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We Travel Because, No Matter How Comfortable We Are At Home, There's A Part Of Us That Wants - That Needs - To See New Vistas, Take New Tours, Obtain New Entrees, Introduce New Bacteria Into Our Intestinal Tracts, Learn New Words For "transfusion," And Have All The Other Travel Adventures That Make Us Want To French-kiss Our Doormats When We Finally Get Home.

-Dave Barry

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We Travel Because, No

Dave Barry

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We Travel Because, No Matter How Comfortable We Are At Home, There's A Part Of Us That Wants - That Needs - To See New Vistas, Take New Tours, Obtain New Entrees, Introduce New Bacteria Into Our Intestinal Tracts, Learn New Words For "transfusion," And Have All The Other Travel Adventures That Make Us Want To French-kiss Our Doormats When We Finally Get Home.

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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.

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

Motto Of The U.s. Airline Industry - "we're Hoping To Have A Motto Announcement In About An Hour."

To Enter Europe, You Must Have A Valid Passport With A Photograph Of Yourself In Which You Look Like You Are Being Booked On Charges Of Soliciting Sheep.

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.

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

Smee! Raise The Ladies!

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

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!

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

Some Archeologists Believe That Stonehenge - The Mysterious Arrangement Of Enormous Elongated Stones In England - Is Actually A Crude Effort By The Druids To Build A Computing Device.

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.

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.

Line Printer Paper Is Strongest At The Perforations.

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.

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.

There Are Two Kinds Of People In This World, And I Am One Of Them.

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."

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.

What Women Want: To Be Loved, To Be Listened To, To Be Desired, To Be Respected, To Be Needed, To Be Trusted, And Sometimes, Just To Be Held. What Men Want: Tickets To The World Series.

I Suspect That Laguardia Is An Elaborate Prank, And New York Has A Real Airport Nearby That Only Locals Know About.

And To You Taxpayers Out There, Let Me Say This: Make Sure You File Your Tax Return On Time! And Remember That, Even Though Income Taxes Can Be A 'pain In The Neck,' The Folks At The Irs Are Regular People Just Like You, Except That They Can Destroy Your Life

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

I Feel Like I Have More Experience With Publishing Humor Than Pretty Much Any Editor I'm Going To Be Dealing With So Sometimes I'll Get A Little Bit Nuts If I Write Something I Know Is Good A Certain Way, And Some Editor Because Of Some Restriction He Has And Wants To Change It That I Know Is Going To Make It Less Funny That'll Piss Me Off And Then I'm Inclined To Go, "well, Hey I've Been Doing This A Long Time, Maybe You Should..." That Doesn't Happen That Often, But I'm More Likely To Say That Now Than I Would Have Been A Long Time Ago. Because Dammit, I'm Infallible!

It Is A Good Idea To 'shop Around' Before You Settle On A Doctor. Ask About The Condition Of His Mercedes. Ask About The Competence Of His Mechanic. Don't Be Shy! After All, You're Paying For It.

My Current Computer, In Addition To 'dos,' Has 'windows,' Which Is Another Invention Of Bill Gates, Designed As A Security Measure To Thwart Those Users Who Are Somehow Able To Get Past Dos.

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.

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.'

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.

Whatever The Needs Of The Public Are, The Government Responds To Those Needs By Getting Larger.

I Have Been A Gigantic Rolling Stones Fan Since Approximately The Spanish-american War.

Mother Nature Clearly Intended For Us To Get Our Food From The "patty" Group, Which Includes Hamburgers, Fish Sticks, And Mcnuggets- Foods That Have Had All Of Their Organs Safely Removed.

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

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.

We Should Call Editorials What They Are: Columns Written By Committees.

Dogs Feel Very Strongly That They Should Always Go With You In The Car, In Case The Need Should Arise For Them To Bark Violently At Nothing Right In Your Ear.

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.

I Can't Recall A Story That Played Out Exactly As I'd Expected It To. That's One Of The Thrills Of Journalism - Being Surprised, And Learning New Stuff, But It Also Poses The Biggest Challenge To A Writer's Character.

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

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

Take Out The Fortune Before You Eat The Cookie.

English History Consists Largely Of Royal People Getting Their Heads Chopped Off...needless To Say, This Brand Of History Was A Hit With Our Son.

If Black Stache Laughed, You Laughed. If He Snarled, You Snarled. If He Breathed In Your Direction, You Ran For Cover.

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.

Advice To Expectant Mothers: You Must Remember That When You Are Pregnant, You Are Eating For Two. But You Must Remember That The Other One Of You Is About The Size Of A Golf Ball, So Let's Not Go Overboard With It. I Mean, A Lot Of Pregnant Women Eat As Though The Other Person They're Eating For Is Orson Welles.

