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In these troubled economic times, when money is scarce for many people, it's important that we remind ourselves, and our loved ones, that the holiday season is not about buying things. Then we and our loved ones can enjoy a hearty laugh, because, of COURSE the holiday season is about buying things. Now more than ever, the U.S. retail economy depends on consumers spending money they don't actually have on gifts that nobody actually needs. That is the thinking behind the federal government's recently passed $783-billion Emergency Holiday Retail Stimulus Act, which will be used to purchase, among other things,...

(This classic Dave Barry column was originally published July 25, 2004.) When word got around the music community that the original Federal Duck was getting back together after 35 years, the reaction from serious rock fans was unanimous: ``Why?'' I should explain that the Federal Duck was the band I belonged to when I was a student at Haverford College back in the '60s. We were originally called The Stomp Jackson Quintet, and then The Guides (don't ask), but we came up with our new and final name one night when we were lying on the bank of the Haverford...

(This classic Dave Barry column was originally published April 25, 2004.) Every now and then, you come across a story so darned heartwarming that you need to take a prescription antacid. This is such a story. I found out about it from alert reader David Rankin, who sent me the Jan. 3 front page of the Sevier County, Tenn., Mountain Press. On it is an article about a Danville, Va.-based textile company called ''Dan River,'' which was closing its Sevierville plant and laying off workers. Evidently, some savvy individual in management realized that the workers would be unhappy about losing...

(This classic Dave Barry column was originally published May 30, 2004.) I figured out why movie stars generally are young. It's not just because they look good naked. It's also because their brains still work. I learned this recently when I became an ''actor'' in a movie being made in Miami based on a book I wrote about guys. I put ''actor'' in quotation marks because real actors can, you know, act. Whereas my job in this movie was to walk into the scene where the real actors were acting, and say a line like: ''Now, that's a good example...

(This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Nov. 28, 2004.) It is time for another rendition of "Ask Mister Language Person, " the only grammar column approved for internal use by the Food and Drug Administration; the grammar column that puts the "dip" in "diphthong," the "vern" in "vernacular," and the "dang" in "dangling participle." Today we shall commence right at the outset by starting with our first question, which concerns vocabulary: Q. What does "decimate" mean? A. This often-misunderstood word is an anterior cruciate predicate that should be used in conjugal phrases, as follows: "Noreen was totally decimated...

(This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Nov. 28, 2004.) It's game night, and the Pinecrest Wolverettes are getting ready. The Wolverettes are my daughter's soccer team. They're all 4 years old, and they're all girls. They've been practicing under their coach, Susanna. They're learning the fundamentals of soccer, which are: 1. You're supposed to kick the ball. 2. You're not supposed to pick up the ball. 3. Even if you really really want to pick up the ball, you're not supposed to. 4. If you have to go potty, try to wait for a water break instead of...

(This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Feb. 24, 2002.) My advice to aspiring humor columnists is: Never make fun of North Dakota. Because the North Dakotans will invite you, nicely but relentlessly, to visit, and eventually you'll have to accept. When you get there, they'll be incredibly nice to you, treating you with such warmth and hospitality that before long you feel almost like family. Then they will try to asphyxiate you with sewer gas. I found this out when I went to Grand Forks, N.D., in January. I had made fun of Grand Forks and its sister...

It is a great honor to march in an inauguration parade. So when a group I belong to called the World Famous Lawn Rangers of Amazing Arcola was selected to march at Barack Obama's inauguration, our reaction, as Americans, was: "The organizers of this parade must be smoking crack." I say this because we are not a traditional marching unit. We are an extremely random group of middle-age guys who carry brooms and push specially decorated show lawn mowers, which we use to perform synchronized broom-and-lawn mower maneuvers that always get a big crowd reaction (usually: "Huh?"). As you can...

BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Feb. 29, 2004.) I haven't attempted to ski for years, but recently I decided to take another stab at it. I was hoping they'd done something about the gravity problem. Gravity is the biggest drawback to skiing. Without gravity, it would be a carefree activity: You'd put on your skis, head for the slopes and just . . . HOVER for a while. Then it would be time for ``apres ski'' (French for ''no longer skiing''). Instead, you have gravity. Huge amounts of it. Ski areas are located smack...

BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Aug. 22, 2004.) How do you rate yourself as a driver? No, that's a stupid question. You rate yourself above average. It's a well-known fact that all humans consider themselves to be above-average drivers, including primitive Amazonian mud people who have not yet discovered the wheel. No amount of physical evidence will convince a bad driver that he or she is a bad driver. You take a motorist who, while attempting to pull out of a parking space, mistakes ''forward'' for ''reverse,'' then, in an effort to correct this...

Dave Barry Year in Review: Bailing out of 2008BY DAVE BARRY Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson How weird a year was it? Here's how weird: • O.J. actually got convicted of something. • Gasoline hit $4 a gallon -- and those were the good times. • On several occasions, Saturday Night Live was funny. • There were a few days there in October when you could not completely rule out the possibility that the next Treasury Secretary would be Joe the Plumber. • Finally, and most weirdly, for the first time in history, the voters elected a president who -- despite...

How weird a year was it? Here's how weird: O.J. actually got convicted of something. Gasoline hit $4 a gallon -- and those were the "good" times. On several occasions, "Saturday Night Live" was funny. There were a few days there in October when you could not completely rule out the possibility that the next Treasury Secretary would be Joe the Plumber. Finally, and most weirdly, for the first time in history, the voters elected a president who -- despite the skeptics who said such a thing would never happen in the United States -- was neither a Bush nor...

Driving while stupid BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Sept. 22, 2002.) So I have to tell you what I saw on the interstate the other night. First, though, you must understand that this was not just any old interstate. This was I-95 in downtown Miami, proud home of the worst darned drivers in the world. I realize some of you are saying: ``Oh yeah? If you want to see REALLY bad drivers, you should come to MY city!'' Listen, I understand that this is a point of civic honor, and I am sure that...

Recently, my wife and I took our 8-month-old daughter on a trip involving five plane flights in one week. Many people would be reluctant to travel with a baby that small, but we had a compelling reason: We have Fig Newtons for brains. An intelligent person, or even a reasonably bright fungus, would know that two people cannot possibly carry both a baby and all the supplies the baby needs, including stroller, car seat, clothes, diapers, industrial-sized bale of wipes, stuffed bear, stuffed tiger, stuffed frog, stuffed paramecium, etc. The total weight of all these supplies can be hundreds of...

Flitting with disaster BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Oct. 14, 2001.) A very important issue that we all need to be concerned about is global warming, and we will get to that shortly, but first we need to discuss what happened the other night in my kitchen. It began when I was in the bedroom, flossing my teeth (I keep my teeth in the bedroom). Suddenly my wife burst in and said: ''There's a bat in the kitchen!'' A snappy comeback line would have been: ''No, thanks! I already ate!'' But snappy comebacks are...

Finding your inner lizard (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Aug. 11, 2001.) Today we present an important breakthrough in the ongoing effort by research scientists to figure out what, if anything, men are thinking. But first, we have an important warning concerning a worrisome topic that, unfortunately, is very much on our minds these days: pecan safety. This warning is based on an alarming report from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, written by Heather Ratcliffe and sent in by a number (14 million) of alert readers. The report concerns a Pacific, Mo., couple who -- like so many...

Sliding down memory lane (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published April 13, 2003.) Recently, my little brother Phil (he's only 50) gave me a box that wound up with him some years ago, when our mom died and a bunch of family flotsam drifted down one generation. The box contains slides. For you young digital readers, I should explain that slides are transparencies made from photographs. They used to be very popular. When you wanted to look at big, bright images of your vacation, you'd get out your slides, spend a few seconds thinking about what a pain...

...The Democrats pounced immediately on the choice of Palin, charging that she is unqualified, especially compared to the ticket of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, who have a total of nearly 40 years of experience in the U.S. Senate, or, if you subtract Biden, nearly four years of experience...

DENVER -- The Democratic presidential convention finally reached its dramatic and historic climax Thursday night as Barack Obama, appearing in a stadium packed with nearly 80,000 wildly cheering supporters, kicked a 67-yard field goal to defeat the Oakland Raiders in overtime. He also formally accepted the Democratic nomination, thereby becoming the first Hawaiian-born Indonesian-educated African-American ever to become a major-party presidential candidate since Al Gore.

DENVER --This vibrant Western city has pulled out all the stops to make Democratic convention visitors feel welcome right from the moment they arrive at the huge and modern airport, conveniently located in nearby Kansas. From there it's less than a day's drive to downtown Denver, which has been spruced up for the convention with the installation of thousands of brand-new, state-of-the-art spittoons.