We thought the best way to celebrate Mom’s birthday would be to terrify her, and perhaps even to kill her. We learned this, as we learn all useful things, from television, which teaches us that people enjoy being lied to, manipulated and deceived. Or maybe it is just that people enjoy WATCHING people being lied to, manipulated and deceived. Whatever it is, point of the story, lying to Mom was hysterical.

The idea for Mom’s birthday surprise was that she would believe I was unable to make it home to California to celebrate due to having a full-time job in Utah, and also — paradoxically, given the aforementioned job — being unable to afford a plane ticket. In fact, however, Dad had purchased me a plane ticket, and I was blowing off my burdensome job. But my dad and my siblings and I were keeping this a secret from Mom.

Thus began a week of elaborate lies, and I can’t help thinking all of us were at least subconsciously inspired by television, the reality programming in particular. The reality shows have always had a tenuous grasp on reality, of course, but I was intrigued at how “Joe Millionaire” had a huge lie as its central point. The trashy, gold-digging women all believed Evan Marriott was an extraordinarily stupid millionaire, when in fact he was just an extraordinarily stupid construction worker. With “Joe Millionaire,” reality TV went beyond reality and into the realm of fiction. I predict the next step in reality TV will be shows that have pre-written dialogue and plots, in what we’ll call “scripts,” enacted not by regular people, but by professional “actors.” Perhaps some of these will even be taped in front of a live studio audience.

Anyway, with enormous falsehoods being perpetrated regularly on TV and in newspapers — lemon juice will get out blood stains? I don’t think so, Heloise — it was inevitable that regular people such as the Sniders would begin making them part of their lives, too. And so the lie went this way:

My big fat Greek brother Jeff was buying my dad’s car from him and thus only needed transportation one-way to California. So he borrowed my car and drove it down last Thursday, leaving it at the airport so it would be there when I arrived by plane the next evening.

What we told my mom was that Jeff was driving down with some friends. After dropping off my car at the airport, he called Dad and reported his friends’ car having broken down. Dad went to fetch Jeff, even going so far as to bring a toolbox with him to ensure that Mom wouldn’t want to come along for the ride. (No one likes watching guys fix stuff except other guys.) Dad returned with Jeff and with fanciful stories about the imaginary bunch of friends Jeff had ridden down with whom Dad had met while pretending to fix their imaginary car.

Friday, Dad obtained a large box, which was empty but which he told Mom contained her birthday present. He even had someone help him unload the box from the truck, putting on a show of it looking heavy. It sat in the garage all day, and Mom’s anticipation mounted.

Friday night, while Mom and Dad were out, I arrived via Southwest Airlines, which means my flight was extremely late and smelled like old people. I found my car and drove to my parents’ house. When we received word from Dad that they were on their way home, we put me in the box and taped it up. I was instructed to sit quietly until Mom opened me.

When Mom and Dad got home, Dad told her to open her gift, which of course I wanted to happen immediately. First, though, she wanted to finish watching “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” which I didn’t even realize was still on. To my great relief she was talked out of this. I would like to think she would have been talked out of it just on a matter of principle, even if her son hadn’t been smothering in a box, but I can’t be sure of that.

She began to remove the tape from the box by stabbing through it with a large knife. You will recall that I was inside the box at the time. So there I was, inside a box, trying not to be stabbed to death by my mother, though a tiny part of me thought it would be an even better surprise if she opened the box and found not just her eldest son, but her eldest son dead of multiple stab wounds. But allusions to David Fincher’s “Seven” (1995) aside, I was not eager to be the victim of ironic birthday manslaughter.

At last, she opened the box. I leapt up and uttered two familiar adages: “Happy birthday!” and “Don’t stab me!” The look on Mom’s face was priceless. It was a combination of surprise, confusion — she later reported wondering, briefly, if in fact I’d been in the box all afternoon — and terror. She jumped backward and screamed. Then she hugged me and began to giggle. Then she continued giggling. Then she fell on the floor from all the giggling, and then she had to go to the bathroom.

As you can see, this is not very different from what happened on “Joe Millionaire,” or from what happens regularly on the numerous prank-based television shows in which unsuspecting passersby are assaulted and humiliated by Tom Green or Johnny Knoxville. The only difference, really, is that in our case, we did it mostly out of love. The part where she almost wet her pants was just icing on the cake.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, I received a mail-order bride catalog in the mail.

Actually, it wasn’t I who received it, but we, as in the Daily Herald. I don’t know to whom it was addressed, or why. We get a lot of things here that no sane person could have ever thought we’d have a news-related use for. Many of these come from publicists, whose job it is to convince newspapers that irrelevant things ought to be put into print. (These publicists succeed a lot of the time, unfortunately, thanks to being well-versed in the art of witchcraft.)

The mail-order bride catalog was accompanied by a press release informing us that A Foreign Affair — the name of this particular company — is “one of the largest and most respected International Introduction Agencies in the world,” though I assume “most respected” is a relative term, in the way that Washington D.C. is one of the most respected places to be murdered.

The catalog is chock-full of photos of Russian women, some of them beautiful, some of them, uh, not as. Each woman lists her name, age, height and weight, along with her hobbies and a brief description of her personality. They also say what kind of men they’re hoping to attract. “Desperate and lonely” is a phrase I expected would come up frequently, but it never did.

Now, despite being colloquially known as a mail-order bride catalog — and the press release acknowledges that fact — A Foreign Affair does not actually sell women to you. If it did, the catalog would have more subscribers than TV Guide. Instead, they sell you the women’s mailing addresses, and you write to them in the hopes of developing a meaningful relationship with someone who doesn’t speak English very well, who is from an entirely different culture and whom you’ve never spoken with. It’s like the Internet, but slower and less reliable. (So, it’s like AOL.)

Which brings us to an interesting point: In this day and age, why would you pay money for someone’s snail-mail address when chat rooms and online personal ads are much faster and cheaper?

I talked to John Adams, president of A Foreign Affair and, if you’ll recall your American history, second president of the United States (1797-1801). He said, “In Russia a lot of the women don’t have access to the Internet, and if they do, it’s very limited.” This makes sense, considering that in many parts of Russia, they’re still working out “indoor plumbing.”

Adams said some disreputable companies have purported to sell Russian women’s e-mail addresses, “but whoever’s writing back, goodness knows who it is.” The scammers, posing as Russian gals, will try to get money from the unsuspecting American saps. With A Foreign Affair, though, you get actual mailing addresses, and presumably actual handwritten replies from actual Russian babes. To find out for sure, of course, you’d have to fly to Russia … and A Foreign Affair offers travel packages for that very purpose.

Are the men who use services like A Foreign Affair desperate losers? “For the most part, they’re college-educated, and they’re professional,” Adams said. “They’ve worked very hard, maybe they’ve had a divorce, maybe they’ve never been married. They just haven’t found the things they’re looking for in the women they’re dating, and this is another option.” (In other words, yes.)

You have to admire these men’s determination, though. Many guys, upon realizing that every woman in America is off-limits to them, might give up altogether. But not these guys! They simply choose another nation and start over.

According to the Foreign Affair Web site (www.AForeignAffair.com), they average seven engagements per day between people who met using their service. Even assuming the extraordinarily low Brigham Young University rate of one marriage for every seven engagements, that’s still 365 marriages a year between people who were strangers to each other until the catalog brought them together. I wonder how they will relate their “how we met” story to their children: “You see, son, I was a sad and pitiful man, shunned by every American woman with whom I came in contact, unable to establish even a rudimentary foundation of mutual fondness with any human being in the Western Hemisphere. And then I saw your mother’s picture in a catalog! She said she enjoyed reading and nature and that she weighed 118 pounds, and I knew she was the girl for me.”