During The Warm Season (august 8 And 9), Maine Is A True Vacation Paradise, Offering Visitors A Chance To Jump Into Crystal-clear Mountain Lakes And See If They Can Get Back Out Again Before Their Bodily Tissue Is Frozen As Solid As A Supermarket Turkey.

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

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

Fishing Is Boring, Unless You Catch An Actual Fish, And Then It Is Disgusting.

The One Thing That Unites All Human Beings, Regardless Of Age, Gender, Religion Or Ethnic Background, Is That We All Believe We Are Above-average Drivers.

You Should Never Say Anything To A Woman That Even Remotely Suggests That You Think She's Pregnant Unless You Can See An Actual Baby Emerging From Her At That Moment.

If You Look At Photos Of The Gettysburg Address There's A Guy Off To The Right Who I Think Is Keith Richards.

If You Look At Any List Of Great Modern Writers Such As Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, And F. Scott Fitzgerald, You'll Notice Two Things About Them: 1. They All Had Editors. 2. They Are All Dead. Thus We Can Draw The Scientific Conclusion That Editors Are Fatal.

Scott Fitzgerald

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.

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.

If You Had To Identify, In One Word, The Reason Why The Human Race Has Not Achieved, And Never Will Achieve, Its Full Potential, That Word Would Be 'meetings.'

The Nuclear Generator Of Brain Sludge Is Television.

Real Cars Were Made Here In America: Fords, Chevys, Plymouths. These Were Large Chunks Of Detroit Iron - Cars That Had The Size, Weight, And Handling Characteristics Of Aircraft Carriers But Worse Fuel Efficiency.

Dogs Do Not Grasp The Concept Of House Cleaning.

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.

This (french-kissing) Is A Really Sexy Thing To Do, According To The French People, Although You Should Bear In Mind That They Also Like To Eat Snails.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

You Should Never Pick Up A Newspaper When You're Feeling Good, Because Every Newspaper Has A Special Department, Called The Bummer Desk, Which Is Responsible For Digging Up Depressing Front-page Stories.

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

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.

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

In South Florida, We Have Industrial Cockroaches That Have To Be Equipped With Loud Warning Beepers So You Can Get Out Of Their Way When They Back Up.

Europeans, Like Some Americans, Drive On The Right Side Of The Road, Except In England, Where They Drive On Both Sides Of The Road; Italy, Where They Drive On The Sidewalk; And France, Where If Necessary They Will Follow You Right Into The Hotel Lobby.

Eventually Everyone Has To Die, Except Elvis.

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

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.

I Was A Middle-of-the-road Democrat More Than Anything Else. I Know I Voted For Carter. Watergate Taught Me How Bad The Republicans Were.

Not All Chemicals Are Bad. Without Chemicals Such As Hydrogen And Oxygen, For Example, There Would Be No Way To Make Water, A Vital Ingredient In Beer.

When The Boomers Started To Have Kids Reach Adolescence, There Was Suddenly This Feeling That They Needed To Protect Their Kids From All The Same Things They Did When They Were Kids. Which I Guess Is A Natural Tendency, But It Makes For A Less Fun Society.

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

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.

What I Need Is A Search Engine That, No Matter What I Type In, Comes Back With Go Back To Work.

Passing The Sat: My Personal Theory Is That It Has To Do With How Much Money You Send Them In The Mail. I Think The Amounts They Tell You To Send Are Actually Just Suggested Minimum Donations - If You Get My Drift.

... Once You're Safely In The Mall, You Should Tie Your Children To You With Ropes So The Other Shoppers Won't Try To Buy Them. Holiday Shoppers Have Been Whipped Into A Frenzy By Months Of Holiday Advertisements, And They Will Buy Anything Small Enough To Stuff Into A Shopping Bag. If Your Children Object To Being Tied, Threaten To Take Them To See Santa Claus; That Ought To Shut Them Up.

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

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.

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.

For Me, The Worst Part Of Playing Golf, By Far, Has Always Been Hitting The Ball.

Ban Walking Sticks In Wilderness. Hikers That Use Walking Sticks Are More Likely To Chase Animals.

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

For People Who Like Peace And Quiet: A Phoneless Cord.

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.

Cats Are Independent, By Which I Mean Smart.

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 Problem With Writing About Religion Is That You Run The Risk Of Offending Sincerely Religious People, And Then They Come After You With Machetes.

I Really Try To Think Cinematically, Because That's How People Read. They Create A Theater In Their Minds.

And So By The Fifteenth Century, On October 8, The Europeans Were Looking For A New Place To Try To Get To, And They Came Up With A New Concept: The West.

People Don't Like It When You Make Fun Of A Celebrity. When You Make Fun Of A Celebrity, You'll Hear From Really Loyal Fans Of That Celebrity.

