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I handed my debit card to the owner of a barbecue restaurant. He saw my name on the card.

“Is your mother’s name Elizabeth?” he asked.

When I nodded, he burst out laughing. And then proceeded to confess to a prank, motivated by my mother, that he’d pulled on my family 30 years ago.

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My mother, you see, is a little bit “out there.” People would refer to her as “eccentric” if she were as wealthy financially as she is wealthy otherwise.

Her greatest wealth is her art of laughter.

She knew laughter’s benefits long before scientific studies confirmed them. When she wasn’t laughing herself, she was teaching us how.

Most nights after dinner, we sat around the table, relating stories about we’d done and laughing aloud.

While many parents in our neighborhood went out on Saturday nights, my mother preferred to stay home.

We’d make banana splits and watch the Carol Burnett show, and as Tim Conway’s old-man routine made me laugh so hard that I’d fall off the couch, she’d watch me, delighted that I was learning her art so well.

She collected friends even more eccentric than she. One lady, Marty, had five children — my mother had six. Both had been housewives their entire adult lives — both wanted to try their hand at writing.

My mother soon published a few magazine articles — Erma Bombeck-style housewife humor. She and Marty wrote a play, “Betty’s Attic,” that a local theater company performed.

They sold jokes to Phyllis Diller. They were thrilled to see her do their jokes at a live show — delighted by the laughter their jokes provoked.

The writing never produced much money, though, so my mother concocted another plan to generate extra cash. Did she get a part-time job, like normal moms in our neighborhood?

No, she dressed up like Miss Piggy, Big Bird, Raggedy Ann or Clown Clara and staged children’s parties for parents desperate to pay her. It was easy for her to bring instant order to a room of 40 kids or more.

She was soon staging three parties every Saturday — all of them as Clown Clara, to avoid costume changes.

As fate would have it, though — and I’m not making this up — a thief dressed as a clown had been robbing area banks.

But she still was surprised when a cop roared into a driveway where she had just pulled in for one of her gigs, jumped out and began barking at her.

It took some time to clear up the confusion — at one point, the cop thought my mother was in cahoots with the guy who’d hired her to stage his kid’s party. But when everybody finally figured out what was going on, she had but one response: a giant burst of laughter.

Which brings us back to the barbecue restaurant.

The fellow who owned the joint had lived in a neighborhood near ours during my mother’s Clown Clara period. A teen then, he was friends with my sister Mary.

He and his buddies, aware that my mother dressed as a clown — everyone in our neighborhood knew about Clown Clara — could not fend off the temptation to prank-call our home.

Late at night, after sneaking beers in the woods, he’d call our house, disguising his voice as Mickey Mouse.

“Is Clown Clara there?” he’d say, his friends laughing aloud in the background.

It happened 30 years ago — and he’s still laughing about it.

That’s my mother: spreading the art of laughter wherever she goes.

—–

©2010 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, a humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For more info contact Cari Dawson Bartley at 800 696 7561 or email [email protected]. Visit Tom on the web at www.TomPurcell.com or e-mail him at [email protected].

Let them eat baked potatoes.

Maybe I better explain.

I came across an interesting article at The Daily Caller Web site: more college kids are qualifying for food stamps.

Whereas government-funded grub has long been available to the working poor, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), through its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), is eagerly expanding such benefits to college kids, too.

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For starters, says The New York Times, the USDA has worked to take the stigma out of receiving government grub. It now calls food stamps “nutritional aid.”

Recipients who once received actual stamps now receive a plastic card. It looks and works like a debit card. Only you and your grocer know who is really picking up the tab.

Though it’s not like college kids feel stigmatized by food stamps. Many can’t believe their good fortune.

That’s because the USDA has made it easy for them, regardless of their socioeconomic background, to qualify. Many college kids are “poor” on paper even if they’re from well-to-do homes.

And if they live at home with Mom and Dad, they still may qualify — so long as they can show that Mom and Dad prepare only half of their meals.

And so it is that many are receiving a few hundred bucks a month in free grub.

