I am an occasional Dave Barry reader. That is, I read his syndicated column in our local paper every week. I don't find Barry to be the greatest humor writer of our day, or even an exceptional one. I own Dave Barry books, but I always end up reading them very slowly. I find the weekly column to be just enough. A lot of the time I find the column to be too silly to really enjoy, but every now and then he says something to make me laugh out loud, which I rarely do when I read. Last weeks column was good enough to make me laugh out loud three times, so I thought I'd share some of it with you.
We have come to the time of year when we remove the video game controls from the hands of our children and send them back to school. And if they complain that school is a boring waste of time, we smack them firmly yet lovingly with a roofing timber and remind them of the words of our first president, Benjamin Franklin, who said, "There is nothing more valuable in life than a good education, except of course money or a nice car."
. . . Maybe it's time that we parents stopped "passing the buck" on education. Maybe instead of "pointing the finger" at everybody else, we should take a hard look at ourselves in the mirror, and place the blame for our children's lousy test scores where it clearly belongs: on our children. They have a terrible attitude.
Later in the article, Barry talks about all the things from his own school days that he's forgotten, but that he does remember the following jingle for Brylcreem hair ointment: "Brylcreem, a little dab'll do ya. Brylcreem, you'll look so debonair. But watch out, the gals'll all pursue ya. They'll love to get their fingers in your hair!" Which is a total lie. Touching Brylcreemed hair is like sticking you hand into the nostril of a sick pig.