Dave Barry-isms

     The only safe way to venture onto the ocean is aboard a cruise
ship the size of a rural school district.  Even then you're not safe,
because you might become trapped in your cabin due to bodily
expansion.  Cruise ships carry thousands of tons of high calorie food,
and under maritime law they cannot return to port until all of it has
been converted into passenger fat.

     Most males here on Earth do not do any more laundry than they
absolutely have to.  A single-sock load would not be out of the
question, for a guy.  A guy might well choose to wash *only the really
dirty part of the sock.*

     Recently, while I was waiting in line at a post office to
purchase the conveniently priced 29-cent stamps, I was shocked to
hear people muttering because the three clerks behind the counter were
moving so slowly that, to he untrained eye, they did not appear to be
waiting on anybody.  They appeared to be legally dead.  Although I
think dead people are more animated, because of bacterial action.

     Without question the most important invention in human history,
next to frozen yogurt, is the computer.  Without computers, it would
be virtually impossible for us to accomploiwur xow;gkc,mf(*&(

     Our yard violates the No. 1 rule of yard design, which is: "Never
locate your yard in South Florida."  South Florida is smack dab in the
middle of a permanent weather system that weather scientists call "The
Big Armpit," meaning that it is hot and humid and prone to producing
mutant growths.  If you want biodiversity, hang around our yard,
preferably with a flamethrower.

     I do a lot of singing in the car.  You should hear Aretha
Franklin and me perform our version of "I Say a Little Prayer for
You," especially when our voices swoop way up high for the ending part
that goes, My darling BELIEVE me, for me there is nooo WAH-HHHH-AAANNN
but you.... My technique is to grip the steering wheel with both hands
and lift myself halfway out of the seat so that I can give full vocal
expression to the emotion that Aretha and I are feeling, which is a
mixture of joyous hope and bittersweet longing and the horror of
realizing that the driver of the cement truck three feet away is
staring at me, at which point I pretend that I am having a coughing
seizure while Aretha finishes the song on her own.

     Hospitals would be a *lot* more pleasant for people who work in
them if you didn't keep coming in with medical problems.

     People often ask me: "Dave, what do you do for entertainment?"
The answer is: I try on pants.  It's the only real joy I have in my
life anymore, because I'm on a diet.  It's called the Think About Food
All The Time Diet.  The way it works is: you turn every experience you
have into a food fantasy.  For example, if you're watching the movie
Alien, and you get to the part where the spaceship crew member is
lying on the table, looking queasy, and suddenly his chest bursts
open, blood flying everywhere, and out lunges this horrible
gore-dripping insect-like *thing*, your reaction, on the Think About
Food All The Time Diet, is, "Hey, I could sure go for some ribs!"

     Experts recommend that you practice your speech ahead of time in
front of a sympathetic, understanding audience.  I practice in front
of my dogs, who always listen with alert, interested expressions, in
case I'm telling them that they're going to get some leftover
spaghetti, which they love.

     I wish to stress that the Savings and Load crisis is *especially*
not the fault of Senators Alan Cranston, John Glenn, Dennis DeConcini,
Donald Riegle, and John McCain, who are known collectively as the
"Keating Five" because it would be a serious violation of the libel
laws to call them "Prostitutes With Speechwriters"

     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.

     Every year I go on a book publicity tour, because I feel it's
important for me, as an author, to develop enormous bags under my
eyes.

If you're apprehensive about flying, let me assure you, as a frequent
flier, that few experiences are more enjoyable than being seven miles
above the Earth's surface in a crowded aging piece of machinery held
aloft by principles of physics that you do not even dimly grasp while
giant invisible gravity rays pound relentlessly on the roof.

     My car has been named something like Rugged Macho Stud Hombre 4x4
Of The Century by an outfit with a name like Magazine Writers Who Do
Not Personally Own This Type Of Car But Get To Drive New Ones For
Free.  My car needs to be rugged, because it takes a constant daily
pounding from the tow truck dragging it back to the Mechanic Who Never
Actually Fixes The Problem.