Of course, I don’t claim to know everything, or even anything, about dating. It is a horrific process, a constant barrage of auditioning for those to whom you are attracted, hoping they will like you, or at least spare your self-esteem if they don’t. If some men prefer to do this by writing letters to Russian women, it is not my place to judge them. It is only my place to make fun of them, while secretly agreeing that a loving, lasting relationship is a great thing, regardless of how you stumbled across it.

(Author’s note: The events described within this column are true. Please note that it is about dogs and therefore contains several references to, um, you know, the stuff dogs leave behind. In deference to our more sensitive readers, we will refer to this as “stuff.” Please bear in mind it is also a verb.)

Diary of a Dog-Sitter

Day 1:
My charges, two high-strung Italian greyhounds named Queequeg and Astra, are alarmed to find me in their home and their owner, Vigga (names have been changed), nowhere to be found. I inform them that Vigga, a friend of mine, is merely away for a week and will surely return. Queequeg, the smarter of the two, reacts by trembling so hard she becomes blurry. Astra, who is dumber than a basket of pine cones, runs around in circles.

This will be easy, I think. I show up a few times a day to walk the dogs and give them some food, play with them a little, and collect eternal gratitude from Vigga. Plus, since they’re both female dogs, I have an excuse to use a particular swear word all week and it won’t even count as swearing.

The first walk is uneventful, which is a bad thing with dogs. The whole purpose of the walk is for something to happen, lest it otherwise occur indoors. Vigga, in her lengthy instructions to me, indicated I should carry a plastic bag when I walk the dogs, so that I can pick up their stuff and throw it away. I told her I could not imagine any sequence of events that would culminate in my laying hold on another animal’s excrement. She resigned herself to this fact and urged me to stay out of the main walkways around her apartment building. I made no promises.

But the point is moot, because neither dog shows any interest in relieving herself. Astra’s primary concern is eating leaves and sticks. Queequeg seems most interested in going back inside. I agree with her.

Due to my gullibility, I believed Vigga when she said the dogs are used to sleeping with a human being and that I must therefore spend the night there. Why this should matter to the dogs, I don’t know. But sure enough, they curl up with me in bed. The night passes.

Day 2:
I awake having learned something important about sleeping in a bed with dogs: I can’t sleep in a bed with dogs. I now smell so doggy I fear the scent may be permanent. Furthermore, I spent most of the night being all too aware of the fact that beneath the covers and adjacent to my lower quarters lay two animals with teeth and claws.

I enter the living room to discover that, during the night, Astra got up and stuffed on the carpet. I do not fault Astra for this; she is, after all, as dumb as a sack of doorknobs. I clean up the stuff, take the dogs on an uneventful walk, and go to work.

That night, I decide I cannot sleep with the dogs. It is too much to endure. What will happen if I don’t? Will they be awake all night from worry and thus unable to fulfill their dog duties tomorrow?

I tell the dogs I am leaving and that they should go to bed. In response to this — or perhaps randomly — Queequeg commits a felonious act against my leg.

Day 3:
I return to the apartment in the morning to discover that, in my absence, at least a dozen extra dogs must have broken in and stuffed. There is stuff everywhere. Surely this cannot be the work of two rat-sized dogs, unless one of them exploded.

I clean it up and take the dogs for a walk. The walks, which occur several times a day, are merely a formality now. The dogs clearly have no intention of stuffing while outdoors; in fact, they seem unaware that that is even the purpose of the walks. “It sure is nice to be outside,” they seem to say. “But can we head back in? I have to go.”

On the walk, Astra ingests several leaves and pieces of bark, all while running around in circles.

Tonight, I spread newspapers out on the floor in all the places where the dogs tend to stuff, though somehow I realize this will be ineffective.

Day 4:
A disturbance in the force tells me before I even arrive that nothing is as it should be. Sure enough, the dogs, in their continuing campaign of anarchy and mischief, have stuffed in several locations near the newspapers, in every case taking care not to befoul the newspapers themselves. In theory, then, if I covered the entire floor with newspaper, the dogs would not stuff at all.

I take the dogs on a walk, during which nothing occurs. Five minutes after returning to the apartment, Queequeg has an accident on the floor, though I am loathe to call it an accident when she did it while looking me directly in the eye.

Day 5:
The stuffing has reached psychotic levels. I have determined that the dogs are doing it on purpose as an act of defiance. Today, Astra went WHILE I WAS PUTTING THE LEASH ON HER to take her outside. She knew that if she waited literally 10 more seconds, she could go outside. But she chose not to. I don’t care how dumb you are — and Astra is as dumb as a pan of muffins — you must know, after wearing a leash 75,000 times, what wearing the leash means.

The stuffing, it would seem, is now just being done out of disrespect.

Day 6:
I am a broken man. The dogs have won. I now see stuff in my sleep, as well as everywhere I look when I’m awake, though the latter sightings are literal. Astra and Queequeg have claimed another victory for their race. The humans are further subjugated. Woof.

When life presents you with opportunities, you have to take them, or else you’re some kind of lily-livered pansy and we can’t be friends anymore. For example, if you have the chance to lie to Pauly Shore, right to his face and in a sincere voice, you should do so. Otherwise, how can you say you have truly lived?

I am happy to report that I took advantage of this opportunity during the Sundance Film Festival, which ends today. Pauly Shore was in Park City, not because he had a film in Sundance — if there is any justice in the world, he is not even allowed to buy tickets to Sundance — but because he had a film in Slamdance, which is sort of like Sundance’s younger, pot-smoking brother that plays in Park City at the same time, so that if you get tired of watching good independent films at Sundance, you can go watch the movies Sundance rejected.

Pauly’s movie is “You’ll Never Wiez in This Town Again,” and according to the woman who approached me and my friend Jamal in a Park City restaurant, “it’s the worst [expletive] movie.” What’s alarming is that this woman was apparently surprised that something starring Pauly Shore would be so awful.

Now, perhaps you are fortunate enough not to remember the shameful period in our nation’s history when many of our young people were under the illusion that Pauly Shore was funny. I know I have blocked out most of the details of this era, though certain images of Mr. Shore cavorting with one of the Baldwin brothers in something called “Bio-Dome” have etched themselves into my memory in such a way that even the most thorough scouring will not remove them. My greatest fear is that through the recent resurgence in Carrot-Top’s visibility via the TV commercials in which he harasses strangers into making long-distance phone calls, he, too, will enjoy popularity reminiscent of what Shore had in the early 1990s. Surely you agree our culture cannot endure another terrible reign of unfunny clownery from a talentless comedian; we are still paying the price for letting Gallagher think he was funny, and we stopped encouraging him years ago.

At any rate, Jamal and I were walking along Park City’s Main Street one night during the festival, doing what everyone does during Sundance, which is to look for celebrities. Should you ever find yourself in Park City during the festival, I urge you not to pick your nose in public, because you can be sure that EVERYONE is looking at everyone else’s faces, hoping to recognize someone famous.

My personal track record with locating famous people during Sundance is sadly very sparse. I do not get invited to the same parties the cool people do; any party to which I am invited is probably not going to be very cool, almost by definition. And while many festival-goers are able to spot celebrities on Main Street, my luck runs the other way. On the night in question, I saw Pauly Shore twice, and real celebrities zero times. So you see what I mean.

The first time we saw Pauly, he was flanked by about six stylishly dressed men and women, who we assumed to be his entourage, though what Pauly Shore needs with an entourage is anybody’s guess. At any rate, upon seeing Pauly, I was inexplicably star-struck. Now, I believe I have made clear my dislike for the man’s body of work; if I have not, allow me to do so now: Pauly Shore is among the least-funny, least-talented human beings on the planet, and his films rank among the most unpleasant experiences of my life, and I include the time I cut off my own leg with a chainsaw in that statement.

