Free If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits? by Erma Bombeck Page B

much higher,” smiled his boss.
    Yelling an order for five into a clown's mouth is something else again. Especially when you are alone. I feel like such a fool shouting until the varicose veins in my neck surface.
    As my husband observed, “You don't have to go to drive-ins, you know. You can always use your feet.”
    Better to grow long arms.
     
    Are Family Vacations Legal?
     
    So many parents have been the victims of family vacations it is just possible that many of them are not familiar with some existing laws on how to handle some of the crises that arise. These are some of the most common inquiries:
    THE ABANDON-CHILD LAW
    It is illegal in forty-seven states to leave a child in a rest room and pretend it was a mistake. Maryland and Utah are sympathetic to parents if they can produce a doctor's certificate showing mental deterioration caused by the trip. Alaska (which is quite permissive) allows a mild sedation for the children.
    THE NEW JERSEY vs. KIDDER LAW
    It is illegal on the New Jersey turnpike for a child to hang out of the car window and make a noise like a siren. A decision on this was handed down in 1953, after forty-five cars (including three police cruisers) pulled over to the side of the road and tied up traffic for fifty-two hours.
    THE KEY DECISION
    All fifty states have rulings regarding children who collect rest room keys as souvenirs. One of the stiffer penalties is feeding a child a quart of Gatorade and putting him outside a locked door until the key shows up.
    THE NO-FAULT LITTER LAW
    Vehicles bearing families are not permitted to stop in the downtown area of cities having populations of four hundred and fifty thousand or more to look for a gym shoe that someone threw out of the moving vehicle. It is suggested that mothers put name tapes and full addresses on both shoes.
    ANTI-NOISE LAWS
    Nearly every city (including three ghost towns in Arizona) has the noise-pollutant law. If, in fact your vacationers have two radios playing at full volume, a barking dog and a father screaming, “Would anyone believe we didn't HAVE to get married,” and can be heard with all the car windows up, everyone in the car can be arrested.
    SAFE DRIVING LAW
    It is unlawful to inflate a twenty-foot life raft in a sedan blocking Daddy's view of the road, braid his hair while he is driving in the mountains, or tie his shoes together when he is going through a tunnel.
    PRIVILEGED CONVERSATION
    Conversation heard over CB radios and messages on rest-room walls repeated by children should not be grounds for shooting a child's tongue full of Novocain unless such child dwells on same for several miles.
    REGAINING SINGLE STATUS ON AN EXIT RAMP
    This is tricky, but some parents have opted to dissolve a family relationship on the spot by summoning legal aid. In this event, however, it is well to remember that children get custody of the station wagon.
     
    Illegal Possession of Junk Food
     
    A grade school principal in the East became so upset about the lack of nutrition in the lunches the children were eating, that he declared an edict banning junk food from the cafeteria.
    I have a feeling the kids jammed the edict between two potato chips and two squares of Hershey chocolate and had it for lunch.
    There is certainly no quarrel with the theory. Children should eat nutritionally balanced meals. But children do not take to ultimatums. I would have tried the old Accentuate-the-negative-reverse-the-positive-and-make-the-kid-think-your-idea-is-his-and-he's-driving-you-crazy approach.
    Instead of an edict, the bulletin would have read something like this:
    Memo to: School Children Re: Nutritional Lunches
    1. Carrots are illegal on school premises. Children bringing them from home will need a note from a parent giving permission to have them, or they will be confiscated by the office and held until dismissal time.
    2. Locker inspection for thermoses containing hot vegetable soup or other nutritious dishes will be held periodically