Proper hair care is very important.  When I say "proper hair care," I
of course mean "using powerful chemicals in an ongoing effort to make
your hair stop looking like your hair, which you hate."

     You can't be too careful driving in South Florida.  You must be
*extremely* aware of the danger that something you do could offend
another motorist.  You should not shrug in traffic; I assume it also
goes without saying that you should *never* make an obscene gesture,
unless you have a strong hankering to experience the embalming process
firsthand.

     The Democrats believe that the only solution to the budget
deficit is to raise taxes.  This is the standard Democratic solution
for everything, including nasal congestion.  The Republicans, on the
other hand, believe that the solution is "fiscal responsibility,"
which means "blaming the Democrats."

     If you woke up one morning, and you found, in your bed, and on
your floor, and in your shoes, and in your underwear drawer, several
hundred creatures that looked exactly like lobsters except that they
were a quarter of an inch long, what would you do?  I'll tell you what
you would not do.  You would not say: "Gee! I wish these were 60 times
their current size, for I am sure they would be a delicious treat with
lemon and butter!"  No, You would go:
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK
(stompstompstompstompstompstompstompstomp)!"

SOUTH FLORIDA DRIVING QUIZ 
You are involved in a minor accident that does not involve injuries.  
You and the driver of the other car should exchange: 
  a. Clothing 
  b. Urine Samples  
  c. Gunfire

     I'm an experienced South Florida driver, and almost getting hit
is *nothing*.  It's routine.  It happens *every day*.  I'm so used to
it that I don't even bother to honk at motorists who almost kill me.
Generally it's a bad idea to honk down here anyway, inasmuch as the
South Florida motoring public is as heavily armed as Iraq, but not as
peace-loving.

     New York traffic is so dense that drivers have no hope of ever
reaching home within their own lifetimes, which is just as well
because there would be no place to park and their families probably
moved to the suburbs years ago anyway.  So the traffic has become
their entire world, the only meaning left in their lives, as they inch
their cars relentlessly forward, maneuvering, scheming, grimly
rejoicing in tactical triumphs that get them one car length ahead of
you in a honking, grinding, million-car mass moving toward Queens at
.0000000003 miles per hour.

     Major Gene Gracey of the Florida Highway Patrol has strong views
on the dangers of commuters applying makeup in traffic. "It's bad in
the morning," he said.  Especially on the turnpike.  I would say 60
percent of the women drivers are still applying makeup, doing their
hair, adjusting their rearview mirrors so they can look at themselves.
I think it should be listed as a contributing factor in crashes:
'cosmetics.'"

     At certain times of the year, our yard features absurdly large
grasshoppers.  I am talking about grasshoppers that could replace the
dogs at maximum-security prisons: 
     GUARD: Warden!  Mass murderer William R. "The Human Veg-O-Matic"
            Weeberman has escaped!  
     WARDEN: OK, then, release "King."  
     GUARD: (shuddering) If you say so.  Get him, King!  
     KING: SPROINNGGG 
     GUARD: Look at the *altitude* on that sucker.  He's gonna land at
	    least a half-mile...  
     VOICE IN THE DISTANCE:  AIEEEEEEE 
     WARDEN: tell the body-recover team to look for a motionless lump 
	     covered with brown spit.

     A lot of drivers--in my experience, mostly males--are on the
phone *all the time*.  I bet that, at their offices, they have a
steering wheel attached to their desks, so they'll feel more
comfortable.  Or maybe they don't even *have* offices.  Maybe they
just drive around, talking, gesturing, writing things down.  Sometimes
they're talking and gesturing and writing things down *and* picking
their noses, which means they are *far* too busy to wast valuable
mental effort on, for example, steering.

     I like beer.  On occasion I will even drink a beer to celebrate a
mojor event such as the fall of communism or the fact that our
refrigerator is still working.

     Millions of Americans are traveling by air, sometimes all on the
same flight.  This is the result of the airfare ware that occurred
when major US airlines, int he continuing industry-wide effort to go
bankrupt, started offering unbelievable bargains, like $29 round-trip
tickets between any two cities with electric lights.  Fares were
reduced still further by the traditional airline discount of 40
percent fo rpeople who can prove that they are dumber than mud, which
is designed to ensure that every flight has passangers who believe
that they can fit garment bags the size of mature bison into the
overhead luggage compartment.