So why was I giddy at having seen Pauly Shore? I believe it is our natural tendency, at least in America, to be inordinately fascinated with famous people, whether they deserve to be famous or not. The fact that we have seen them on TV or in the movies and are now seeing them in person is deeply, deeply cool, because somehow it proves they exist, that the fantasy of television and film really can come true.

I said nothing to Pauly when we passed him the first time, but two hours later, we stumbled across him again. This time, he was standing still, having his photo taken with two young men who appeared to be fans, though it’s possible they were members of his entourage whose job was to pose as fans for the benefit of passersby.

I saw my chance. I had to say something to Pauly Shore. But what? Honesty clearly would not cut it, for all of my honest feelings would have been hurtful and might have contained large words he would not have understood. So I went with lying. As we passed him, I patted him on the back and said, “Hey, Pauly, I loved your movie,” even though I had not seen it and almost certainly wouldn’t have liked it if I had. He said, “Hey, thanks, buddy,” and gave me a thumbs-up.

The great part is, I don’t think lying to Pauly Shore even counts as a lie, Ten Commandments-wise. I’m sure if Moses had the chance to say something untrue to Pauly Shore, he would carpe the diem, too. You should do the same.

If you’re like me, you think it’s funny that a lot of people have goofy names. If you’re not like me, you’re one of the people coming up with the goofy names. One of us needs to change his ways, and I think it’s you, JuDee.

I write this with the knowledge that I am in danger of offending people I know and like. I have friends with absurd names, and some who have given their children absurd names. The extraordinarily snobbish diatribe that is about to follow should in no way be construed as evidence that I have less than warm feelings for these people, or for the children whose lives they have ruined with cruel names like “JayceSun.”

Now, I like fun as much as the next guy — unless the next guy is Pete Townshend, because hoo-boy, I can’t keep up with him! — but I draw the line at making child-naming time wacky creative fun time. Certain activities are meant to be boring. It means you’re doing them right. These include school plays, service projects and naming your children. If fun should break out during any of these undertakings, you should stop immediately and start again.

You see, one of the goals of parenthood — I am generalizing here — is that your children will live into adulthood. And if that should happen, and you’ve saddled him or her with an absurd name — one that you made up or intentionally misspelled — then what have you done to his or her chances of being taken seriously? Would you trust a doctor named Kaytelynne? Or a lawyer named M’Kaee? Or a senator named Orrin? (Seriously: “Orrin”?)

The two best places to find ridiculous names are Utah and the National Football League. I don’t know why this is. Those two groups have little else in common.

In Utah, there are names like these, all of which I got from the single best silly-name source, the obituary pages: Vonda, Julaine, Luray, Ferral, Ardath, Shyrel, Artell, Gerial, Zelma, and Elna. (Utahns 90 years ago were apparently still a little punch-drunk from the trek west.)

From elsewhere in the paper, I find these actual names of non-elderly Utahns: Jefra, Eunhi, Chanthy, Shurron, Chaulyn and Lyndell.

In the NFL, there are these names, all of which belong to men who were born on Earth: Edgerton, Adalius, Peerless, JoJuan, Canute, Artrell, Ligarius, KaRon, Jashon, Earthwind and Plaxico. (How does someone come to be named “Plaxico”? Did his parents follow the Utah practice of name compromising, where Dad want to name him Plate, while Mom wanted to call him Mexico, and they combined the two?)

Do you notice that the names of the mostly white Utahns are very similar to those of the mostly African-American NFL players? Perhaps there is common ground between our cultures after all.

I present these rules in naming your children:

1. Don’t make up a name. You have to give your child a name that already exists and is a commonly accepted name. That may sound restrictive, but there are literally thousands of perfectly good names to choose from. We don’t need any new ones. Civilization is more than 6,000 years old; the brainstorming session is over. I’m sorry you didn’t live 200 years ago, when exciting new names were still being forged. But now, in 2002, or whatever, WE’RE DONE. No new names.

2. Don’t misspell your kid’s name on purpose. Seriously, what are you trying to pull? Violation of Rule No. 2 is usually an effort to circumvent Rule No. 1: We can’t make up new names, so we’ll misspell an existing name, thus, in a way, making a new name!

No. You can’t do this. It’s not clever; it just looks like you can’t spell. It also does not distinguish your child from the other children with the same name. When the teacher calls on Michael, it will sound the same as if she is calling on Mikkal, MyKle or Mighkull. She should not have to differentiate between traditional-spelling Michael and all the train-wreck-spelling Michaels in the class.

3. You are entitled to one capital letter per name. Do not deplete our nation’s supply of capital letters by wedging two or more of them into one name.

4. No one takes women seriously whose first names end with two e’s. I’m sorry, but it’s true.

5. You have a friend who says he or she once encountered two people named Lemonjello and Oranjello. But your friend is lying. Those people exist only in urban legend. Stop saying you’ve heard of them, because you haven’t.

After years of wasting our time cloning sheep, rats and game show hosts, we have finally cloned a human being. What’s shameful is not that it took so long, but that extra-terrestrials had to help us do it. What happened to American initiative and know-how?

The first alleged cloning was of an unnamed woman whose partner is infertile. The alleged clone is of the woman herself — which I find vain — and she allegedly gave birth in December, all with the alleged help of a sect called the Raelians, who believe space aliens used cloning technology to create the human race.

The word “alleged” must be used often when reporting such news, because most of your major scientists and experts think the Raelians are 1) crazy for claiming they’ve successfully cloned a person, and 2) irresponsible for even trying. The typical success rate with animals is about 2 percent, and they frequently wind up with weird physical defects such as not having kidneys or growing to be 100 feet tall and destroying Tokyo. People are generally more complicated than animals — though this is obviously not true in every case, as MTV has demonstrated — and the odds against a normal baby being produced are extreme.

In the New York Times, science reporter Gina Kolata — and, like me, you probably like Gina Kolatas and getting caught in the rain — explained the difficulty. She cited one doctor who, had he not known of the trouble researchers have had trying to clone monkeys, would have thought humans would be easy to clone due to the advances made by fertility experts. “But the monkey work gave him pause,” Gina Kolata wrote.

Yes, “The monkey work gave him pause” would be a good opening line for a mystery novel. But it is also a reminder that slapping together a cloned human is not easy, even for doctors and mad scientists. So how have the Raelians done it?

They won’t say. They won’t name any of the scientists involved, nor their methods, nor will they give the name of the alleged mother. They did say, however, that several more cloned babies are due in the coming weeks, and in fact, one was allegedly born to an allegedly Dutch couple last week. So basically, we got one song-and-dance routine, and now the encores have begun.

The Raelians were founded by a French racecar driver named Claude Vorilhon who, in 1973, was visited by aliens. The aliens told him they were the authors of the human race, that they used cloning technology to accomplish this, and that if we’d get on the ball, we could start doing cool sciencey stuff, too. They’re proud of the human race they spawned, though apparently they don’t care for the name Claude Vorilhon, because they renamed him Rael, which I don’t see as an improvement, but I’m neither French nor an extra-terrestrial, so my opinion may not be valid in this case.

You can read all about the Raelians at www.rael.org. For example, we read there that the aliens “are not invaders. They have shown their desire to come (to Earth) but they respect our choice to say no. It is up to us to invite them. … It’s the least we can do.” In this regard, they are like vampires, who cannot enter a home unless invited in. (Same with Mormon missionaries.)

One of the goals of the Raelian movement is to inform people of our spacely origins. Once enough of us have accepted this and want our forebears to return, they will do so, presumably bringing useless gifts and telling us how much we’ve grown. (The aliens are only 4 feet tall, which only supports my use of “visiting grandparents” imagery.)

