Whenever somebody asks me what books I would take to a desert island, I always want to say "I would take books about boat construction".  Because that way, I could learn how to build a boat and get off the island!  Right?  But then I worry that the person who asks might think I'm trying to pull something on them and would say "Okay, mister, if you're so smart, why didn't you read books on how to build boats before going to the island?"  Plus, okay, sure, boat construction books would be great for when I needed to get off the island, but what about the voyage back home?  It could take weeks!  What am I, going to read boat construction manuals that whole time?  Forget it.  They're always so dry and technical.

So instead, I say "Those Sniglets books by Rich Hall."  Yeah, those were pretty funny.

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I'm tired of wasting money on all these programs to try and prevent murder.  Hey, Big Brother, people are going to murder each other anyway!  You think some guy ever didn't chop up a drifter into a dozen pieces and bury the sections at different national parks just because some teacher told him it was "wrong"? 

We could be spending that money where it's really needed, like on candy.

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My mom was really overprotective of me when I was a kid.  I can understand it, because I was an only child and she couldn't bear the thought of anything happening to me, but it really ticked me off, and hindered my social development, that I couldn't do any of the normal childhood stuff because she was afraid I would get hurt.

When the other kids were out skateboarding, I had to stay in and read, because she was afraid I'd break my legs.  When the other kids were playing football, I was at home learning to play the theremin because she was afraid one of the children would cut my helmet strap and permanently paralyze me.  When the other kids were having hammer fights, I was getting sent to the doctor to be inoculated against diseases that either had long since been eradicated or that my mother had just made up, because she didn't want me to break my glasses.

But the whole time, I kept lobbying her to let me play like a normal kid.  And the thing I wanted most of all was my own bike.  She was terrified I'd get run over by a car, fall off and skin my knees, or careen off the road into a drainage ditch and get raped by a hobo.  But I argued and whined and cajoled until finally she let me get a bike.

As it happened, on the way home from my very first solo bike ride, I broke my neck.  But it was the result of a totally unrelated racially motivated beating that had nothing to do with the bike!  So, come on, mom, unlock my door already.  I'm forty-nine years old, and I can't go anywhere in this iron lung anyway.

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I hear a lot about these low-carb diets, like Atkins and the South Beach Diet and the Hollywood Jews program, but do you know what would be a sure-fire diet plan?  A weight-loss pill that took off the pounds, but came embedded in a bottle of whiskey!  Or better yet, chocolate-covered whiskey!  Wait, what was it again?