I surely could have used such assistance during my Penn State days in the early ’80s, but those were the unenlightened Reagan years, when many college kids WOULD have felt stigmatized for accepting handouts.

Boy, was I broke.

When school was in session, I worked as a cook, janitor, bouncer and grass cutter. I managed the dump of a rooming house where I lived.

We had a community kitchen and never locked the doors (the cockroaches needed to come and go, too!).

One day after I’d earned just enough dough to buy fresh sliced turkey and bread, the lunch-meat thief struck — no sandwich for me.

We never caught the jerk, but he surely suffered no stigma for receiving handouts.

I concocted what I thought was a clever strategy to spend less money at the pub. I sold my plasma twice a week — they drew my blood, spun off the plasma, then gave me back the rest — and I always planned my donations around happy hours.

Lightheaded, my blood thickened, one beer had the effect of three. My bar-tab savings were enormous.

The only food assistance I recall receiving came from Ralph, one of our rooming-house tenants.

Ralph was in his late 20s — he’d earned his degree years before but his mother wouldn’t let him return to the family farm until he found a wife – and he spent all of his time baking potatoes.

They sat all over the house.

The wrinkly spuds didn’t look very appetizing, but to a fellow stumbling into the kitchen low on plasma and high on Budweiser, they may as well have been the finest cuts of filet mignon.

Ralph’s “bakers” got me through my senior year of college.

In any event, it would appear our government is eager to get more people hooked on government handouts — President Obama’s latest budget includes $72.5 billion for food stamps, almost double the amount from 2008.

And while most college kids figure they’d be dumb not to accept free grub if we taxpayers are dumb enough to let our government to pay for it, I offer a different take.

Nobody minds when his tax dough is used to help the working poor and others who are truly in need, but food stamps for college kids?

Let the spoiled moochers eat baked potatoes.

—–

©2010 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, a humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For more info contact Cari Dawson Bartley at 800 696 7561 or email [email protected]. Visit Tom on the web at www.TomPurcell.com or e-mail him at [email protected].

“Billy Johnson, stand at the head of the class. I want you to help us conduct an exercise on the Pledge of Allegiance.”

“Yes, Ms. Smith.”

“Billy, last week the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that it is constitutional to use the phrase ‘one nation under God’ in the pledge. Did you know the court reversed its 2002 decision in which it ruled the same phrase was unconstitutional?”

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“No, Ms. Smith.”

“Did you know that the phrase ‘one nation under God’ was not in the original version of the pledge? Or that the original pledge has been altered four times?”

“No, Ms. Smith.”

“The original pledge was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy. Shortly after he wrote it, the word ‘to’ was placed before ‘the republic.’ In 1923, the words ‘my flag’ were changed to ‘the flag of the United States of America.’ And in 1924, ‘United States’ was changed to ‘United States of America.'”

“What about the fourth alteration, Ms. Smith?”

“That came in 1954, Billy. President Eisenhower added the words ‘one nation under God’ to — says about.com — ‘reaffirm the transcendence of religious faith in America’s heritage and future …'”

“Cool, Ms. Smith.”

“America was a much less progressive place in 1954, Billy. In fact, today I want the class to alter the pledge one more time to reflect America’s contemporary values. Billy, begin reciting the current version of the pledge.”

“Sure thing, Ms. Smith. I pledge …”

“Stop, Billy. ‘I’ is so typical of Americans looking at the rest of the world through their own narrow point of view. Say ‘we’ instead.”

“We pledge …”

“Stop, Billy. A pledge is so harsh. Besides, the courts ruled that reciting the pledge is voluntary. Change ‘pledge’ to ‘may or may not provide.'”

“We may or may not provide our allegiance …”

“Stop! ‘Allegiance’ is so confining, Billy. It’s fine if a student wants to hold allegiance for America, but what about those students who don’t? Change ‘allegiance’ to ‘like.'”

“We may or may not like the flag …”

“Stop! The American flag is so divisive, Billy. Isn’t it a symbol of American overreaching all over the globe? It’s really just a promotional marketing gimmick and that’s what I want you to call it.”