According to Rael, who is the sect’s spiritual leader, Raelians are big on cloning because once we’re good enough at cloning our bodies, we’ll learn how to copy memory and personality, too. This means that, even if someone died, an exact duplicate of him, down to his last neurosis and phobia, would still be alive. It will be eternal life! But not in some bizarre, perpetually happy other-worldly paradise, but here! On Earth! A place that is really dirty and often unpleasant! Who wouldn’t want to live here forever?!

Is Raelianism the one true religion? It’s hard for us to say, probably because we’re laughing too hard. True or not, though, human cloning remains mostly a mystery. And isn’t it unnecessary anyway? We have enough people already, and a lot of us don’t even like a lot of the ones we have. No one is so genetically awesome that we need to create physical duplicates of them. But if such a worthy specimen should emerge, you can bet the aliens will be there to knit booties and send birthday cards with $5 bills in them.

As a man of great sensitivity and compassion, there are a good many things about which I care deeply. For example, Southwest Airlines’ madcap seating policy concerns me, because it would seem to indicate that Southwest Airlines despises its passengers. And the fact that Uber-tool Ryan Seacrest is returning as host of “American Idol” has me greatly distressed, though it surely will not stop me from watching the show.

But despite my passion for life, there are some things that many people are very interested in that I cannot muster even one iota of concern for. In fact, sometimes it puzzles me just how worked up people can get. (Like the controversy about Deseret Book. Who would waste a newspaper column writing about that?)

Here are some things that I don’t care about, no matter how hard I try.

Trent Lott. He said America would be better off if Strom Thurmond had been elected president in 1948. This was a bad thing to say, because Strom Thurmond is a racist, lecherous old relic who recently turned 1,000 and who looks like a turtle. Would the nation be better off if a turtle had been elected president? I don’t know.

The point is, Lott made an unwise comment, apologized for it, insisted he didn’t mean anything racist by it, and then resigned anyway. I don’t know what the senate majority leader does — admit it, neither do you — but I’m pretty sure it’s not as high a position as president, and we consistently allow our presidents to say and do things that are far more offensive than endorsing a political campaign that occurred 54 years ago. And so the whole thing makes me shrug and go back to not caring who the senate majority leader is, or what he does, or why someone would name their child “Strom.”

Everything related to Jennifer Lopez. Here is a woman who worked her way up from the Bronx to become a triple-threat: a performer who is bad at singing, dancing AND acting. Somehow, perhaps using witchcraft, she has convinced a nation of straight men that an enormous rear end is a GOOD thing. And now she is engaged to bland actor Ben Affleck. I simply don’t care. I can’t even imagine caring. You show me a person who cares, and I will show you a person with whom I have nothing in common, not even cellular structure or evolutionary origins.

News stories about the change in gas prices. When gas prices go up, there is a story about it. When they go down, there is a story about it. What’s the point of this? The one group of people who care about gas prices — people who drive cars — already know that prices have fluctuated, because THEY DRIVE CARS! The same goes for stories about the weather. Don’t tell me it snowed yesterday. I KNOW it snowed yesterday. I was alive yesterday, remember? Tell me that gas prices are ABOUT to go up, or that it WILL snow. That, I care about. Especially if one event is causing the other, because that would be freaky.

Fluoridation. Some people think the government should put fluoride in the water because it promotes healthy teeth. Other people — crazy people — think the gubmint shouldn’t be puttin’ chemicals into the water supply no-how. I wouldn’t have thought the Eagle Forum, which normally concerns itself with matters of morality, would have an opinion on this, but sure enough, they are against it. (From now on, I’m going to assume the Eagle Forum espouses ALL paranoid or ridiculous notions. If there is anything absurd, preposterous or laughable, they seek after these things.)

Anyway, fluoride in the water or not, I’m unconcerned. I brush my teeth and I have some dental floss, I think, somewhere in my medicine cabinet. When I eat sugary food and cannot brush right away, I at least try to rinse out my mouth with Diet Coke. I didn’t visit the dentist at all between 1995 and 2002, and when I finally did have a check-up, there was no damage to repair. So I’m apparently doing OK, even without fluoride in the water. But if they want to put it in, and then I can wait 14 years instead of seven for my next check-up, hey, great. When it’s all over, maybe my teeth will be as blindingly white as Ryan Seacrest’s.

Somehow, among the 101 columns I wrote this year, I managed to find a few highlights. Don’t think of this as a rehash of stuff you’ve already read; think of it as me being lazy and taking a week off.

No, wait, don’t think of it that way, either. In fact, don’t think of it at all. Just read and, if possible, enjoy.

Out and about

Babies love theater. Bring them, no matter how young. It is perfectly acceptable to give birth in the car on the way over and then bring the baby, still dripping, into the theater. Babies love theater. — “How to Behave at the Theater,” Jan. 11

• If a film existeth that hath too many lesbians, the Sundance committee hath not seen it.
• Thou shalt include in thy cast people like Parker Posey or Christina Ricci; behold, if thou casteth Adam Sandler or Cheech Marin, thou might as well throw thy movie in the Dumpster — yea, verily, in the damn Dumpster. — “Sundance Report: The Ten Commandments of Independent Filmmaking,” Jan. 15

I can’t imagine any situation in which I would feel I HAD to dress up as a woman, much less where I thought I could get away with it. Yet people in movies and Shakespeare plays seem to exhaust every other choice and arrive at that option with startling rapidness. They’re always vigorously heterosexual characters, too, insisting the LAST thing they want to do is dress like the opposite sex — but I am skeptical, because I think if you REALLY didn’t want to cross-dress, you’d find another solution. — “What Fools These Cross-Dressers Be,” July 3

I don’t think rap artists should be allowed to star in motion pictures. It’s not because they can’t act; I have come to accept that certain people will always be in movies, regardless of their having minimal talent. (This is known as the Freddie Prinze Jr. Prinziple.) The reason I object to rap stars as movie stars is that they don’t even have names. Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Li’l Bow Wow, Dr. Dre — those aren’t names! They’re not even proper nicknames. They’re barely even words. Seems like having a name should be the MINIMUM requirement for being a film star. — “Sinceriously,” May 17

A man in the audience answered his cellphone during the show and then talked on it for about a minute, casually, before hanging up. I don’t know this man or his background, but clearly he is the stupidest man in the world. He must be, if he thinks it’s OK to talk on his phone during a play. What puzzled me is how someone as stupid as he must be is able to dress himself and go outside and be part of society. Shouldn’t he be in a zoo or an institution, being studied by scientists? But maybe the phone call was urgent. Maybe it was the lost and found, letting him know they’d found his 11 missing chromosomes. — “Shmildren of Shmeden,” Aug. 2

Traveling

Granted, the airlines have been under extraordinary duress in recent months. However, the effect of this has merely been that now, in addition to being incompetent, the airlines are also paranoid and delirious. It’s like going up to a man who’s already insane and telling him his rear end is on fire. — “Delta Bad Hand,” Jan. 2

I learned that it’s impossible to sleep in an airport, due to the prerecorded lady telling you every 10 minutes over the loudspeaker (there’s a reason they call it that) that you are not allowed to smoke in the terminal — which it seems to me everyone already knows. You can’t even bring nail clippers into an airport anymore; does anyone really think you can have fire? — “Cross Words at JFK,” March 20

There was a Korean-born American girl who learned I was visiting England from Utah and who then said, in a very disgusted manner, “You’re not a Mormon, are you?” Telling her I WAS a Mormon shut her up in a hurry. Having seen BYU’s Julie Stoffer on “The Real World,” I knew precisely how to deal with awkward circumstances like this one: I crawled into a cupboard and wept. — “Hostel Takeover,” March 29

With an average humidity index of 150,000 percent, Florida is by far our sweatiest state. That is why it is so attractive to old people, because the elderly, much like the dolphins they sound like, need to be kept moist in order to survive. — “Humid Nature,” April 19

