Ah, Sweet Mysteries of Modern Life

--I don’t understand the reasoning behind yellow watermelon.

--The most dangerous cars on the road are the ones with pizza delivery signs on them.

--Get out your checkbook. If the number on the upper right corner of your checks is four digits or more, you are a very stable person.

--How come America has no circular or triangular states?

--I will never understand people who actually buy the videotapes of movies. How could you possibly watch one movie enough times to make it worth it?

--Let’s admit it: The risk-free, much less expensive Voyager missions have provided much more valuable data than our very risky, enormously expensive manned space flights.

--If you want to be sure you will never see the waiter again, tell him you need “just another minute” to look over the menu.

--I have a recurring nightmare of being trapped in an elevator with Shari Lewis and Lambchop.

--Guys who go around in jackets with leather patches on their elbows spend too much time leaning on their elbows.

--I’m really getting sick of convenience stores that leave day-old newspapers on top of the stack in order to trick people into buying them.

--I firmly believe that were it not for Lean Cuisines, most bachelors would die.

--If you missed the “Later With Bob Costas” one-year anniversary show, you ought to write NBC and get them to show it again.

--Given the state of electronics today, I don’t see why refrigerators can’t sniff the food and tell you when it’s gone bad.

--Maybe the new motto ought to be “If You Drink, Don’t Walk.” According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, about a third of the 7,000 pedestrians killed in traffic accidents last year were drunk.

--Is Woodstock over? Can we come out now?

--People with car phones should be beaten with sticks just on general principle.

--Oskar Werner never made a bad movie.

--Another million-dollar idea I’m giving away for free: Edible plates. After dinner you eat them for dessert instead of washing them.

--Most people clean their car windshields more often than they clean their eyeglasses.

--Take those boxes of Christmas decorations off the Ping-Pong table! According to the University of California, Berkeley, Wellness Letter: “For average players, a swift game of singles table tennis burns about 350 to 450 calories per hour, about the same as brisk walking, doubles tennis, golf (if you carry your bag), or cycling at 6 to 8 m.p.h.”

--Never marry a man who wears his watch on the inside of his wrist.

--All restaurants should heat their rolls. It makes even bad ones impressive.

--Pete Rose is banished from baseball “for life”? Wanna bet?

--I realize that Perrier in cans is no different from Perrier in bottles, but for some reason canned water seems awfully silly.

--Why America Will Always Be Numero Uno, Example No. 612: Colored plastic wrap.

--If I weren’t afraid to go down there, I’d show the crickets in my basement a thing or two.

--Does John Tesh of “Entertainment Tonight” have the biggest shoulders on television or what? (You can tell how highbrow my evenings are.)

--American education went into decline when schools stopped teaching legible handwriting.

--You know you’re in the wrong restaurant when they tell you to “hang onto your knife.”

--I have never seen a TV ad for a lawyer that didn’t make me want to choose a public defender instead.

--You can always spot an eye-wear commercial. Every single person on the street is wearing glasses.

--America feeds and clothes and houses people all over the world, but days after Hurricane Hugo the mayor of Charleston, S.C., has to go on TV and beg for help? Can’t charity begin at home just once?

--People who empty their car ashtrays in supermarket parking lots should be beaten with sticks.

--Is it some kind of rule that hairdressers have to have the worst hairdos you have ever seen?

--I’d like to see a tire guarantee that really meant something.

--How come nothing in Ripley’s Believe It or Not is the least bit unbelievable anymore?

--There’s nothing as stale as a stale fortune cookie.

--Do kids still do woodburning?

--I don’t care what they say, the commercials ARE louder than the programs.

--When’s the last time you heard a really good yodeler?

--I think it is utter nonsense that Jimmy Hoffa is buried in Giants Stadium. Everybody knows that Jimmy Hoffa is currently Elvis’ road manager.

--President Bush had to stage a drug-buy to get the crack he held up on TV? He must be the only person in Washington who has difficulty getting drugs.

--When’s the last time you saw a woman wearing a hat?

--People who have those stupid badges on the front grills of their Mercedes-Benz deserve to be backed into.

--Can’t anybody invent a quick-drying ink so lefties can use fountain pens?

--I wish sportscasters would remember the old Egg Timer Rule: give the score at least once every three minutes.

--A bowl of popcorn is one of the cheapest forms of entertainment there is.

--A pilot can walk away from a fatal air crash and disappear for 36 hours? He couldn’t have done that if he had been driving a car.

--The most maligned people on earth are shoe salesmen.

--I love it that the new St. Louis Sun is calling the paper “laptop” size instead of a tabloid.

--The thing they never tell you about cable TV is how often the system goes down. My cable service goes off the air every time somebody sneezes in a 12-mile radius.

--How come the new car commercials are always better than the new cars?

--I’m waiting for oat bran martinis.

--You can tell a lot about a man by whether he keeps his wallet in his left or right rear pocket.

--I can understand why gays and lesbians want to boycott Zsa Zsa Gabor for her crude remarks. But what’s to boycott?

--Is this the worst new TV season ever or what?

--I think the most spectacular feat in sport is when Bo Jackson breaks the bat across his knee. I’ll bet you a broken leg you can’t do it.

--Call me old-fashioned, but I just can’t get used to the concept of microwave watermelon.

--Charles Dickinson’s “The Widows’ Adventures” is written so beautifully you can tell he is a newspaper copy editor. (That ought to earn me some brownie points.)

--Advice to men with beards: Stop touching them!

--Admit it: If you had a choice of seeing the Rolling Stones on tour or getting one of their T-shirts, you’d probably take the T-shirt.