Final installment of a three-part series.

Since I stopped writing my weekly column for The Miami Herald, people are always asking me: ``How do you like retirement?'' I explain to these people that I am NOT retired: I am doing lots of things outside of the public view, much like Vice President Biden. One of my main activities has been writing humor essays, which have just been published in the form of my new book, I'll Mature When I'm Dead. Here is an excerpt from one of those essays, a futile attempt to explain the U.S. health-care system.

THE HEALTH-CARE CRISIS

When we analyze the American health-care system, we see that the most important questions facing us, as a nation, are:

• How should we pay for health care?

• Who should make our health-care decisions?

• What is this weird little skin thing on my right forefinger that won't go away?

I think we can all agree that our highest priority, as a nation, is my weird forefinger thing. So far, I've been following the standard course of treatment recommended for diseases in general by the American Academy of Physicians With Framed Latin Diplomas, namely, picking fretfully at the affected area. But after months of fretful picking without any forefinger improvement, I'm thinking of breaking down and going to see the skin doctor.

I'm reluctant to go see any doctor, but especially my skin doctor. I went to her a few years ago when I contracted a rare and very serious disease consisting of cancer combined with smallpox, leprosy, cholera, heart failure and the bubonic plague. At least that was my diagnosis based on the symptoms, which consisted of: pain. But it turned out, according to my skin doctor, that what I actually had was ``shingles,'' a disease that gets its name from the fact that it is transmitted by roofers, which, as a resident of Florida, I am exposed to constantly.

The skin doctor gave me medicine for my shingles, but she also told me that I should (1) eat a lot of broccoli, and (2) not drink alcohol. I asked her if she meant I should not drink alcohol while I had shingles, and she said, no, her medical opinion was that people in general should never, ever drink any alcohol. At all.

Well, I may not have a framed Latin diploma, but I know crazy talk when I hear it. Alcohol has been an important part of the human diet for thousands of years. The Bible is filled with references to people drinking alcohol, such as this quotation from the Book of Effusions, Chapter Eight, Verse Six, Row 7:

And yea, they did smite the Phalanges, and to celebrate they heldeth a party and they dranketh some alcohol in the form of wine, and it was good. So they also diddeth some shooters. Then they saideth, ``Hey, let us doeth some more smiting.''

Oh, I'm not saying that alcohol is perfect. It has caused its share of problems. Russia is only one example. But throughout history, alcohol has shown that, used correctly, it can be a powerful force for good. I personally have won many crucial arguments at parties because alcohol gave me the conviction to keep arguing until my opponent had no choice but to leave, even if he or she was the host. And consider this: If there were no alcohol, there would be no straight white men dancing at weddings. There also would be no such sport as ``luge.'' And virtually none of the scientific discoveries concerning what happens when you launch bottle rockets from a set of human buttocks would ever have been made. Is that the kind of world you want to live in? Me neither.