When you give three weeks’ notice, you can get a plane ticket for $150 or so. When you give three days’ notice, they charge you $300, I guess because somehow it’s harder for the plane to fly when it has procrastinators on it. — “Generation Eric,” June 28

TV

I got Dish Network, a satellite service that brings well over 1 billion channels directly into my home, including some from other planets. At least, I assume that’s where the people on “Iron Chef” are from. Certainly no regular people get that excited about cooking dinner. — “Special FX,” Jan. 4

Claire and Monty find England amusing, but they are fed up with certain aspects of it. For example, over there, ugly people are allowed on television. This bothers Claire and Monty, who believe, as Americans, that only attractive people should be televised. “If I wanted to see ugly people, I’d go outside!” Claire says. — “To Bee in Dawlish,” May 1

In theory, stealing is wrong. In theory. In theory, democracy works. And then Nikki McKibbin makes it to the final four in “American Idol” and we realize democracy is a failure. Lots of things work “in theory.” — “Scream of Conscience,” Aug. 21

Customer disservice

Never in the history of mankind has a tow-truck driver said, “OK, you’re right. We shouldn’t have towed you. There will be no charge, and I apologize for the inconvenience.” If a tow-truck driver’s brain ever even attempted to combine those words in that order, his head would explode. (Raise your hand if you would like to see this.) — “Towed You So,” Jan. 23

We rode in Gus’ tow truck to the nearest ATM, three miles away, so I could get enough cash to pay him to get my car out of impound. Out of the blue, Gus said, “I bought a new bed.” I was amazed to hear this. I had been searching all my life for the topic of conversation that I was least interested in, and now I had found it! A new bed purchased by an obstinate journeyman was precisely the thing in all the universe that I couldn’t possibly have cared less about. And now I was talking about it! I was afraid if I appeared uninterested in Gus’ new bed that he would change his mind again on how much money I owed him. (“I’m also gonna have to charge you a $25 not-caring-about-my-new-bed fee.”) So I said, “Oh, yeah?” I even raised my eyebrows, the way interested people do. — “Gus Mileage,” Jan. 25

I am told that since RC Willey offers free installation, the installation will only cost $45. (There are charges for various parts.) Apparently, the installation is called “free” because there are no slaves involved. All of the laborers are freemen, being paid wages for their work. It makes me happy to know I am not supporting a sweatshop. — “Fee Installation,” June 5

I had to bail my big fat Greek brother Jeff out of jail. The cost was $650, or $2 a pound. I had to come up with this money because I was the only relative nearby, and because I am believed to have flora growing in my back yard that produces fruit made of cash. In truth, I don’t even have a back yard, and $650 was more than I had in my bank account. Fortunately, Washington Mutual offers overdraft protection, and charges only $22 every time you use it. (Twenty-two dollars is such a low sum that I’m sure the bank loses money on the deal.) — “You Have the Right to Remain Fat,” Oct. 2

Physical appearances

Abercrombie & Fitch, the chain of quasi-trendy clothing stores, has caused furor before with its racy catalogues. The pictures in these catalogues feature lithe young men doing manly things like frolicking gaily in the surf or wrestling nakedly on a bearskin rug in front of a fireplace, always demonstrating the best way to showcase A&F clothes, i.e., by not wearing them. — “A&Ftermath,” July 19

Why are there no good-looking polygamists? Does a life of gingham and farm work not attract people with high cheekbones and svelte figures? Or are the good-looking people being ruined by it, going into their first marriage looking like Tom Cruise and coming out of their seventh looking like Tommy Lee Jones? — “The Sardonic Versus,” Sept. 1

Chad contacted an acquaintance who had connections in the modeling world, and next thing you know he’s getting some shots taken to put in his portfolio. He called me beforehand because he was nervous, and I couldn’t figure out what he was nervous about. It’s not like an audition, where you might screw up your lines. For a photo shoot, you’re showing up basically with your face. If you forget your face at home, yeah, I guess you’re hosed. But otherwise, it seems like it ought to be smooth sailing. — “The Problems of the Cute,” Sept. 4

Maybe it’s wrong to marry someone based on something as superficial as good looks or money, but maybe ugly, poor people don’t need love anyway. — “Words of Inspiration: Maybe,” Feb. 27

A New York man sued several fast food chains because he was fat. I saw a picture of this guy, whose name is Caesar Barber, and he sort of has a point: He is very, very fat. If his case goes to trial and there is any dispute over whether or not he is fat, I will gladly testify on his behalf. — “Some Body to Love,” Sept. 22

The controversy over double-charging fat airline passengers began when an internal memo escaped the confines of Southwest headquarters, which are in a shack on the outskirts of Barstow, Calif. (This is also where Southwest keeps its plane.) The memo was to remind employees of a 22-year-old policy stating that customers must pay for as many seats as they occupy, and that ticket agents, if necessary, should remind customers of this fact, preferably in a loud voice and using the expressions “jumbo” and “tons-o’-fun.” … So how much spillage constitutes “occupying”? Where do you draw the line? What, should Southwest put a box at the ticket counter, and you have to stand in the box, and if you don’t fit completely inside it, you have to pay for another seat? YES. That would be GREAT. I would spend hours at the airport, just watching people get in the Fat Box. — “Seating Disorder,” July 10

I was reviewing a play when, during intermission, a woman asked if I was Eric Snider, and when I told her I was, she said she recognized me from my column and added, “You’ve gained weight since that picture was taken.” Apparently, the fact that I write reviews of local theater productions gives strangers license to tell me I’m fat. — “The Problems of the Cute,” Sept. 4

Politics and current events

The billboard I saw on my way to work said this: “The United Nations Wants to Take YOUR Gun!” I was alarmed. How could the United Nations Want to Take MY Gun when I don’t even have one? Are they planning to issue guns to everyone, just so they can take them away? Because THAT sure wouldn’t make any sense. Plus, I don’t want a gun in my house, even if it’s only long enough for the U.N. to take it away. Who knows how long they’ll leave it there before they come get it? It could be days, or even weeks, and in that time, plenty could go wrong, such as my roommate leaving dirty dishes in the sink FOR THE LAST TIME. — “The U.N. Column,” Feb. 1

They are clever with the wordplay over at PETA. Don’t they know that every time you make a pun, a kitten gets shot in the head? — “PETA’s Dragon,” May 24

On Feb. 7, 1993, Cody Judy interrupted a BYU fireside where LDS apostle Howard W. Hunter was speaking. Judy held a briefcase containing what he said was a bomb, and in his other hand he held what he said was a detonator. Those of us in attendance wet what we said was our pants. We also sang some inspirational hymns of God’s love and mercy, which distracted Judy long enough for a bunch of guys to tackle him and beat him senseless. — “Codypendent,” June 7

When I heard about the Toby Keith controversy, my first thought was: Who? Then I did some research and found out he’s actually quite famous in country music circles, which I do not feel snobbish in mentioning are circles I do not travel in, due to my having completed high school. — “Butt Seriously, Folks,” July 5

When you think of stores that sell pornography, probably the first name that springs to mind is Deseret Book. But those purveyors of smut are finally cleaning up their act, starting with a refusal to sell Mormon author Richard Paul Evans’ trashy new novel, “LaVonda Does LaVerkin.” — “An Embarrassment of Richard’s,” Nov. 24

