I hope life isn't a big joke, because I don't get it.

The next time I have meat and mashed potatoes, I think I'll put a very large blob of potatoes on my

plate with just a little piece of meat. And if someone asks me why I didn't get more meat, I'll just say,

"Oh, you mean this?" and pull out a big piece of meat from inside the blob of potatoes, where I've

hidden it.  Good magic trick, huh?

Sometimes, when I drive across the desert in the middle of the night, with no other cars around, I start

imagining: What if there were no civilization out there? No cities, no factories, no people? And then I

think: No people or factories?  Then who made this car? And this highway?  And I get so confused I

have to stick my head out the window into the driving rain---unless there's lightning, because I could

get struck on the head by a bolt.

The whole town laughed at my great-grandfather, just because he worked hard and saved his money.

True, working at the hardware store didn't pay much, but he felt it was better than what everybody else

did, which was go up to the volcano and collect the gold nuggets it shot out everyday.  It turned out he

was right. After forty years, the volcano petered out. Everybody left town, and the hardware store went

broke.  Finally he decided to collect gold nuggets too, but there weren't many left by then.  Plus, he

broke his leg and the doctor's bills were real high.

Too bad when I was a kid there wasn't a guy in our class that everybody called the "Cricket Boy",

because I would have liked to stand up in class and tell everybody, "You can make fun of the Cricket

Boy if you want to, but to me he's just like everybody else."  Then everybody would leave the Cricket

Boy alone, and I'd invite him over to spend the night at my house, but after about five minutes of that

loud chirping I'd have to kick him out.  Maybe later we could get up a petition to get the Cricket Family

run out of town.  Bye, Cricket Boy.

I wish I lived back in the old west days, because I'd save up my money for about twenty years so I

could buy a solid-gold pick.  Then I'd go out West and start digging for gold.  When someone came up

and asked what I was doing, I'd say, "Looking for gold, ya durn fool."  He'd say, "Your pick is gold,"

and I'd say, "Well, that was easy."  Good joke, huh.

A funny thing to do is, if you're out hiking and your friend gets bitten by a poisonous snake, tell him

you're going to go for help, then go about ten feet and pretend that *you* got bit by a snake.  Then start

an argument with him about who's going to go get help.  A lot of guys will start crying.  That's why it

makes you feel good when you tell them it was just a joke.

I guess I kinda lost control, because in the middle of the play I ran up and lit the evil puppet villain on

fire.  No, I didn't. Just kidding.  I just said that to help illustrate one of the human emotions, which is

freaking out.  Another emotion is greed, as when you kill someone for money, or something like that.

Another emotion is generosity, as when you pay someone double what he paid for his stupid puppet.

Many people think that history is a dull subject.  Dull? Is it "dull" that Jesse James once got bitten on

the forehead by an ant, and at first it didn't seem like anything, but then the bite got worse and worse,

so he went to a doctor in town, and the secretary told him to wait, so he sat down and waited, and

waited, and waited, and waited, and then finally he got to see the doctor, and the doctor put some

salve on it?  You call that dull?

I scrambled to the top of the precipice where Nick was waiting.  "That was fun," I said.  "You bet it

was," said Nick.  "Let's climb higher."  "No," I said.  "I think we should be heading back now."  "We

have time," Nick insisted.  I said we didn't, and Nick said we did.  We argued back and forth like that

for about 20 minutes, then finally decided to head back.  I didn't say it was an interesting story.

If you're at a Thanksgiving dinner, but you don't like the stuffing or the cranberry sauce or anything else,

just pretend like you're eating it, but instead, put it all in your lap and form it into a big mushy ball.

Then, later, when you're out back having cigars with the boys, let out a big fake cough and throw the

ball to the ground.  Then say, "Boy, these are good cigars!"

I remember that one fateful day when Coach took me aside.  I knew what was coming.  "You don't

have to tell me," I said.  "I'm off the team, aren't I?"  "Well," said Coach, "you never were really ON the

team. You made that uniform you're wearing out of rags and towels, and your helmet is a toy space

helmet.  You show up at practice and then either steal the ball and make us chase you to get it back,

or you try to tackle people at inappropriate times."  It was all true what he was saying.  And yet, I

thought something is brewing inside the head of this Coach.  He sees something in me, some kind of

raw talent that he can mold.  But that's when I felt the handcuffs go on.

If I ever opened a trampoline store, I don't think I'd call it Trampo-Land, because you might think it was

a store for tramps, which is not the impression we are trying to convey with our store.  On the other

hand, we would not prohibit tramps from browsing, or testing the trampolines, unless a tramp's

gyrations seemed to be getting out of control.

I can still recall old Mister Barnslow getting out every morning and nailing a fresh load of tadpoles to

the old board of his. Then he'd spin it round and round, like a wheel of fortune, and no matter where it

stopped he'd yell out, "Tadpoles! Tadpoles is a winner!"  We all thought he was crazy. But then we

had some growing up to do.

Once when I was in Hawaii, on the island of Kauai, I met a mysterious old stranger. He said he was

about to die and wanted to tell someone about the treasure.  I said, "Okay, as long as it's not a long

story.  Some of us have a plane to catch, you know."  He stared telling his story, about the treasure

and his life and all, and I thought: "This story isn't too long."  But then, he kept going, and I started

thinking, "Uh-oh, this story is getting long."  But then the story was over, and I said to myself: "You

know, that story wasn't too long after all." I forget what the story was about, but there was a good

movie on the plane.  It was a little long, though.

I bet a fun thing would be to go way back in time to where there was going to be an eclipse and tell the

cave men, "If I have come to destroy you, may the sun be blotted out from the sky."  Just then the

eclipse would start, and they'd probably try to kill you or something, but then you could explain about

the rotation of the moon and all, and everyone would get a good laugh.

I wouldn't be surprised if someday some fishermen caught a big shark and cut it open, and there

inside was a whole person.  Then they cut the person open, and in him is a little baby shark.  And in

the baby shark there isn't a person, because it would be too small. But there's a little doll or

something, like a Johnny Combat little toy guy---something like that.