“We may or may not like the promotional marketing gimmick of the United States of America and to the Republic … “

“Stop! ‘Republic,’ Billy? You sound as though a republic is somehow better than the political systems used in other countries. Your tone is so condescending. Delete!”

“We may or may not like the promotional marketing gimmick of the United States of America, one nation under God …”

“Whoa! God, Billy? You have the audacity to mention God in a country that holds such strong separation of church and state? Sure, I know the 9th Circuit Court decided that the term neither restricts nor promotes religion, but for today’s exercise, let’s delete it.”

“We may or may not like the promotional marketing gimmick of the United States of America, indivisible with liberty …”

“Liberty, Billy? Is there liberty for the millions in this country who are held down by the rich and powerful? Delete!”

“We may or may not like the promotional marketing gimmick of the United States of America, with justice …”

“Justice, Billy! You really believe there is justice for all in good old America? We use the vast majority of the world’s resources. Where’s the justice in that, Billy? Delete! Now read our new Pledge of Allegiance from the top.”

“We may or may not like the promotional marketing gimmick of the United States of America.”

“Bravo, Billy, bravo!”

—–

©2010 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, a humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For more info contact Cari Dawson Bartley at 800 696 7561 or email [email protected]. Visit Tom on the web at www.TomPurcell.com or e-mail him at [email protected].

I hate birds when they chirp. It’s the government’s fault.

I am sitting by an open door, with a nice spring breeze, the sun shining, the birds chirping. But I cannot enjoy this beautiful day.

I am surrounded by a sea of receipts, you see — receipts of every kind. I keep every receipt for every transaction that I make all year long because my government says I must.

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I have spent the last few days organizing the massive pile of paper. I must organize each receipt into its appropriate folder and then tally those receipts with great precision — not easy for an English major — into numbers that my CPA can then transform into a long return, which we send to the government along with a big fat check.

My CPA has the more difficult job. He must keep up with the massive tax code so he can determine what I can and cannot deduct and how I must go about it. Considering the tax code is some 70,000 pages long, I have no idea how he does this. I suspect alcohol is involved.

I’m running way behind this year. And so, as the weather has broken and the birds have begun singing, I sit here in the middle of a sea of paper, overcome by powerlessness and wondering what the heck has happened to America.

America is supposed to be the land of the free, after all. It’s supposed to be a dynamic, bureaucracy-free place where any fellow can easily start his own business — any fellow can chase his own dream, unburdened by regulations and an incredibly burdensome tax code.

Yet, as our tax code grows ever more complex, a new narrative is forming: that our country is so in debt and our spending so egregious that the only way to keep things afloat is lots more taxes.

It’s maddening for a fellow drowning in a sea of paper to contemplate this when, as we move toward European-style, economic-growth-killing policies, former communist countries have moved in the opposite direction.

Come check out our collection of Tax Form cartoons!

Russia, Slovakia, Poland, Estonia and Serbia all have ditched their “progressive” income-tax systems for a much lower flat tax — one that makes compliance simple as it spurs economic growth.

Slovakia, says BusinessWeek, “swept away 21 categories of personal income taxes, five tax brackets, and scores of exemptions and deductions, replacing them with a flat 19 percent rate.”

That action led Hyundai Corp. to locate a Kia plant there. How about that: Low taxes result in investment and growth. Only the former communist nations understand that concept now.

Sure, here in America, the FairTax people have the right idea. They want to repeal our incredibly complex income tax (the 16th Amendment) and replace it with a simple, progressive national sales tax.

It makes so much sense it will never be embraced by the birds running our country now.

Sure, they love the idea of a national sales tax — a national value-added tax is suddenly being bandied about — but only if they can keep, and raise, our income taxes, too.

It’s more than a fellow surrounded by a sea of receipts can bear.

And so, as our country embarks on an insane course — more spending, more regulations, more bureaucracy, higher taxes, more complexity — I am filled with dread.

I have come to loathe the spring breeze, the blooming flowers and, most of all, the annoying chirping birds.

