Background Image

...

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.

-Dave Barry

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

You Must Prepare Yourselves,

Dave Barry

...

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.

Views: 67305

Topic

More From Dave Barry

Editorials Are Written By People Who Have Agreed To Have Several Strong Opinions A Day And To Write Them Down, Provided They Do Not Have To Sign Their Names.

Speaking Of Food, English Cuisine Has Received A Lot Of Unfair Criticism Over The Years, But The Truth Is That It Can Be A Very Pleasant Surprise To The Connoisseur Of Severely Overcooked Livestock Organs Served In Lukewarm Puddles Of Congealed Grease. England Manufactures Most Of The World's Airline Food, As Well As All The Food You Ever Ate In Your Junior-high-school Cafeteria.

All The Big Corporations Depreciate Their Possessions, And You Can, Too, Provided You Use Them For Business Purposes. For Example, If You Subscribe To The Wall Street Journal, A Business-related Newspaper, You Can Deduct The Cost Of Your House, Because, In The Words Of U.s. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger In A Landmark 1979 Tax Decision: Where Else Are You Going To Read The Paper? Outside? What If It Rains?

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

Classical Music Gradually Lost Popularity Because It Is Too Complicated: You Need Twenty-five Or Thirty Skilled Musicians Just To Hum It Properly. So People Began To Develop Regular Music.

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.

Without Question, The Greatest Invention In The History Of Mankind Is Beer. Oh, I Grant You That The Wheel Was Also A Fine Invention, But The Wheel Does Not Go Nearly As Well With Pizza.

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.

Scientists Now Believe That The Primary Biological Function Of Breasts Is To Make Males Stupid.

A Secret Society Within A Secret Society.

Meetings Are Places Where Dead Ideas Rise From Their Graves And Eat The Brains Of The Living.

I Have A Friend Named Doris Who Argues, On Good Authority, That The Single Biggest Cause Of Global Warming Is Menopause.

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

We Journalists... Are Also Extremely Impressed With Scientists, And We Will, Frankly, Print Just About Any Wacky Thing They Tell Us, Especially If It Involves Outer Space.

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.

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.

...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.

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 Realize That There Are Certain Hardships That Only Females Must Endure, Such As Childbirth, Waiting In Lines For Public-restroom Stalls, And A Crippling, Psychotic Obsession With Shoe Color. Also, Females Tend To Reach Emotional Maturity Very Quickly, So That By Age 7 They Are No Longer Capable Of Seeing The Humor In Loud Inadvertent Public Blasts Of Flatulence, Whereas Males Can Continue To Derive Vast Enjoyment From This Well Into Their 80s.

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

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.

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.

Big Business Never Pays A Nickel In Taxes, According To Ralph Nader, Who Represents A Big Consumer Organization That Never Pays A Nickel In Taxes.

Dna Is An Abbreviation For Deoxyribonucleicantidisestablishmentarianism, A Complex String Of Syllables.

Computers Are Getting Smarter All The Time. Scientists Tell Us That Soon They Will Be Able To Talk To Us. (and By 'they', I Mean 'computers'. I Doubt Scientists Will Ever Be Able To Talk To Us.)

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.

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.

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."

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

All The Shopping Malls And Restaurants And Airports Are Riddled With Low-fidelity Loudspeakers, Which Apparently Have Developed The Ability To Reproduce By Themselves; These Are All Connected To A Special Programming Service Called Music That Nobody Really Likes, And You Cannot Get Away From It.

Long, Long Ago, Before Eruptions Were Invented, The Molten Lava Had To Be Carried Down The Mountainside, Bucket By Bucket, And Poured Over The Sleeping Villagers. This Took Time.

The Democrats Believe That If God Did Not Want Them To Raise Taxes, He Would Not Have Created The Internal Revenue Service.

Hardware: Where The People In Your Company's Software Section Will Tell You The Problem Is. Software: Where The People In Your Company's Hardware Section Will Tell You The Problem Is.

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

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.

The Most Valuable Function Performed By The Federal Government Is Entertainment.

I Have Come Up With A Sure-fire Concept For A Hit Television Show, Which Would Be Called `a Live Celebrity Gets Eaten By A Shark'.

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.

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

I Think If You Use Twitter And Social Media As Your Main Source Of Information You Are An Idiot, But I Think Most People Who Use It Know Better, So I Kind Of Enjoy It.

Childbirth, As A Strictly Physical Phenomenon, Is Comparable To Driving A United Parcel Truck Through An Inner Tube.

The Most Powerful Force In The Universe Is Gossip.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Univac: A Device, Which Contained 20,000 Vacuum Tubes, Occupied 1,500 Square Feet And Weighed 40 Tons; There Was Also A Laptop Version Weighing 27 Tons.