I fear the time may have come that we shall have to start taking UVSC seriously. First it became a state college instead of a community college. Then they began hiring professors instead of hobos. Then they started giving graduates diplomas instead of Chili’s gift certificates. Now, apparently, they will play at the top level of NCAA athletics, competing against other colleges rather than high schools and scout troops. … In the past, we have considered a UVSC athletic event to be on the same level of legitimacy as a same-sex wedding, or a little girl’s tea party to which her dollies are invited — you know, you’d attend if there was nothing else going on, but it’s not like you’ll take it seriously or anything. All that could change now. If UVSC successfully makes the leap from NJCAA Region 18 to NCAA Division I-A, it will be the first school ever to do so without most of its students knowing what those letters stand for. — “UVS-Legitima-C,” Aug. 7

Young people

Owen, age 2, is a force of nature. He toddles around ferociously, raging and hollering like a madman. He appears to be speaking, but the words are not from any discernible language. If he weren’t so adorable, I’d assume he was evil. My best guess: He has bees in his head, and the bees are crazy. — “To Bee in Dawlish,” May 1

What in tarnation does a teen-age girl need a cellphone for? My theory is that since they are genetically programmed to talk 24 hours a day regardless of whether anyone is there to listen to them, they prop the cellphones against their faces so they won’t look crazy. — “Chang of Subject,” June 21

The Olympics

How strong is the Mormon influence on the Games? Take a look at some of this year’s events: Women’s Downhill Jump to Conclusions; The Self-Righteous Huff; Slalom Minivan Driving with Non-Operating Turn Signal; Bobsled; Freestyle Scrapbooking; Guilt; Scripture Chase; Preparing Lesson During Sacrament Meeting While Also Distributing Cheerios Among Toddlers Biathlon; Southern Utah County Big Hair Curling. — “Olympics Report: The Molympics,” Feb. 8

Each of Utah’s five Indian tribes were represented in the Opening Ceremonies. I guess we did kill a lot of them and steal their land, so it’s only fair we let them play flutes at the Olympics. I say we call it even. — “Olympics Report: How Much Does Bob Costas?,” Feb. 10

So women are playing hockey now, apparently. I know because I watched them do it at The Peaks on Tuesday. What will come next in the women’s movement? Why, soon they’ll be voting! — “Olympics Report: Women’s Hockey Is Finnished,” Feb. 13

Today we are discussing how to enjoy the holidays to the full extent of the law, to enjoy every last drop of goodness in them, to enjoy them so much that you cannot stand to enjoy them again for at least another 10 years.

First of all, in order to truly enjoy the holidays — and when I say “the holidays,” let’s be honest, I really just mean Christmas; Hanukkah was three weeks ago and Kwanzaa doesn’t exist — you must resign yourself to spending truckloads of money. You can’t avoid it. Sure, you will see magazine articles with headlines like “Four Cheap Ways to Enjoy the Holidays,” but then you read the articles and realize the tips basically boil down to: 1) Don’t buy anything; 2) don’t go anywhere; 3) don’t invite anyone over; and 4) turn out the lights, crawl under a blanket, and sob.

Money is what drives the Christmas season, and we’re apparently OK with that. According to the 2002 American Express Retail Index, the average American plans to spend $1,073 on holiday gifts this year. The significance of this is clear: I need to get richer friends, because no one I know is spending that much. Is it possible American Express didn’t do any research and instead just chose that figure randomly, the same way they come up with their interest rates?

The big dilemma is not how much you’re spending, but what you’re spending it on. Obviously, the worst gift you can give anyone is cash. It’s the thought that counts, and cash indicates your thoughts were, “I’m obligated to give you a present; here you go.” Several years ago, on my 24th birthday, my friend Rob gave me a check for $24. I said, “Too bad I’m not turning a million!” It was our little joke, and I never forgave him.

So don’t give cash, and don’t give gift certificates, which are only slightly better than cash. Cash says, “I don’t know anything about your tastes, interests or needs.” Gift certificates say, “I’ve identified one store that I can imagine you wanting to shop at; beyond that, you are a stranger to me.”

But giving is important, regardless of what you give, or to whom you give it. Some people get into the Christmas spirit by giving to the less-fortunate. It sounds crazy, I know, but it’s true. At Village Inn, they are urging people to donate Village Inn pies to an organization that will give them to homeless shelters, because if there’s one thing homeless people need, it’s pie. Time was, the government would provide the needy with pie — indeed, with all necessary pastries and sweetmeats — but no more! We’ve gotten so spendy that the pie fund has been exhausted and the homeless are left to fend for themselves in satisfying their pie needs. (Village Inn has graciously offered not to send any of its signature skillets to the homeless, because even people who are really hungry can’t eat that stuff.)

*** Holiday shopping tip: To avoid the crowds, do your shopping five months ago! Let us know how that works out for you.

Another way to enjoy the holidays to an excruciating degree is to host a holiday party. I did this last year, and Luscious Malone and all the gang were in attendance. The party began well, but trouble arose when we sang Christmas carols and occasionally disagreed upon the correct words. This minor disruption escalated to the level of full-scale brouhaha during “Joy to the World,” when the “saints and angels” faction tried to out-sing the “heav’n and nature” camp, which responded by singing even more loudly than before, and a hymn of jubilation turned into a cacophony of hurt feelings and bitter recrimination and Luscious Malone telling everyone they were wrong. But in some other ways, it was different from every other day of the year. The important thing is, we spent the holidays together without having to make monthly payments afterward.

Well, I’ll be judied! It’s time to make up words like “judied” (past tense of the verb “to judy”), and it’s also time for “Ask Eric Stuff,” a staggeringly popular feature in which people ask Eric stuff and he answers them. People write in wanting advice and opinions, and advice and opinions is/are what they get!

You can submit your own questions here. Items of general interest, and to which Eric can think of snarky answers, will be printed occasionally in this column. Boring questions will be judied.

Dear Eric: How do I get a great job like yours? — As Clever as Eric
Dear Of Course You Are: Night manager at Arby’s? Oh, it’s not hard. I’ll send you an application.

Dear Eric: I am colorblind and struggling to make it in our unkind society. Could you please help me cheer up? — Seeking Grants
Dear Blindy: You’re colorblind? HA HA! That’s funny! Hey, colorblind! How many fingers am I holding up? And what color are they? Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Dear Eric: Would you ever date a fan of your column? — Thinks Eric is Hot
Dear Delusional: Sure. And I would date a unicorn or a griffin, too, if they existed.

Dear Eric: Donald Duck never wore pants, right? So how come after taking a shower he always wears a towel around his waist? — Couch Potato
Dear Spud: The question is, why do you want to see a cartoon duck naked?

Dear Eric: What’s the best thing money can buy? — Greedy in Georgetown
Dear George: Money.

Dear Eric: Will you marry me? — Crazy About You in Cache Valley
Dear Crazy: Possibly. You’re not into cartoon ducks, are you?

Dear Eric: Where in the nursery rhyme does it ever say that Humpty Dumpty was an egg? — All the Kings Men
Dear Men: In the little-known second verse, which begins: “There once was an egg from Nantucket.”

Dear Eric: Where do babies come from? — Curious
Dear Curry: From the woman who lives down the street from me. Eight and counting! She’s like a Pez dispenser!

Dear Eric: Why do all of today’s popular songs have such asinine lyrics? — Deep Folkster
Dear Folksy: Good point. What happened to the intelligent lyrics of yesteryear, such as, “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog/Cryin’ all the time/You ain’t never caught a rabbit and you ain’t no friend of mine”?

Dear Eric: Have you ever thought of running for office? — Gayle Ruzicka’s Evil Twin
Dear Medusa: I’m too lazy to ever think of “running” for anything. I wouldn’t run for water if my head were on fire. I might consider walking for office, but even then, I don’t know. Isn’t there an easier way to get to office?

Dear Eric: The neighbor kids torment my dogs through the fence, and then their parents threaten to have my noisy dogs taken by Utah County Animal Control. What do I do? — Bark Collar in Orem
Dear Barky: I know it’s difficult, but you may have to consider euthanasia. Their parents will miss them for a while, but they’ll thank you later.