—–

©2010 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, a humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For more info contact Cari Dawson Bartley at 800 696 7561 or email [email protected]. Visit Tom on the web at www.TomPurcell.com or e-mail him at [email protected].

Ah, springtime has arrived in Washington, D.C.

The National Cherry Blossom Festival is under way. The cherry trees, 3,700 of them given to America by the Japanese in 1912, are in full bloom.

It reminds me why Americans are so wary of Washington.

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In the spring of 1999, you see, some culprits had been chopping down cherry trees.

The National Park Service, in a state of high alert for days, finally identified the tree fellers: three beavers, who decided to construct a dam in the Tidal Basin.

In a normal city, this situation would have been dealt with swiftly. The beavers would have been trapped, transported to another location and released.

In fact, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), not known for common sense solutions, suggested exactly that.

But Washington is no normal city.

No sooner was PETA’s idea floated than experts began crawling out of the woodwork. One said it would be tragic to separate the three beavers, since they’re likely from the same family.

Another said you can’t move beavers to a new colony because the new colony – beavers are Republicans? – would reject the freeloaders. Besides, what’s the point of being a beaver if you don’t have any buddies to plug up storm sewers with?

A third expert said that, all things considered, the most humane solution would be to euthanize the beavers.

Boy, did the public react negatively to that suggestion.

This is because beavers are cute. Their cuddly television presence clouded the public’s ability to address the problem rationally.

The fact is that if beavers looked more like their pointy-nosed cousins, rats, even PETA would have lined the banks of the Tidal Basin with rifles and shotguns to take out the varmints before they felled more beloved trees.

By that point, PETA returned to form. It demanded the beavers be allowed to continue damming the Tidal Basin – to hell with the cherry trees and the fact that “Tidal Basin” would need to be renamed “Tidal Wave.”

The hullabaloo went on for some time before the Park Service finally hired a professional trapper. The trapper caught the beavers and they were carted off.

You’d think that would have been the end of it. But not in Washington.

Activists, suspicious of what the Park Service really did with the beavers – Guantanamo Bay? – demanded their location be divulged.

That prompted the Park Service to issue a statement. It said that, due to the publicity surrounding the case, the beavers were moved to a “safe house,” which, apparently, is some kind of beaver witness protection program.

The beaver incident illustrates how convoluted and confusing things can get in Washington – simple ideas and solutions that work everywhere else are twisted and contorted and made unrecognizable there.

That’s why the fellows who founded this country had the right idea when they sought to keep most of the decision-making out of Washington – keep it among the people and within the states.

But the birds running the government right now don’t see it that way. They have Washington butting into every aspect of our lives.

Alas, springtime has arrived in Washington. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping and the cherry trees are in full bloom.

And all I can do is worry about what that nutty town is going to meddle with next.

—–

©2010 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, a humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For more info contact Cari Dawson Bartley at 800 696 7561 or email [email protected]. Visit Tom on the web at www.TomPurcell.com or e-mail him at [email protected].

My family and I are taking the new tax personally.

One of the many items tucked into the government overhaul of America’s health care system is a 10 percent sales tax on tanning salons.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the tan tax was added so that the Botox tax could be removed.

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As it went, our politicians, looking for ways to make it appear their massive bill would be “paid for,” had to come up with all kinds of gimmicks — such as a 5 percent sales tax on Botox.

Botox, however, is administered by plastic surgeons. Plastic surgeons have the dough to hire expensive lobbyists. The expensive lobbyists were able to get the “Botax” removed from the bill.

Politicians found it much easier to tax tanning salons instead.

For starters, tanning lamps, much like the sun, generate ultraviolet rays. Overexposure to ultraviolet rays can cause skin cancer.

Since politicians haven’t figured out how to tax the sun, a “sin” tax on tanning beds was the next best thing.

Besides, tanning salons are easy targets.

If the Web site The Medical News (news-medical.net) is to be believed, most tanning salons are owned by women – including women who drive 1998 Camaros with the T-tops off, as they chain-smoke Marlboro Lights and yell at their boyfriends.