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.

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.

There Are No Bad Haircuts In Cyberspace.

But The Feeling I Have, You Know, Is That I'll Never Come Close To Reading All, Or Even A Thousandth- A Billionth- Of The Books I'd Probably Love If I Ever Got To Them.

Black Stache Had No Love For The Queen, No Love For Women Of Any Sort, Except For His Ma. He Had A Real Soft Spot For His Ma, And Was Truly Sorry For The Time He’d Marooned Her.

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

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.

Funny, Isn't It? The Airlines Go To All That Trouble To Keep You From Taking A Gun On Board, Then They Just Hand You A Dinner Roll You Could Kill A Musk Ox With.

You Cannot Paint The Exterior Of Your House. You Have To Take The Paint Chip Down To Show The Paint-chip Nazis.

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.

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.

The Newspaper Industry When I Came Along In The Mid-70s Was Rich And Powerful And Growing And Hungry For Material And Open To New People. None Of That Is True In The Newspaper Industry Today. Print In General Is Pretty Rugged. The Good Thing Is That You Can Gain A Foothold On The Internet Because Everybody Has Access To It, Even Things Like Twitter - I Mean, You Can Get A Reputation For Being Funny Pretty Quickly On Twitter, On A Blog, That Kind Of Thing.

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

Most Recently I Read Michael Lewis "boomerang." The Other Guy I Love Is Bill Bryson.

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.

Line Printer Paper Is Strongest At The Perforations.

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.

When To Arrive At The Airport?: You Should Be At The Airport Already.

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.

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.

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

It May Be Meaningless, But At Least It's A Gesture.

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.

In Modern America, Food Is Abundant Everywhere Except Aboard Commercial Airplanes.

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.

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 Regularly Read Internet User Groups Filled With Messages From People Trying To Solve Software Incompatibility Problems That, In Terms Of Complexity, Make The U.s. Tax Code Look Like Dr. Seuss.

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.

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

A Gene Can Be Either Dominant Or Recessive, Depending On Which Type Of Gene It Is.

Beneath Their Surface Differences, There Are A Lot Of Deep, Underlying Differences.

It Always Rains On Tents. Rainstorms Will Travel Thousands Of Miles, Against Prevailing Winds For The Opportunity To Rain On A Tent.

You Should Not Confuse Your Career With Your Life.

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.

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

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.

Take The Folks At Coca-cola. For Many Years, They Were Content To Sit Back And Make The Same Old Carbonated Beverage. It Was A Good Beverage, No Question About It; Generations Of People Had Grown Up Drinking It And Doing The Experiment In Sixth Grade Where You Put A Nail Into A Glass Of Coke And After A Couple Of Days The Nail Dissolves And The Teacher Says: Imagine What It Does To Your Teeth! So Coca-cola Was Solidly Entrenched In The Market, And The Management Saw No Need To Improve.

Palestinian And Israeli Leaders Finally Recover The Road Map To Peace, Only To Discover That, While They Were Looking For It, The Lug Nuts Of Mutual Interest Came Off The Front Left Wheel Of Accommodation, Causing The Sport Utility Vehicle Of Progress To Crash Into The Ditch Of Despair.

Mutual Interest

I Read "remembrance Of Things Past" In The Original French. I Never Start The Day Without Reading Me Some [marcel] Proust.

Magnetism Is One Of The Six Fundamental Forces Of The Universe, With The Other Five Being Gravity, Duct Tape, Whining, Remote Control, And The Force That Pulls Dogs Toward The Groins Of Strangers.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Never Board A Commercial Aircraft If The Pilot Is Wearing A Tank Top.

Democracy: In Which You Say What You Like And Do What You're Told.

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

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.

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

Socially Prominent People Are Very Fond Of Disease, Because It Gives Them A Chance To Have These Really Elaborate Charity Functions, And The Newspaper Headlines Say 'evening In Paris Ball Raises Money To Fight Gout' Instead Of 'rich People Amuse Themselves'.

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.

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

Love And Pregnancy And Riding On A Camel Cannot Be Hid

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

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.

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.

The First Animals To Be Successfully Domesticated Were Dogs, Which Were A Big Help Because They Would Bark All Night And Fetch Thrown Sticks, Thereby Freeing Humans From Having To Perform These Tedious Yet Vital Tasks.

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!

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.

