
                    The Reader is Always Right (not really)
                                  Dave Barry


          Today we're going to attempt a groundbreaking medical experiment
     in an effort  to  help  those  unfortunate  readers who suffer from a
     tragic  condition called humor  impairment.    Don't  laugh!    Humor
     impairment  afflicts Americans from all  walks  of  life.    Look  at
     Richard Nixon.  Here's a man  whose  sense  of  humor  was  so  badly
     stunted that he was forced, at White  House social functions, to wear
     special undershorts equipped with radio-controlled electrodes so that
     his aides could signal him, via electric shocks, when he was supposed
     to laugh.  Sometimes, if the guests were unusually witty,  the  chief
     executive  wound   up  twitching  like  a  fresh-caught  mackerel  as
     dangerous voltage levels were reached in his boxers.

          So it is  possible  for a humor-impaired person, through courage
     and determination, to overcome  his handicap, and maybe even someday,
     like Mr.  Nixon, attain  the  ultimate  political  achievement of not
     getting indicted.  But before we  can treat humor impairment, we have
     to be able to recognize it.   It  can  affect  anyone.    To find out
     whether you have it, ask yourself this:   What  was  your reaction to
     the first paragraph of this column?  Did you  think:    "Ha ha!  That
     Nixon sure is a geek, all right!" Or did you think:  "This offensive,
     cheap,  crude and vicious humor, making fun of a former president  of
     the  United  States,   a  major  public  figure,  an  internationally
     recognized elder statesman, just because he was a geek."

          If  you  had  either    of    those    reactions,  you  are  not
     humor-impaired, because you at least  grasped  that the paragraph was
     supposed to be funny.  The  humor-impaired people, on the other hand,
     missed that point entirely.  They are  already writing letters to the
     editor saying:  "They wouldn't use electric shocks!    They would use
     hand  signals!"  Or:  "Where can I buy a  pair  of  undershorts  like
     that?" I hear from these people all the time.

          In  fact,  that's  how  I  got  the idea for the  groundbreaking
     experiment.    I  had received a large batch of humor-impared letters
     responding to  a  recent column I wrote about Mister Language Person,
     and I was  asking  myself:    How  can I respond to these people in a
     humor column, when they don't understand its supposed to be humorous?
     That's when I came up with my groundbreaking idea.  You know how some
     TV shows are "close-captioned for the hearing impaired," meaning that
     if  you have a special TV set,  you  can  get  subtitles?    Well,  I
     thought, why couldn't you do that with humor?

          So    the    rest   of  this  groundbreaking  column  will    be
     closed-captioned for the humor impaired.  After each attempted  joke,
     the  humor  element  will  be  explained in parentheses, so that  you
     humor-impaired individuals can laugh right along with the rest of us.
     Ready?  Here we go:

          Many readers  were  upset  about  a  recent  column  by  "Mister
     Language Person," the  internationally  recognized  expert (not true)
     who  periodically  answers common  language  questions  submitted  by
     imaginary readers (he make questions  up).    All  of Mister Language
     Person's  answers  are intended to be  as  accurate  (not  true)  and
     informative (not true) as is humanly possible  while still containing
     words such as "booger." ("Booger" is funny.) No  item is ever allowed
     to  appear  in Mister Language Person until trained grammarians  have
     indicated  their  approval  by  barking  at  it in a excited  manner.
     (Those are not grammarians;  those are his dogs.)

          Although  I  had  thought that the recent Mister Language Person
     column met the usual high standards of accuracy (everything in it was
     wrong), it contained  an  item  that attracted a very large amount of
     mail from astute readers (sarcasm:  these people appear to be missing
     key brain lobes) (not literally)  who  saw that, in one of the items,
     SOMETHING WAS WRONG.  Yes!   In  a column that was basically teeming,
     writhing  mass of wrong answers, these keen  observers  were  somehow
     able to detect a wrong answer.  (Heavy sarcasm.)

          The item that virtually all of these readers  focused on was the
     one where an imaginary airline employee asked whether it  was correct
     to say "A bomb has been placed on one of you're airplanes" or "A bomb
     has been placed, on one of you're airplanes" (this is not  really how
     airlines handle bomb threats)(as far as we know), and Mister Language
     Person replied  that  the correct wording was "A bomb has been placed
     IN one of  you're  airplanes."  (Get it?  It's still wrong!!  Ha ha!)
     Many readers felt this  answer  was incorrect, and took time out from
     their busy and rewarding careers  in  the  demanding  field  of  food
     chewing (probably not true) to write  letters  containing quotes such
     as - I am not making this  up  (he  is  not making these up) - "I was
     shocked with the grammar" and "Never have I  seen  such  a mistake in
     grammar" and "I sure hope you remember this small bit of information,
     being as you are a writer you should have known it already."

          Well,  readers  I've  researched this issue carefully (not true;
     he drank a beer), and although this is not easy for me to say, I have
     to admit it:  Your right, Thanks for "straightening me out." This job
     would not be the same without you.  I mean it.  (He means it.)
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