Such business owners aren’t as organized as plastic surgeons. They have fewer funds to pay for expensive lobbyists, which made it easy for politicians to slap a 10 percent sales tax on them — one that goes into effect this July.

And my family and I are taking the whole thing personally — because we are cursed with fair, freckly skin that burns easily in the sun.

One year, in the 1970s, our parents took us to the ocean for the first time. The temperature was in the upper 90s that week. My father begged us to be wary of the hot sun.

Nonetheless, we raced to the beach as soon as we arrived. We got scorched so badly the first day, we spent the rest of the week inside our condo, soaking in Epsom salts, the blinds drawn, my father grumbling to our mother, “For godsakes, Betty, I told them to be wary of the sun.”

If only the tanning bed had been available then.

When I was in my early 20s, in the 1980s, it was available. I used one every summer to tan just enough so that when I went to the pool or the beach, I never got burned.

But that was long ago — before the government overhauled our healthcare system.

Our government doesn’t want us to use tanning beds (though it does want the tax dough). The 10 percent sales tax is intended to dissuade us from doing so.

As the economy is being made ever more uncertain by unprecedented government meddling, that doesn’t bode well for my fair-skinned family.

Tanning at a salon was an unneeded expense in a good economy. In this economy, it is a costly extravagance — and that was before it got 10 percent more expensive. We can’t afford the cost.

Thus, as the summer nears, my family and I have one less weapon in our arsenal to fend off a nasty burn.

My mother, desperate to try something to achieve a tan look, purchased a can of spray-on tan. It didn’t work out so well.

“For godsakes, Betty,” my father said to her. “You look like they plucked you out of a Florida orange grove!”

The law of unintended government consequences strikes again.

Now you know why my family and I are taking it personally.

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©2010 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, a humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For more info contact Cari Dawson Bartley at 800 696 7561 or email [email protected]. Visit Tom on the web at www.TomPurcell.com or e-mail him at [email protected].

“I’m a busy person. Why do I have to fill out this U.S. Census form anyhow?”

“The U.S. Constitution says that every 10 years, the federal government must count every resident in the United States. It sounds simple, but what it really comes down to is politics and money.”

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“How does it involve politics?”

“There are 435 seats in the U.S. House. The government uses the population count to determine the number of seats your state will have. In 2002, after the 2000 census results were tallied, 12 seats moved across 18 states.”

“Change happens. What’s the big deal?”

“When a state gains or loses seats, the political party in power redraws congressional districts with hopes of making it impossible for the other party to win.”

“Politicians would do that? I’m shocked. But what does the census have to do with money?”

“It determines, says the census form, the ‘amount of government money your neighborhood will receive.’ The idea is that the more people the census determines to be living in a region, the greater percentage of federal dough that region will receive. You better fill out the form to get your fair share.”

“Wait a second. I work hard and pay taxes to the federal government. The government skims off its share, then sends what is left back to me based on the number of people who live in my neighborhood?”

“You’re beginning to understand. The government sends your neighborhood money to fix roads, build bridges and fund all kinds of government programs — so that your House member can take credit.”

“That doesn’t sound like a very efficient way to use my money.”

“It’s much worse than that. Our government is spending hundreds of billions more than it is taking in. It is borrowing that money. Your children and grandchildren will be saddled with the cost of that debt.”

“People not yet born are already in debt? But how does this tie into the census?”

“If the people in your neighborhood don’t complete the census form, some other neighborhood will receive your children’s and grandchildren’s hard-earned money — that would be immoral!”

“I’ll complete the form as soon as I get it. Is it difficult?”

“Not at all. There are 10 questions. You are asked to state your name, sex, age, race, telephone number and whether you own or rent your home. There are no questions about your religion, whether you are a legal U.S. resident or if you have a Social Security number.”

“That figures. I’d be happy to say what my religion and Social Security number are, but I’m touchy about giving my age. What if choose to keep some of this information private?”