Of Course God Enjoys A Good Prank As Much As The Next Infallible Deity.

Here In The News Media, Our Focus Is On Speed. When We Get Hold Of Some New And Possibly Inaccurate Information, Our Highest Priority Is To Get It To You, The Public, Before Our Competitors Do. If The News Media Owned Airlines, There Would Be A Lot Less Concern About How Many Planes Crashed, And A Lot More Concern About Whose Plane Hit The Ground First.

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.

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.

Just Get On Any Major Highway, And Eventually It Will Dead-end In A Disney Parking Area Large Enough To Have Its Own Climate, Populated By Large Nomadic Families Who Have Been Trying To Find Their Cars Since The Carter Administration.

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.

Eugene Is Located In Western Oregon, Approximately 278 Billion Miles From Anything.

Roy Blount, Who Is The Funniest Person I Know, Journeys Deep Into The Dark Heart Of Humor And Brings Back A Wonderfully Insightful, Superbly Crafted Song Of The Soul That Had Me Laughing And Crying Too

Dogs Make Good Pets Because They Are Very Loyal

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

I Played Lead Guitar In A Band Called The Federal Duck, Which Is The Kind Of Name That Was Popular In The '60s As A Result Of Controlled Substances Being In Widespread Use. Back Then, There Were No Restrictions, In Terms Of Talent, On Who Could Make An Album, So We Made One, And It Sounds Like A Group Of People Who Have Been Given Powerful But Unfamiliar Instruments As A Therapy For A Degenerative Nerve Disease.

Sometimes You Panic And Find Yourself Emitting Remarks So Profoundly Inane That You Would Be Embarrassed To Say Them To Your Dog. Your Dog Would Look At You And Think To Itself, 'i May Lick Myself In Public, But I'd Never Say Anything As Stupid As That.'

If The Security Personnel Do Their Job Properly, They Just Might Cause You To Miss Your Plane, Thereby Possibly Saving Your Life.

Never Allow A Child To Spend All Of His Allowance. Insist That He Set Aside A Certain Amount Of Money Every Week And Put It In A Safe Place, Where You Can Get It If You Need To Buy Beer.

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.

If You Were To Open Up A Baby's Head - And I Am Not For A Moment Suggesting That You Should - You Would Find Nothing But An Enormous Drool Gland.

We Idolized The Beatles, Except For Those Of Us Who Idolized The Rolling Stones, Who In Those Days Still Had Many Of Their Original Teeth.

There Is Nothing As Relaxing As Being Out On The Open Sea, Listening To The Waves And The Wind And The Sails And Voices Downstairs Yelling "how Do You Flush These Toilets?"

Imagine What Will Happen To This Nation If Large Numbers Of American Women Start Using The Wonderbra. It Will Be Catastrophic. The Male Half Of The Population Will Be Nothing But Mindless Drooling Zombies Of Lust. Granted, This Is Also True Now, But It Will Be Even Worse.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

It Is An Inconvenience, Being Located In A City Where Taxes Are Ludicrously High, Where You Pay Twice Your Annual Income To Rent An Apartment That Could Easily Be Carried On A Commercial Airline Flight.

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

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

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.

You Should Definitely Have A Travel Agent. Why Go Through All The Hassle Of Dealing With Airlines, Hotels, And Rental-car Agencies Yourself, Only To See The Arrangements Get All Screwed Up, When With Just A Single Phone Call You Can Have A Trained Professional Screw Them Up For You?

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.

I've Been To Washington Many Times Over The Years For Stories, And It Always Seems Remarkably The Same. More The Same Than The Rest Of The Country. It's Almost Like They Dress The Same As They Did 20 Years Ago. The Same Old Guys Are Sitting Outside The Same Dirty, Dingy Secret Offices In The Capitol That You're Not Allowed To Go In.

You Will Never Find Anybody Who Can Give You A Clear And Compelling Reason Why We Observe Daylight Savings Time.

Compelling Reason

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

He's A Boating Enthusiast, Although That Phrase Seems Too Weak To Describe The Level Of His Interest, Kind Of Like Describing Someone As A Heroin Fancier.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

As A Taxpayer, You Are Required To Be Fully In Compliance With The United States Tax Code, Which Is Currently The Size And Weight Of The Budweiser Clydesdales.

I Am Not The Only Person Who Uses His Computer Mainly For The Purpose Of Diddling With His Computer.

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.

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.

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

Please Try Not To Be Such A Wiener-head.

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

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.

Baby's Room Should Be Close Enough To Your Room So That You Can Hear Baby Cry, Unless You Want To Get Some Sleep, In Which Case Baby's Room Should Be In Peru.