     We're fascinated by the British royal family's shoes, along with
their weight problem, their bald spots, their ears, their hats, and
their yappy little royal dogs.  We're even more fascinated by the way
the royals have to find marriage partners in a gene pool so small that
it is more of a gene raindrop, the result being that today, after 273
generations of interbreeding, everybody in the royal family has the
same set of fingerprints.  (If a royal person commits a crime, the
only way the police can tell which one did it is by analyzing
polo-pony droppings left at the scene.

     I called a licensed scientist, Kathleen M. Sullivan, Ph.D.,
coordinator of the undergraduate marine science program at the
University of Miami.  
     "Are lobsters insects, or what?" I asked.
     "They're in the same phylum," she said.  
     **Did you hear that?** The same phylum.

     I have always liked the old-fashioned, incompetent bathroom scale, the
kind that makes a creaking noise when you step on it, and the dial
swings wildly back and forth as if the scale is trying to make up its
mind, and it never gives you anywhere near the same weight twice, and
if it seems to be registering a little on the heavy side, you can
adjust the knob, or simply put the scale on the bathmat and instantly
lose 27 pounds.  You don't feel a lot of pressure with a scale like
that.

BASIC GUY FASHION RULE
     If, when you appear at the breakfast table, your wife laughs so
hard that she spits out her toast, you should consider wearing a
different tie.

     In terms of appearance, hair is one of the most the most
important features of a woman's entire body.  In a recent, the Gallup
organization asked 1,500 men what part of a woman they look at first,
and they denied that they look at women at all, because their wives
were standing right next to them.  But they were lying.  They
definetly look at women, and one of the things they notice is hair.
"Yes, that woman probably had hair," they'll say, if questioned.

     People will watch virtually anything on television, **including a
show made up entirely of commercials.**  If you want proof, tune in to
the home-shopping shows.  Usually you'll see a close-up of a piece of
jewelry--sometimes ugly, sometimes truly hideous--but always at an
*amazingly low price.*  You know this because the announcer tell you.

     The commitment problem has caused many women to mistakenly conclude
that men, as a group, have the emotional maturity of hamsters.  This
is no the case.  A hamster is *much* more capable of making a lasting
commitment to a woman, especially if she gives it those little food
pellets.  Whereas a guy, in a relationship, will consume the pellets
of companionship, and he will run on the exercise wheel of lust;  but
as soon as he senses the the door of commitment is about to close and
trap him in the wire cage of true intimacy, he'll squirm out, scamper
across the kitchen floor of uncertainty and hide under the
refrigerator of non-Readiness.

     Storage space is *extremely* important to women.  You want to know
why, 20,000 years ago, nomadic Asian peoples made the brutal,
dangerous trek across vast expanses of barren wasteland to come to
North America?  Because nomadic women heard that there were caves
here with plenty of room for kitchen implements.  Archaeologists are
still finding ancient stored pots.

     Readers sent me this Associated Press report:
"SACRAMENTO, Calif.--A man who hit his wife with frozen squirrels was
jailed on suspicion of spousal abuse, police said Monday."  The report
states that the couple was having an argument, and the man"walked into
the kitchen and took several frozen squirrels from the freezer," then
struck his wife with them.  "It was unclear why the squirrels were in
the freezer," states the report, thus proving that American journalism
remains a haven for people with peach pits for brains.  I mean,
where *else* are you going to keep squirrels?  Your sock drawer?

     The sensible way to ask a girl out is to walk directly up to her on
foot and say, "So, you want to go out?  Or what?"  I never did this.
I knew that there was always the possibility that the girl would say
no, thereby leaving me with no viable option but to leave Harold
C. Crittenden Junior High school Forever and go into the woods and
become a bark-eating hermit whose only companions would be the gentle
and understanding woodland creatures.
     "Hey, *Zitface*!" the woodland creatures would shriek in cute
little Chip 'n' Dale voices while raining acorns down upon my head.
"You wanna *date?* Hahahahahahahahah."

