Vacationland USA: Why go someplace normal?

Remember the Dark Years, when national magazines kept publishing lists of the Most Desirable Areas, and South Florida always ranked below the moons of Uranus? Well that's all over now.

Baby hormones have taken over my wife, and all I can say is 'WAAAH!'

The most powerful force in the universe is not any kind of nuclear energy. It is not magnetism, gravity or the IRS. The most powerful force in the universe is hormones. If you don't believe me, conduct the following simple scientific experiment:

These weathermen know which way the winds blows

Today I want to tell you about an exciting innovation in television programming from the Czech Republic. By way of background, I should explain that the Czech Republic is a nation that very few Americans visit because they're not sure how to spell "Czech." This is a shame, because the Czech Republic is a fascinating place where many historic things occurred in the past.

The Easter Bunny Caper

(This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Dec. 25, 1994.) Like most people, you probably often ask yourself: ''What, exactly, are my legal rights if I am wearing a bunny outfit?''

A brush with gardening

It will probably come as no surprise to you that I got the idea of painting my lawn from an agency of the federal government. When I say "painting my lawn, " I don't mean my whole lawn. I just mean this one circular spot that suddenly, mysteriously turned brown, as though it had been visited by a small UFO or a large dog.

Up a tree

When my friend Ridley Pearson invited me back to Idaho, I said to myself: He is NOT getting me up another tree. I was still combing sap out of my hair from a trip to Idaho last fall, when Ridley talked me into -- this is an Idaho sport -- climbing way up into a blatantly hostile tree and then getting back to Earth by "rappelling, " which means "sliding down at the Speed of Fear on a rope approximately the same width as a strand of No. 8 spaghetti."

Bless all the beasts

This column is in response to the thousands of letters you readers no doubt intended to write asking: "Dave, what ever happened to Rev. Al, the direct-mail Christian? Also, who won the competition for Dog Hero of the Year?" I have followed up on these two important stories, and hereby present a full report:

The name game

I want to stress that I'm not bitter about what the Philip Morris Corp. is trying to do with the name "Dave." In case you didn't know, Philip Morris is test-marketing a new brand of cigarettes called "Dave's." Over the past year I've seen big billboard advertisements for "Dave's" cigarettes in Seattle and Denver. These are folksy ads; one of them features a tractor. The message is that "Dave's" is a folksy brand of cigarette, produced by a down-to-earth, tractor-driving guy named "Dave" for ordinary people who work hard and make an honest living, at least until they start coughing up big folksy chunks of trachea.

Reverend Al and the bees

When I tell you about Rev. Al, you're going to think I'm making him up, but I'm not. There really is a Rev. Al. He runs the United Faith Foundation ("America's Healing, Blessing and Prosperity Center") out in Fresno, Calif., and a while back he sent me, out of the blue, a Good Fortune Faith Necklace. This is a green string with a little plastic object hanging from it that says, in medium-sized letters: "The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want." Beneath that, in big letters, it says: "REV. AL." Beneath that, in tiny letters, it says "Made in Korea."

Dave meets the death tree

There is a simple explanation for why I wound up dangling from a rope 75 feet in the air over a beaver dam somewhere in Idaho: I was a house guest.

Cruising all the way to the buffet

In my family, we are nautical people. We have the sea in our veins. I do not speak metaphorically: Sometimes we find actual eels in our underpants. That's how nautical we are. And so a few weeks ago, we set out on a sea voyage from Fort Lauderdale, knowing that it would be five days, and roughly 153 meals (included), before we would reach our destination: Fort Lauderdale.

Ask Mr. Manners

TODAY'S ETIQUETTE QUESTION IS: I feel there is not enough suffering in my life, and would like to hold a birthday party for my preschool child at home. What is the etiquette involved?

Let's do launch sometime

Dear National Aeronautics and Space Administration: I read in the paper the other day that you're looking for a journalist to send up into space, now that you've launched members of every other major minority group, and I just thought I'd drop you a note to let you know that I'm your boy.

Dave Barry: Did somebody smell a rat?

So we found out our house had rats. This surprised me. I always thought rats mainly hung out in gritty urban neighborhoods, and we live in Coral Gables, a grit-free community that keeps property values up by making pretty much everything illegal. You get fined for painting your house a non-approved color; if you left a tire in your yard, you’d get the death penalty. That’s how serious they are about property values in the Gables. So I just assumed it wasn’t zoned for rats.

COMMENTARY

Barry (Manilow) and me

If a man truly loves a woman, he will do anything for her. He will attempt to unclog a toilet. He will kill a spider armed only with a magazine. (I mean the man is armed with the magazine; the spider is usually unarmed.) He will leave the woman sleeping comfortably in bed at 5:37 a.m. while he takes the dog out and stands around shivering while the dog, which only seconds earlier was DESPERATE to get out, conducts a meticulous 20-minute inch-by-inch nasal survey of the entire yard before selecting precisely the right spot upon which to make weewee.

100 years of solitude, waiting for customer service

Recently I had a great idea while waiting on hold for Customer Service. That's pretty much all I do these days: wait for Customer Service. My call is important to them.

N.D.'S new Barry building takes your breath away

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.

North Dakota wants its place in the sun

(This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Aug. 12, 2001.)North Dakota is talking about changing its name. I frankly didn't know you could do that. I thought states' names were decreed by the Bible or something. In fact, as a child I believed that when Columbus arrived in North America, the states' names were actually, physically, written on the continent, in gigantic letters, the way they are on maps. I still think this would be a good idea, because if an airplane's navigational system failed, the pilot could just look out the window and see exactly where the plane was. ("OK, there's a huge 'W' down there, so we're over Wyoming. Or, Wisconsin.")

Dave Barry’s 2010 Year in Review

Let's face it -- 2010 was a disaster. A month-by-month reminder of just how awful it was.

Taking the zip out of Zippy

I regularly get letters from irate MacNeil-Lehrer- watching readers who ask: "With all the serious problems facing the world, how come you write about your dogs?" To which I answer: Because I don't know anything about your dogs.