Now, Once Again, We Find Ourselves Facing Rising Gas Prices, And The Question Is: This Time, Are We Going To Learn From The Past? Are We Finally Going To Get Serious About Energy Conservation? Of Course Not! We Have The Brains Of Mealworms! So We Need To Get More Oil Somehow. As Far As I Can Figure, There's Only One Practical Way To Do This. That's Right: We Need To Clone More Dinosaurs. We Have The Technology, As Was Shown In Two Blockbuster Scientific Movies, Jurassic Park And Jurassic Park Returns With Exactly The Same Plot. Once We Have The Dinosaurs, All We Need Is An Asteroid.

Reflectors Need To Be Placed On Trees Every 50 Feet So People Can Hike At Night With Flashlights.

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.

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.

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

I Recently Had My Annual Physical Examination, Which I Get Once Every Seven Years, And When The Nurse Weighed Me, I Was Shocked To Discover How Much Stronger The Earth's Gravitational Pull Has Become Since 1990.

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!"

Albert Einstein, Who Discovered That A Tiny Amount Of Mass Is Equal To A Huge Amount Of Energy, Which Explains Why, As Einstein Himself So Eloquently Put It In A Famous 1939 Speech To The Physics Department At Princeton, 'you Have To Exercise For A Week To Work Off The Thigh Fat From A Single Snickers.'

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.

You've Read Newspaper Stories About Elderly Widows Who Die And Leave Their Entire Estates To Their Pet Cats, Right? Well, Your Cat Reads Those Stories Too, And Has Spent Most Of Its Skulking, Devious Little Life Dreaming About Inheriting All Your Money.

Miami, You Can Never Run Out Of Material. As Long As You Have Miami Around You, You Will Never, Never Stop Being Amused.

Cigarette Sales Would Drop To Zero Overnight If The Warning Said "cigarettes Contain Fat.

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.

San Francisco Leads The World In The Category Of Most People On The Sidewalk Holding Conversations With Purely Imaginary Companions.

I've Never Been Struck By Lightning As Far As I Know, So The Higher Power Is Treating Me As Well As Even Those People Who Love Him Very Much.

Guys Are Simple... Women Are Not Simple And They Always Assume That Men Must Be Just As Complicated As They Are, Only Way More Mysterious. The Whole Point Is Guys Are Not Thinking Much. They Are Just What They Appear To Be. Tragically.

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.

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!

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.

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

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

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.

You Can Only Be Young Once. But You Can Always Be Immature.

In 1765, Parliament Passed The Stamp Act, Which, As Any American High School Student Can Tell You, Was An Act That Apparently Had Something To Do With Stamps.

You Should Definitely Visit The Louvre, A World-famous Art Museum Where You Can View, At Close Range, The Backs Of Thousands Of Other Tourists Trying To See The Mona Lisa.

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

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

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

The Word User Is The Word Used By The Computer Professional When They Mean Idiot.

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.

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

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.

I Bought Windows 2.0, Windows 3.0, Windows 3.1415926, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows Rsvp, The Best Of Windows, Windows Strikes Back, Windows Does Dallas, And Windows Let's All Buy Bill Gates A House The Size Of Vermont.

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 Guess Libertarianism Is Always Considered So Weird And Fringe That People Assume That You're In The Closet If You Don't Go Around Talking About It.

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.

Why Can't Americans Do Their Own Taxes? Because The Federal Tax Code Is Out Of Control, That's Why. It's Gigantic And Insanely Complex, And It Gets Worse All The Time. Nobody Has Ever Read The Whole Thing. Irs Workers Are Afraid To Go Into The Same Room With It.

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.

Puns Are Little "plays On Words" That A Certain Breed Of Person Loves To Spring On You And Then Look At You In A Certain Self-satisfied Way To Indicate That He Thinks That You Must Think That He Is By Far The Cleverest Person On Earth Now That Benjamin Franklin Is Dead, When In Fact What You Are Thinking Is That If This Person Ever Ends Up In A Lifeboat, The Other Passengers Will Hurl Him Overboard By The End Of The First Day Even If They Have Plenty Of Food And Water.

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.

I Was A Young Person Once, Shortly After The Polar Ice Caps Retreated, And I Distinctly Recall Believing That Virtually All Adults Were Clueless Goobers.

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.

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.

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 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

He Was Distracted By A Giggle, And Turned To See A Rare Sight: A Girl.

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

All Of Us Are Born With A Set Of Instinctive Fears - Of Falling, Of The Dark, Of Lobsters, Of Falling On Lobsters In The Dark, Of Speaking Before A Rotary Club, And Of The Words "some Assembly Required".

Sign Outside A Country Shop: We Buy Junk And Sell Antiques.

Why Else Do We Have Miami, If Not To Give Me Material?

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.

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