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. Dave Barry More Quotes by Dave Barry More Quotes From Dave Barry I haven't been able to slam-dunk the basketball for the past five years. Or, for the thirty-eight years before that, either. Dave Barry eight basketball past 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. Dave Barry baby funny children 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? Dave Barry wall humorous rain For me, the worst part of playing golf, by far, has always been hitting the ball. Dave Barry balls literature golf The average tax payer is not a big voluntary supporter of the arts. The only art that the average taxpayer buys voluntarily either has a picture of Bart Simpson on it or little suction cups on its feet so you can stick it onto a car window. Dave Barry feet average art 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. Dave Barry memorable forever travel Winter's here, and you feel lousy: You're coughing and sneezing; your muscles ache; your nose is an active mucus volcano. These symptoms -- so familiar at this time of year -- can mean only one thing: Tiny fanged snails are eating your brain. Dave Barry volcanoes winter mean The IRS spends God knows how much of your tax money on these toll-free information hot lines staffed by IRS employees, whose idea of a dynamite tax tip is that you should print neatly. If you ask them a real tax question, such as how you can cheat, they're useless. So, for guidance, you want to look to big business. 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. . . . Dave Barry money business real 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". Dave Barry dark lobster fall The word user is the word used by the computer professional when they mean idiot. Dave Barry humor funny mean We journalists make it a point to know very little about an extremely wide variety of topics; this is how we stay objective. Dave Barry objectivity literature littles Don't you wish you had a job like mine? All you have to do is think up a certain number of words! Plus, you can repeat words! And they don't even have to be true! Dave Barry writing jobs thinking The French are not rude. They just happen to hate you. But that is no reason to bypass this beautiful country, whose master chefs have a well-deserved worldwide reputation for trying to trick people into eating snails. Nobody is sure how this got started. Probably a couple of French master chefs were standing around one day, and they found a snail, and one of them said: 'I bet that if we called this something like `escargot,' tourists would eat it.' Then they had hearty laugh, because 'escargot' is the French word for 'fat crawling bag of phlegm.' Dave Barry couple beautiful country What I look forward to is continued immaturity followed by death. Dave Barry cute-life silly book Gravity is a contributing factor in nearly 73 percent of all accidents involving falling objects. Dave Barry zero-gravity percent falling-in-love Thus the metric system did not really catch on in the States, unless you count the increasing popularity of the nine-millimeter bullet. Dave Barry humor funny science To better understand why you need a personal computer, let's take a look at the pathetic mess you call your life. Dave Barry technology looks needs Most American homes have alternating current, which means that the electricty goes in one direction for a while, then goes in the other direction. This prevents harmful electron buildup in the wires. Dave Barry one-direction home mean Dogsled-riding is a sport that is relaxing as well as fragrant. Dave Barry riding wells sports Electricity is actually made up of extremely tiny particles called electrons, that you cannot see with the naked eye unless you have been drinking. Dave Barry eye drinking book