Wood Heat Is Not New. It Dates Back To A Day Millions Of Years Ago, When A Group Of Cavemen Were Sitting Around, Watching Dinosaurs Rot. Suddenly, Lightning Struck A Nearby Log And Set It On Fire. One Of The Cavemen Stared At The Fire For A Few Minutes, Then Said: Hey! Wood Heat! The Other Cavemen, Who Did Not Understand English, Immediately Beat Him To Death With Stones. But The Key Discovery Had Been Made, And From That Day Forward, The Cavemen Had All The Heat They Needed, Although Their Insurance Rates Went Way Up.

Technically, Windows Is An "operating System," Which Means That It Supplies Your Computer With The Basic Commands That It Needs To Suddenly, With No Warning Whatsoever, Stop Operating.

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.'

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.

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.

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).

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.

Today, You're 50. Now We Can Round Your Age Up To 100! Happy 50th Birthday!

There Are A Number Of People Without Whom I Could Not Have Written This Book, But I Hope You Don't Hold That Against Them. They Are All Fine People, And They Had No Idea How It Would Turn Out.

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.

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.

Software: These Programs Give Instruction To The Cpu, Which Processes Billions Of Tiny Facts Called Bytes, And Within A Fraction Of A Second It Sends You An Error Message That Requires You To Call The Customer-support Hot Line And Be Placed On Hold For Approximately The Life-span Of A Caribou.

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

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

I'm One Of Those People Who Tells My Wife, "no Coaching From The Sidelines."

Proofread Carefully To See If You Any Words Out.

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.

The Four Building Blocks Of The Universe Are Fire, Water, Gravel And Vinyl.

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.

This Nation Is So Friendly That The Leading Cause Of Injury Is Getting Passionately Embraced By Strangers.

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

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

Found A Smoldering Cigarette Left By A Horse.

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

Violence And Smut Are Of Course Everywhere On The Airwaves. You Cannot Turn On Your Television Without Seeing Them, Although Sometimes You Have To Hunt Around.

I've Gained A Few Pounds Around The Middle. The Only Lower Body Garments I Own That Still Fit Me Comfortably Are Towels.

This Is True; Virtually All Edible Substances, And Many Automotive Products, Are Now Marketed As Being Low-fat Or Fat-free. Americans Are Obsessed With Fat Content.

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.

A Short Distance Away Is The Tidal Basin, Ringed By Cherry Trees That Every Year Produce Flowers, An Event To Which Washingtonians React As Though It Were The Second Coming Of Christ.

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

Gravity Is A Contributing Factor In Nearly 73 Percent Of All Accidents Involving Falling Objects.

Falling In Love

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.

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.

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.

I Hope I Don't Sound Like An Old-fashioned Stick-in-the-mud, But When I Hear About People Making Vast Fortunes Without Doing Any Productive Work Or Contributing Anything To Society, My Reaction Is: “how Can I Get In On That?

Productive Work

You're Not Allowed To Park A Truck In Your Driveway. You're Not Allowed To Work On Your House On Sunday. The People Who Enforce These Laws Are Nuts. After I Wrote A Column On This, I Got I Don't Know How Many Letters From Coral Gables Homeowners, Story After Story After Story, Wonderfully Horrible Stories. And The Venom They Felt For Their Own Government!

Mousse Was A Labrador Retriever, Which Is A Large Enthusiastic Bulletproof Species Of Dog Made Entirely From Synthetic Materials. This Is The Kind Of Dog That, If It Takes An Interest In Your Personal Regions (which Of Course It Does) You Cannot Fend It Off With A Blowtorch.

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.

We Believe That Electricity Exists, Because The Electric Company Keeps Sending Us Bills For It, But We Cannot Figure Out How It Travels Inside Wires.

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.

[there Is] A Breed Of Fashion Models

Sat Tests Are Designed By Huge Panels Of Experts In Education And Psychology Who Work For Years To Design Tests In Which Not One Single Question Measures Any Bit Of Knowledge That Anyone Might Actually Need In The Real World. We Should Applaud Kids For Getting Lower Scores.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

My Problem With Chess Was That All My Pieces Wanted To End The Game As Soon As Possible.

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

Several Months Ago, Out Of The Blue, A Company Named "cingular" Started Sending Me Bills. I Had Never Heard Of Cingular, And I Honestly Did Not Know What These Bills Were For, So I Put Them In The Pile Where I Keep Documents That I Intend To Scrutinize More Carefully Later On, After My Death. Then I Started Seeing Tv Commercials For Cingular, But Of Course They Did Not Make It Clear What Cingular Is, Because The First Rule Of Modern Advertising Is: "never Reveal What You Are Advertising."

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.

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

We're Trying To Make Our Current House Look Domestic So That Somebody Will Want To Buy It. We're Making A Lot Of Simple, Obvious Improvements That Never Would Have Occurred To Us To Make While We Actually Lived Here, Because, Tragically, We Both Happen To Be Domestically Impaired. If We Were Birds, Our Nest Would Consist Of A Single Twig With The Eggs Attached Via Scotch Tape.

