They Don't Take Long.

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

We're Deep Into The Holiday Gift-giving Season, As You Can Tell From The Fact That Everywhere You Look, You See Jolly Old St. Nick Urging You To Purchase Things, To The Point Where You Want To Slug Him Right In His Bowl Full Of Jelly.

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

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.

Proper Turkey Preparation Is Critical. According To The U.s. Department Of Agriculture, More Americans Die Every Year From Eating Improperly Cooked Turkey Than Were Killed In The Entire Peloponnesian War. This Is Because Turkey Can Contain Salmonella, Which Are Tiny Bacteria That, If They Get In Your Bloodstream, Develop Into Full-grown Salmon, Which Could Come Leaping Out Of Your Mouth During An Important Business Presentation.

Funny Thanksgiving

Cyrus Pembridge, The Never Land’s Captain, Was Widely Regarded As The Most Incompetent Man To Comman A Ship Since The Formation Of Water. “who In The Name Of Common Sense Would Put To Sea On That Ship With That Man In Charge?” Wondered Mack. “well,” Alf Answered, “we Are.” “true,” Mack Said.

Babies Are Equipped At Birth With A Number Of Instinctive Reflexes And Behavior Patterns That Cause Them To Spend Their First Several Years Trying To Kill Themselves. If Your Home Contains A Sharp, Toxic Object, Your Baby Will Locate It; If Your Home Contains No Such Object, Your Baby Will Try To Obtain One Via Mail Order.

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.

Sailboats Are The Slowest Form Of Transportation On Earth With The Possible Exeption Of Airline Flights That Go Through O'hare.

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.

A Critical Function That We Journalists Perform At Political Conventions Is To Try To Get Into Parties That We Have Not Been Invited To. There Are Dozens Of These Parties, Sponsored By Large Corporations With A Sincere Public-spirited Desire To Become Larger.

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

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

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

The Whole Thing About Whether You Smoke Marijuana Or Not Is So Ridiculous. That And Whether You Protested The Vietnam War. Give Me A Break. Especially The Marijuana Thing.

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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.

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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.

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.

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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."

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.

Bad Grammar Is The Leading Cause Of Slow, Painful Death In North America.

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

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

Another Well-known Paris Landmark Is The Arc De Triomphe, A Moving Monument To The Many Brave Women And Men Who Have Died Trying To Visit It.

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.

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.

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.

Karate Is A Form Of Martial Arts In Which People Who Have Had Years And Years Of Training Can, Using Only Their Hands And Feet, Make Some Of The Worst Movies In The History Of The World.

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

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

...terry Jackson, Who Is The Miami Herald's Automotive Writer And Tv Critic. That's Correct: This Man Gets Paid To Drive New Cars And Watch Television. If He Ever Dies And Goes To Heaven, It's Going To Be A Big Let Down.

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.

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.

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.

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

Several Years Ago We Had An Intern Who Was None Too Swift. One Day He Was Typing And Turned To A Secretary And Said, "i'm Almost Out Of Typing Paper. What Do I Do?" "just Use Copier Machine Paper," She Told Him. With That, The Intern Took His Last Remaining Blank Piece Of Paper, Put It On The Photocopier And Proceeded To Make Five Blank Copies.

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

Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You. Ask Whether Your Country Has Been Inhaling Paint-thinner Fumes.

The Best Time To Go To Disney World, If You Want To Avoid Huge Crowds, Is 1962.

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.

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

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.

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.

Camping Is Nature's Way Of Promoting The Motel Business.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 Am Not One To Generalize, But Cartoonists, As A Group, Exhibit A Level Of Social Sophistication Generally Associated With Pie Fights. In High School, When The Future Lawyers Were Campaigning For Class President, The Future Cartoonists Were Painstakingly Altering Illustrations In Their History Books So That Robert E. Lee Appeared To Be Performing An Illegal Act With His Horse.

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

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.

Congress, After Years Of Stalling, Finally Got Around To Clearing The Way For Informal Discussions That Might Lead To Possible Formal Talks That Could Potentially Produce Some Kind Of Tenative Agreements.

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.

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.

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.

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.

There Are Two Kinds Of Solar-heat Systems: Passive Systems Collect The Sunlight That Hits Your Home, And Active Systems Collect The Sunlight That Hits Your Neighbors' Homes, Too.

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.

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

I Would Not Know How I Am Supposed To Feel About Many Stories If Not For The Fact That The Tv News Personalities Make Sad Faces For Sad Stories And Happy Faces For Happy Stories.

And What Is The Scientific Community Doing About These Problems, Young People? They're Cloning Sheep. Great! Just What We Need! Sheep That Look More Alike Than They Already Do! Thanks A Lot, Scientific Community!

All Other Nations Are Drinking Ray Charles Beer And We Are Drinking Barry Manilow.

Think, For A Moment, Of The Countless Happy Childhood Hours You Spent With This Amazing Device: Drawing Perfect Horizontals, Drawing Perfect Verticals, Drawing Really Spastic Diagonals, Trying To Scrape Away The Silver Powder From The Window So You Could Look Inside.

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.

Never Under Any Circumstances Take A Sleeping Pill And A Laxative On The Same Night.

Nobody Is Excused From The Excellence Trend. Babies Are Not Excused. Starting Right After They Get Out Of The Womb, Modern Babies Are Exposed To Instructional Flashcards Designed To Make Them The Best Babies They Can Possibly Be, So They Can Get Into Today's Competitive Preschools. Your Eighties Baby Sees So Many Flashcards That He Never Gets An Unobstructed View Of His Parents' Faces. As An Adult, He'll Carry Around A Little Wallet Card That Says "7x9=63," Because It Will Remind Him Of Mother.

Today's Toys Contain Computer Chips, So They Can Move And Talk; This Stimulates The Mind Of Your Child. Notice I Say "your Child." My Child Just Wants To Eat The Toys.

To An Adolescent, There Is Nothing In The World More Embarrassing Than A Parent.

Today's Scientific Question Is: What In The World Is Electricity? And Where Does It Go After It Leaves The Toaster?

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.

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.

Crabgrass Can Grow On Bowling Balls In Airless Rooms, And There Is No Known Way To Kill It That Does Not Involve Nuclear Weapons.

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

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.

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