     When we get to the tax form question about how much, exactly, we spend
on "child care," we are going to have some questions of our own,
including: What about Captain Skyhawk?  Captain Skyhawk is a Nintendo
game that we purchased for our son for Christmas because we are bad
parents who wish to rot his mind.  It cost $41.99, and we definitely
view that as a child-care expense.

     At a fancy hotel you should be prepared to tip basically your life
savings.  The instant you arrive, uniformed men will surround your
car and greet you in an aggressive manner while snatching your
luggage, which they'll give to *other* men who'll give it to other
men, until you have been assisted by enough uniformed men to form the
Iraqi army, all of whom will have to be tipped if you ever hope to
see your underwear again.

     Working at home is an idea that is appealing to more and more people,
such as George Bush.  One day he got sick and tired of constant
foreign travel and said, "Barbara, I'm going to put a desk and a phone
in the Oval office and just stay home and veto legislation."  Other
famous people who work at home are Queen Elizabeth II and the
American farmer.

ASK MISTER LANGUAGE PERSON
 
Q: Which of the following sentences is correct?
--"Being a respected attorney, the dog lunged straight for
    Mr. Thwockett's personal region."
--"The dog, being a respected attorney, lunged straight for
    Mr. Thwockett's personal region."
A: They both have their strong points.

     Sometimes a book tour will involve a dozen radio interviews a
day.  They form a pattern: I go to a radio station, sit in the waiting
room for a while, looking at 1987 issues of _Broadcast_ magazine, then
go into a little studio with a Radio Personality.  The two of us then
attempt to have an enthusiastic conversation about my book, even
though after a few days I'm pretty much sick of talking about it, and
the Radio Personality only started reading it 10 minutes earlier (I
get a *lot* of questions about whatever is in the first three pages).
But The Show Must Go On, so we both roar with unnatural laughter at
anything even vaguely humorous.  "This is a very, very funny book,"
the Radio Personality will often assure the audience at the end of the
interview, apparently basing this statement on the quality of the
binding.

     Our yard has a large and active colony of a species of snake
known to snake scientists as "prank snakes."  The way a prank snake
attacks its prey is, it lies down on the lawn directly in the path
that the prey takes from its house to the little office in the back
where it (the prey) writes its newspaper column.  The snake holds
perfectly still until the prey is just about to step on it, the
*Yikes* it rears its head up and slithers a few feet, causing the prey
to flinch violently and splash hot coffee onto itself and dance around
and make noises like a small porpoise in big trouble.  Then the snake
slithers off to exchange "low five" tail slaps with its friends.

     Why do guys do macho things?  One possible explanation is that
they believe women are impressed.  In fact, however, most women have
the opposite reaction to macho behavior.  You rarely hear women say
things like, "Norm, when that vending machine failed to give you a
Three Musketeers bar and you punched it so hard that you broke your
hand and we had to go to the hospital instead of my best friend's
daughter's wedding, I became so filled with lust for you that I nearly
tore off all my clothes right there in the emergency room."  No, women
are far more likely to say: "Norm, you have the brains of an Odor
Eater."

     Horses are the opposite of dogs, gratitude-dise.  You give a dog
something totally wretched to eat, such as a toad part or a wad of
pre-chewed Dentyne, and the dog will henceforth view you as the
Supreme Being.  It will gaze on you for hours with rapt adoration and
lick the ground you walk on and try to kill the pizza delivery person
if he comes anywhere near you.  Whereas if you spend hours grooming a
horse and lugging its food and water around, the horse will be
thinking: "Should I chomp on this person's arm?  Or should I merely
blow a couple gallons of horse snot into this person's hair?"

     Several alert readers sent me an editorial that appeared in the
_Fresno Bee_ (Motto: "Fresno's Most Comically Named Newspaper"). It
seems that in 1958 the federal govenment, whcih is as you know is
always looking for expensive new ways to look ridiculous, began and
experiment wehrein 1,000 beagles were regularly injected with
radiation to see what happens when you inject beagles regularly with
radiation.  The last beagle died in 1986, and all of their bodies,
which are radioactive, are being kept in frozen storage near Davis,
California, along with--this is still true--34,000 gallons of
radioactive beagle waste.

