Like all writers, my greatest inspiration, my ultimate muse, is a deadline.

Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer.

You're not allowed to park a truck in your driveway. You're not allowed to work on your house on Sunday. The people who enforce these laws are nuts. After I wrote a column on this, I got I don't know how many letters from Coral Gables homeowners, story after story after story, wonderfully horrible stories. And the venom they felt for their own government!

Sign at a Kentucky appliance store: Don't kill your wife. Let our washing machine do the dirty work.

And what is the Scientific Community doing about these problems, young people? THEY'RE CLONING SHEEP. Great! Just what we need! Sheep that look MORE ALIKE than they already do! Thanks a lot, Scientific Community!

The books all say that barracuda rarely eat people, but very few barracuda can read.

There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age 11.