“If you don’t complete and mail the form by April 1, census workers will come to your home. If you don’t cooperate with them, criminal charges may be filed or you may be fined up to $100. Besides, the information is to be kept private.”

“OK, then let me get it all straight: I need to complete the entire form by April 1 to ensure that my state counts as many people as possible, so that my representative will be able to take credit for as much government spending as possible, and so that my neighborhood will receive its fair share of my children’s and grandchildren’s hard-earned money?”

“Now you’ve got it.”

“Too bad the census people can’t collect information of people who aren’t born yet.”

“Why is that?”

“If we had their future addresses, we could send them cards to thank them for so generously advancing us billions of dollars of their hard-earned dough.”

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©2010 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, a humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For more info contact Cari Dawson Bartley at 800 696 7561 or email [email protected]. Visit Tom on the web at www.TomPurcell.com or e-mail him at [email protected].

Their slogan wasn’t “Irish need not apply.” It was worse.

I speak of a battle I witnessed in Old Town, Alexandria, Va., a decade ago — a battle that involved a popular Irish pub, Pat Troy’s Ireland’s Own, and a condo association.

A new landlord purchased the building in which Troy’s pub had resided for 19 years. The landlord wanted to turn the pub space into office space. He asked Troy to vacate.

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Troy, an Irish immigrant known for his many charitable causes, bought a building two blocks away. He planned to relocate his pub there – right next to the condo association.

That’s when all hell broke loose.

The condo people did not want an Irish pub to be near them. They launched a political assault that made the Chicago politicians look like Quakers.

First came their “NOLUV” slogan. It stood for “noise, overcrowding, litter, urinating and vomiting.”

Then came accusations about the behavior of the pub’s patrons — that they’d drink too many pints of Guinness and sing “The Unicorn Song” into the wee hours.

Next came their angry letter to city officials. It complained that “Troy’s pub isn’t just a bar, it’s an IRISH bar … and it will affect our property values …”

Goodness.

My great great grandfather came to America from Ireland in the late 1800’s. He surely suffered similar indiscretions. That they’re still occurring is no surprise to me.

But the Irish can take it.

We, of Irish descent, can take the drinking jokes: Why did God invent whiskey? To keep the Irish from taking over the Earth. What’s a seven-course Irish meal? A potato and a six-pack. What’s the difference between an Irish wedding and an Irish wake? One less drunk.

We don’t mind the one about the tragedy at the Guinness factory. McAlister fell into a vat of Guinness and he drowned. Cleary, McAlister’s best friend, went to tell McAlister’s wife. When she opened her front door, Cleary was crying.

“There was a tragedy at the factory?” she said.

“Yes, missus. Your husband fell into a vat of Guinness and drowned.”

“Tell me, Cleary,” she said crying. “Did he at least die quickly?

“Not exactly, missus,” said Cleary. “He got out of the vat three times to use the bathroom.”

We don’t mind the one about the Irishman who finds a tea kettle in the woods. When he rubs it, a genie pops out and grants him three wishes. The Irishman wishes for a bottle of whiskey; it appears in his hands. When he drinks it, the bottle automatically refills. He drinks it again, and it refills.

“What’s that?” says the Irishman.

“That’s the bottle of infinity,” says the genie. “Every time you empty it, it will be replenished. What are you last two wishes?”

“Give me two more bottles!”

No, the Irish don’t mind such jokes. The Irish learned to laugh at themselves long ago.

And when a group of boorish condo people succeeded in thwarting the move of Troy’s pub to the building he had purchased — Alexandria’s city council voted to block his move — Troy didn’t cry of unfairness or bigotry or hate speech.

He did what Americans used to do: he relocated to another building, where he is still serving many delicious pints.

In an America in which everyone is so easily offended and ready to sue, we all could have a little more Irish spirit – and certainly more Irish humor.

Which reminds me of this one: What is Irish and sits on the porch all night long?

Paddy O’Furniture.

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©2010 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, a humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For more info contact Cari Dawson Bartley at 800 696 7561 or email [email protected]. Visit Tom on the web at www.TomPurcell.com or e-mail him at [email protected].