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.

With A Novel, You Have The Reader With You A Lot Longer, And You Owe Him A Lot More. Obviously You Have To Have A Plot - I Say "obviously," Although I Think A Lot Of Fiction Doesn't, And Nothing Seems To Happen. But To Me, There Should Be Something That Happens, And It Should Be At Least Vaguely Plausible. And Because The Readers Are Going To Be With These Characters For A Long Time, You Have To Get To Know Them And Like Them And Want To Know What Happens To Them.

He Felt A Momentary Pang Of Regret That He Had Not Spent More Time With His Beloved Wife. But It Passed When He Remembered That The Reason He’d Gone To Sea In The First Place Was That He Had Never Really Liked His Beloved Wife.

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

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

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.

The Weightlifting Competition I Saw Was The Women's 63 Kg Class. I'm Not Sure Whether This Means The Actual Women Weighed 63 Kg Or The Weights They Lifted Weighed 63 Kg. Or Possibly The Temperature In The Weightlifting Hall Was 63 Kg. There's No Way To Know For Sure Without Finding Out What A "kg" Is, And My Belief, As An American, Is That If I Have To Start Understanding The Metric System, Then The Terrorists Have Won.

I Read A Lot Of Lot Non-demanding Fiction.

As A Professional Journalist, I Am Always Looking For New Ways To Get Paid For Being Motionless.

I Would Say That The Single Most Important Conclusion I Reached, After Traveling Through Japan, As Well As Countless Hours Reading, Studying, And Analyzing This Fascinating Culture, Is That You Should Always Tighten The Cap On The Shampoo Bottle Before You Put It In Your Suitcase.

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.

You Can Use The Internet To Find Out, From Anywhere On The Planet: Exactly How Much Coffee Is In A Certain Coffee Machine At Cambridge University In England; Exactly How Many Sodas Are Available In Certain Vending Machines At Certain Major Universities; And Much, Much More.

Cambridge University

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

... 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.

Sign At A Tennessee Highway: When This Sign Is Under Water, This Road Is Impassable.

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."

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

I Think I've Learned Over The Years, Because You'd Have To Be Stupid Not To, That When A Book Publisher Gives You A Deadline They're Just Kidding For The Most Part. I Don't Know What They Do With It, It's Like You Send Them Your Book And They Just Hold It In Their Hands For Like Six Months And I Don't Know Why, And You Realize You Probably Had More Time.

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

To Better Understand Why You Need A Personal Computer, Let's Take A Look At The Pathetic Mess You Call Your Life.

When Trouble Arises And Things Look Bad, There Is Always One Individual Who Perceives A Solution And Is Willing To Take Command. Very Often, That Individual Is Crazy.

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?"

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.

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

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.

We Journalists Make It A Point To Know Very Little About An Extremely Wide Variety Of Topics; This Is How We Stay Objective.

I Love The Resource Of The Internet. I Use It All The Time. Anything I'm Writing - For Example, If I'm Writing A Scene About Washington D.c. And I Want To Know Where This Monument Is, I Can Find It Right Away, I Can Get A Picture Of The Monument, It Just Makes Your Life So Much Easier, Especially If You're Writing Fiction. You Can Check Stuff So Much Quicker, And I Think That's All Great For Writers.

For Most Celebrities, The Biggest Meal Of The Day Is Toothpaste (they Use Reduced-fat Crest).

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 Trouble Is, You Cannot Grow Just One Zucchini. Minutes After You Plant A Single Seed, Hundreds Of Zucchini Will Barge Out Of The Ground And Sprawl Around The Garden, Menacing The Other Vegetables. At Night, You Will Be Able To Hear The Ground Quake As More And More Zucchinis Erupt.

A Person Who Is Nice To You, But Rude To The Waiter, Is Not A Nice Person.

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.

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

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

People - Just Weird People Are Attracted To Miami. And They Come There Not For Serious Reasons, Usually.

Airline Food Is Not Intended For Human Consumption. It's Intended As A Form Of In-flight Entertainment, Wherein The Object Is To Guess What It Is, Starting With Broad Categories Such As "mineral" And "linoleum."

The Problem With Winter Sports Is That - Follow Me Closely Here - They Generally Take Place In Winter.

My Therapist Told Me The Way To Achieve True Inner Peace Is To Finish What I Start. So Far Today, I Have Finished 2 Bags Of M&m's And A Chocolate Cake. I Feel Better Already.

Trending Author

Jeff Greenfield

Category