I’m a little bruised and sore, but I successfully baby-sat two toddlers for an evening. It makes me think I could handle being a father, provided it’s for no more than four hours at a time and the kids come out of the womb potty-trained.

The victims of the baby-sitting were Miles, human, age 4, and Owen, wild beast, age 2. They are the offspring of my friends Monty and Claire (names have been changed), who had a social engagement on Thanksgiving night. Like all legitimate social engagements, this one did not permit children; however, because of the holiday, all of the regular baby-sitters were unwilling or unable to help out.

Enter me. I like hanging out with Miles and Owen — they’re the only friends I have who don’t criticize me — and since their parents had invited me to their huge extended-family dinner earlier that day, I felt like I should reciprocate somehow. Besides, what else was I going to do on Thanksgiving night? My own family’s holiday festivities and their attendant trauma were hundreds of miles away. It was time to create my own tradition of trauma.

The boys were in fine spirits when Mom and Dad left. Miles, who is inquisitive and gentle, wanted to watch “Dinotopia,” a new ABC series about a world where bad actors live among, and are frequently eaten by, cartoons that sort of look like dinosaurs. Owen, who tears through life like a diaper-clad tornado, wanted to watch a video. Which video, exactly, changed every 10 minutes. Each time he would propose a new one, I would say, “We’ll watch that after ‘Dinotopia,'” and he would say, “‘Kay.” Children, I was pleased to realize, are easily manipulated and deceived.

Due to having the attention span of gnats, Miles and Owen would fill the time between cartoon-dinosaur attacks by jumping around the room. It was during one of these periods of monkeyism that I became, apparently, a jungle gym. As I lay on the floor, Miles would walk on me; he reported this to be fun because “you’re so squishy.” Owen, meanwhile, would stand on a chair and dive — I mean DIVE, head-first — onto me. I presume Owen has learned, no doubt by trial and error, that diving head-first onto the floor is unpleasurable. So what material does he believe my chest to be made of that would make it less painful to land on than the floor? At any rate, thus abused by the lads, I received two unfortunate pummelings in the crotchular region — you’d think Miles, being a boy, would know where not to stand on Uncle Eric — and a nasty blow to the mouth when I was unable to deflect kamikaze Owen before he could land, face-first, on my face.

In the past, I have joked about Owen’s demeanor, saying he has bees in his head and the bees are crazy. Baby-sitting him, I came to believe this is literally true. But also, I realized those bees are sharing space with an enormous set of saliva glands. If Owen were harnessed, I suspect he could single-mouthedly produce enough drool to engulf an entire village. (Why you would want to drown a village in drool, I don’t know. I’m just saying you COULD.)

I came away from the night with a greater appreciation for what parents cope with, especially stay-at-home mothers. Whenever I call Claire on the phone, she is out of breath. I could never figure out what, specifically, had been wearing her out, but now I can imagine it perfectly: Owen has been running around naked, refusing to be encumbered by diaper or pants. Or perhaps Miles is bouncing merrily on her midsection, scaling her as though she were a mountain. Maybe both boys, working in harmony, have assembled a nuclear warhead. Anything is possible when you’re dealing with little boys.

The LDS Church is taking its case regarding the Main Street Plaza all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the battle lines have been drawn: People who think everything the LDS Church does is OK think what they’ve done with the plaza is OK, and people who don’t like anything the LDS Church does don’t like this, either. The only description of controversies in Utah more appropriate than “abundant” is “predictable.”

Perhaps a little history of the controversy is in order. In April 1999, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints purchased a block of Main Street from Salt Lake City for $8.1 million. (Apparently, if you had $8.1 million, you could do this, too.) The block is adjacent to Temple Square, and the church intended to turn it into a lovely plaza, saying it would be “a little bit of Paris,” though presumably with less dog crap and fewer Frenchmen.

Also, while the plaza would be open to the public, the church planned not to allow disruptive behavior, wanting it to be a quiet place of reflection, not a grounds for protesters or people who set themselves on fire. (How come demonstrators never do that anymore? I miss it.)

The negotiations for the sale took place either in meetings completely open to the public, or else in dark, secret caverns hidden from view, depending on whether you read the Deseret News or the Salt Lake Tribune.

At any rate, the city council approved the sale and in October 2000, the new plaza was opened and dedicated. Smoking, sunbathing and protesting were not permitted, and since the church owned the property, they had the right to throw out anyone they wanted to.

Or did they? See, there’s also a public easement through the plaza, allowing anyone, anytime, to walk through it unhindered. Some say this makes the plaza public, like a city park or a sidewalk. And if it’s public, then people should be allowed to do anything guaranteed by the Constitution. If you want to peaceably assemble, or petition the government for a redress of grievances, or have a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury on the plaza, hey, go for it.

So that is the issue. The church bought the land and prettied it up; shouldn’t it be allowed to do whatever it wants with it? Or does that public easement mean there can be no restrictions on speech or behavior?

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — pardon me for speaking in such legal jargon; I will make another poop joke shortly — ruled against the church. The moment this decision was made, full-grown adults began to assemble on the plaza and do the things the church had previously forbidden — smoking, playing loud music and protesting, mainly — simply because now they could. Never mind that it’s a lousy spot for demonstrations because it’s off the main thoroughfare, and never mind that no decent person would intentionally disrupt a peaceful place just for the sake of disrupting it, and never mind that only stupid people smoke. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said we can do this, so we’re gonna do it! In your face, church!

Now, I hate to introduce rationality and logic into a Utah controversy, but I think both sides are a little off. First, to hear the church tell it, if the plaza is made fully public, there will be loud protesters there 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I simply don’t see this happening. The only reason someone would protest in that plaza, instead of at a busy intersection or a park, would be if they were protesting the LDS Church specifically. That does occur, of course — twice a year, when the church has its general conference. The rest of the time, the anti-Mormons hibernate, living off nutrients provided by blind hate. So what’s the big deal? Let people protest there if they want to. Most people don’t want to.

As for the other side, I keep hearing people say that yelling angry things at Mormons exiting the temple onto the plaza is no more discourteous or disruptive than when those Mormon missionaries come knocking on their doors. There’s no public easement from the street to my doorbell, so you Mormons have no right to enter it! However, I think that if someone knocking on your door — which you don’t have to answer, by the way — is as distressing to you as being yelled at after attending a worship service, then your problems need to be addressed by a qualified medical professional, not by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

I visited the plaza last week to see what it’s like. First of all, there were no protesters. There was a scruffy man with a backpack and a dog who asked me for money — I mean the man asked, not the dog — but he didn’t seem to be protesting anything, except, maybe, by implication, poverty. There were about a million weddings taking place that day; it was a Thursday in November, which is traditionally when … wait, what? No, I don’t know why there were so many weddings. But there were, and the friends and relatives of the couples were milling around Temple Square and the plaza, and many of the brides were being photographed on the plaza itself. Some of them were probably being asked for money, too, since all I had to give the guy was 70 cents.

It occurred to me that Temple Square is already a beautiful, peaceful place that is open to the public. Those grounds are completely owned by the LDS Church, with no dispute over its right to preserve the quiet atmosphere by whatever means it sees fit.

So why not let Temple Square be the place for quiet reflection, the little bit of Paris, and let the plaza be a nice place that happens to be next to it? The church should rescind its restrictions on the plaza. The fact is, if you stop forbidding misbehavior, you take the fun out of misbehaving. Ninety-nine percent of the people who visit it will behave just fine. And if they do want to yell at temple-going Mormons, so what? They’re already free to do that around the rest of the perimeter of Temple Square; what’s one more block?

Of course, I realize this solution would mean the Mormons and non-Mormons had reached a compromise, which may herald the end of the world, but hey, the world had to end sometime.