     How come broadcast news reporters end their reports by saying,
"This is Edward M. Stuntgoat, reporting."  What *else* would we think
he's doing?  Hemorrhaging?

     Everybody in South Florida has lawn sprinklers, which are
designed to break if they are subjected to abnormal stress, such as
water passing through them.

BASIC GUY FASHION RULE
     When dressing for a formal event, always check the armpits of
your rental tuxedo for vermin.

     One day several months ago my wife became possessed by demons in
a mall and purchased a digital computerized bathroom scale.  The scale
my wife brought home was a very strict Certified Public Accountant of
a scale, the kind that, in Scale College, was always studying in the
library on Friday night when the other scales were at wild parties
puking their springs out.  When I stood on this new scale and it
informed me, within one tenth of a pound how much I weighed, my
immediate reaction was that of a very large parasite, such as a
Doberman pincscher, had attached itself to my body somewhere without
my being aware of it.

My son, who is 11, has started going to dance parties.  Only minutes
ago he was this little boy whose idea of looking really sharp was to
have all the Kool-Aid stains on his He-Man T-shirt be of the same
flavor; now, suddenly, he's spending more time per day on his hair
than it took to paint the Sistine Chapel

The deeply moving picture _Field of Dreams_ tells the heartwarming
story of a man, played by Kevin Costner, who receives instruction from
corn.  One day the corn tells him to build a baseball field next to
his house, so naturally he does.  (It could have been worse: A really
malevolent vegetable, such as zucchini, would have told him to build a
nuclear reactor.)

Watching _Field of Dreams_, especially the emotion-packed ending, I
had tears in my eyes as I thought to myself *How come my wife never
looks at me the way she looks at Kevin Costner?*

The Hubble Orbiting Space Paperwieght, which was purchased for $1.5
Billion from Telescopes 'R' Us, performed perfectly except for one
minor design flaw, namely that it would have been cheaper to take a
relgular telescope and put it on top of an 87-mile high pile of $50
bills. 

Should the public tar all the apples in the political barrel with the
same broad brush just because a few rotten eggs are crying over spilt
milk?  Of course not.  The truth is that there are a great many
politicians who are honest, trustworthy, intelligent, hard-working,
decent, and competent.  Unfortunately, they are all located on the
planet Zoombah.  The ones here on earth are dumpsterheads.

Oh, they don't *call* it perfume.  They call it "fragrance for men,"
and they give it guy-type names like "El Hombre De Male Man for Him,"
but it's definetly perfume.  THis is alarming to me because I grew up
in an environment where, if you had shown up at school wearing a
fragrance, the other males would have stuffed you into a gym locker
and left you there for the better part of the academic year.

The employment market is tough.  The only sector of the economy
showing any actual job growth is the Resume Handling Sector, which
hires beefy workers to unload the tons of new resumes that arrive at
major corporations each day on enormous barges.

Even as you read these words, economists in secret government
laboratories are developing an entirely new S&L bailout monetary unit,
the "whomptillion," a number so large that it will cost the taxpayers
$32.7 billion every time a high federal official *pronounces* it.

The federal deficit is creating a monstrous, crushing burden of debt
that will be placed on the shoulders of future generations.  This has
a certain appeal.  It can be seen as revenge for all the times that
our future generations failed to pick their possessions up off the
floor even after we asked them 62,000 times.

You probably have your own turkey recipe, but you have not had turkey
until you taste it the way I make it.  People will take just one bite
of my turkey and exclaim: "Aren't you supposed to remove this plastic
bag containing turkey organs before you put it in the oven?"  Not me,
pal.  Those organs are *scary*.  I'm not putting my hand inside a dark
turkey orifice with them until I'm sure they are *dead*.  So I
recommend cooking the tar out of the turkey, then firing a couple of
machine-gun bursts into it just in case.  We call this "Turkey Miami
Style."