Barry! Dave Barry!

I like Dave Barry’s work very much. Whenever I got hold of a Mad magazine, I used to leaf through for his pages. Though his books are priced a bit steep (Any original is costly for a pirated, platform book purchaser), they are good. Sometimes he harangues a bit more on a topic. Still class is there. I have a collection of his quotes and I quote from them:

Starters:
“White bread and refined sugar, if eaten, cause death within hours. So it's important to watch what you eat, at least until it gets inside your mouth. After that it becomes pretty disgusting.”

On American way of life:
“The article quotes a wildlife official as saying that great horned owls "regularly" attack people. "They have very powerful feet," the official says, leading us to believe that it is just a matter of time before these creatures are employed by automobile dealerships ("No thanks really, I was just look... HEY! Let GO!!")”

“We wanted to have a relaxing family vacation, so we got together with two other families and rented a sailboat in the Virgin Islands. 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?"”

“Disney World is a place where your dreams really do come true, if you dream about having people wearing enormous cartoon-animal heads come around to your restaurant table and act whimsical and refuse to go away until you laugh with delight”

“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”

On little family issues (and my tongue in cheek):
“Nintendo enables the child to develop a sense of self-worth by mastering a complex, demanding task that makes his father look like a total goober.
The typical Nintendo game involves controlling a little man who runs around on the screen trying to stay alive while numerous powerful and inexplicably hostile forces try to kill him; in other words, it's exactly like real life.”

“Dave's Safety Precautions: (1) Never keep three-year-old children around the house. (2) If you do, never sleep.”

Cocking a snook at the British:
“In America, people drive on the RIGHT side of the street, whereas in London, they drive on BOTH sides of the street, using hard-to-see cars about the size of toaster ovens. The best way to handle this, as a tourist, is to remain on one side of the street for your entire visit, and see the other side on another trip”

All in the family:
“Tragically, my wife and I 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”

“The trick to remember while backing a boat into a carport is, if you turn your car wheels to the right ("starboard"), the boat trailer will actually go to the LEFT ("forecastle"), until your wife ("Beth") announces that you have run over a sprinkler head ("$12.95")”

Management:
“I think the people wearing enormous cartoon-animal heads at Disney World are part of a corporate discipline program for Disney executives: "Johnson, your department is over budget again. You know what that means." "No! Please!" "Yes! INTO THE GOOFY SUIT!"”

No parody is worth its salt if doesn’t poke the taxman:
“18th Century Tax Forms: "To determineth the amounteth that thou canst claimeth for depreciation to thine cow, deducteth the amount showneth on Line XVLIICX-A of Schedule XIV, from the amount showneth on Line CVXILIIVMM of Schedule XVVII... No, waiteth, we meaneth Line XCII of Schedule CXVIILMM... No holdeth it, we meaneth..."”

Dave! I hail thou! You’ve made my day many a time. :-)