When you think of stores that sell pornography, probably the first name that springs to mind is Deseret Book. But those purveyors of smut are finally cleaning up their act, starting with a refusal to sell Mormon author Richard Paul Evans’ trashy new novel, “LaVonda Does LaVerkin.”

No, I am kidding about the title. It is called “The Last Promise.” It is about an American woman living in Italy with her Italian husband, and this Italian husband is emotionally abusive, and later physically abusive, too. So the woman develops a friendship with another man, and they share some hugs and kisses (but no sex), and she realizes she should dump her worthless spouse for this other guy if she ever wants to be happy.

I read this book very quickly, the way you would wolf down an intestine sandwich if you were compelled to eat one. I can say that it (the book, not the sandwich) is better than Evans’ “The Christmas Box,” though that is not much of a compliment, since the Hanta virus is also better than “The Christmas Box.”

But my point is, “The Last Promise” is a fairly good book, as far as romance novels go. Deseret Book hasn’t pulled it from its shelves due to a lack of quality. If quality were part of the criteria, they wouldn’t persist in selling things like “The Book of Mormon Sleuth.” (Actual description from the back cover of this teen novel: “Whether it’s how to solve everyday problems, escape from the clutches of a demented thief, or solve the mystery of Aunt Ella’s cellar, Brandon’s scriptures never fail him.”)

The decision on “The Last Promise” stemmed from the content of the book: Though there is no sex, the woman in the story does have an emotionally intimate relationship with a man who is not her husband. This can be viewed as a form of adultery, which is a no-no among most of your major religions. One of those religions is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which owns Deseret Book and whose members make up, I don’t know, about 100 percent of Deseret Book’s clientele.

Now, I could go down to Deseret Book and make a list of other books they sell that have content far more objectionable than what’s in “The Last Promise.” That seems like something I would do, and it would get me out of the office for a few hours, because I would probably go to the movies, too. But Deseret Book has beaten me to it. They have announced that they are systematically going through all the titles they sell and removing the ones that don’t match their customers’ “core values,” as Deseret Book president Sheri Dew put it.

You are already thinking that the Bible contains some very graphic sex and violence, yet Deseret Book has no problem selling it. That is another matter, though: The Bible, while depicting sinfulness, also generally depicts the woeful effects of sinning. “The Last Promise” shows no long-term ill effects of the woman’s relationship; in fact, it’s not even portrayed as sinful.

I think the woman probably makes some mistakes along the way, but I also think she ultimately does what’s best for her. Why stay in a loveless relationship? Because you need help with the rent money? There are a lot of gray areas in life, and this book explores one of them. In the world of Deseret Book, however, there is no gray, only black and white (mostly white). DB apparently doesn’t want to burden its customers by making them think about the gray areas, the parts where divorce is sometimes the best option and where a close friendship is more valuable than a dead marriage.

There is a stifling air of perfectionism in the magical world of Deseret Book. Things are very cut-and-dried in the books they sell there. If you say your prayers, read your scriptures and go to church, life will be fantastic. Sure, there will be bumps along the way. But they will be temporary, and easily overcome by praying, reading and going. If you find yourself stuck in a life that is somehow more difficult than that, then it is surely because you have failed to repent of some sin along the way — it is your fault, in other words.

I hope Deseret Book is wrong about what its customers want to see. I hope people can read a story about someone who makes a difficult decision and, whether they agree with the decision or not, find some good in the story. I hope people can see that some situations are multi-faceted, with no clear-cut right answer.

But mostly, I hope Brandon can solve the mystery of Aunt Ella’s cellar. Because seriously, what’s DOWN there?

It has been a bad month for wife-killing in the state of Utah, particularly in the sense that the people doing it aren’t very good at it.

I should indicate up front that I do not advocate any sort of killing, and that within the field of killing, wife-killing is one of my least favorite varieties. So please do not think that my making fun of the wife-killers somehow, in some perverse way, means I support them.

I have been following the trial of James Bottarini, an Illinois man who is accused of pushing his wife off a cliff in Zion National Park five years ago, claiming she fell accidentally, and collecting the insurance money.

(The money amounted to $1.25 million. I say beware of men who take out $1.25 million insurance policies on their spouses.)

I have also taken note of the Provo man, Paul William Turner, who has recently confessed to trying three different times to kill his wife, each time unsuccessfully.

Basically, it would seem that half the men in Utah are trying to marry multiple wives, and the other half are trying to kill the ones they’ve got.

What amazes me is how poorly each of these men set about his respective work. Bottarini, the cliff-pusher, has not yet been found guilty in a court of law, but he has been condemned in the court of public opinion, which is more important anyway.

The evidence is against him. According to the Associated Press, there were drag marks on the ground leading up to the point where the woman fell; witnesses below heard voices and scuffling just seconds before the fall; and when authorities responded to the scene, Bottarini seemed “emotionally separated” from what was going on.

In other words, as is often the case with evil men, Bottarini had a grand scheme and then botched it when it came time for action. Satan is a wuss, and so are his minions.

Meanwhile, Turner’s story is far more amusing. First he gave his wife cookies laced with rat poison; it had no effect. Then he gave her what he thought were poisonous mushrooms but which turned out to be harmless. Then he put hydrochloric acid in a syringe she used to administer prescription medication to herself; it, too, did not harm her.

Turner, whom we are going to call Wile E. Coyote from now on, turned himself in on the advice of his LDS bishop. Apparently, he did not seek advice on whether he should kill his wife in the first place, only on what he should do after he failed. According to police, Coyote wanted to get rid of his wife because he was addicted to pornography, and because his wife wouldn’t let him live the sexual lifestyle he wanted. (The police did not elaborate on that last point, and I’m glad.)

Mrs. Coyote said she didn’t know about the pornography thing until Wile E. was arrested, nor did she know he was trying to kill her. I believe the very height of incompetence among murderers would have to be when your intended victim doesn’t even know she’s being killed.

Where the story turns especially outrageous is in the revelation that Coyote cannot be convicted on the strength of his confession alone: Prosecutors must find actual evidence of the crimes, too.

Never mind that the man turned himself in without ever being accused, or indeed without his victim even knowing she was a victim. Due to a legal requirement known as “corpus delicti” (“delicious corpse”), there must be evidence that the confessor actually committed the crimes. My friend Mike the Lawyer tells me this is partially to prevent crazy people from making up crimes, but more importantly to keep rich people from paying poor people to confess for them.

This seems wrong. If Coyote says he tried to kill his wife, let’s take his word for it. He’s obviously capable of at least thinking very hard about it, which alone makes it a good idea to lock him up. I don’t think attempted murderers should have to save their receipts in order to prove they’re attempted murderers.

Furthermore, I think one of the perks of being rich should be that you can hire people to confess to your crimes for you. If I don’t have that to look forward to, then what’s the point of my getting rich?

At the checkout stand at Albertson’s, my eye was caught by a magazine whose cover was blocked by a black card. It was Vanity Fair, a magazine that I had never paid any attention to before. Obviously, Albertson’s was trying to get me to buy this magazine, or else they wouldn’t have drawn my attention to it by covering it up.

For a couple years now, some Utah Valley supermarkets have covered up magazines that have potentially offensive covers. Of course, everything is “potentially offensive” to someone, especially in Utah Valley, where getting offended is so popular that the Boy Scouts offer a merit badge in it. So how do stores decide what to cover up?

The Vanity Fair issue in question had a picture of Madonna. (Note: I mean the pop singer Madonna, not the Catholic icon Madonna.) (Although I could see her being covered up in Utah Valley, too.) There was a day when Madonna was so trashy she would make Christina Aguilera look like Laura Ingalls Wilder, but this photo was very chaste. The neckline came all the way up to her neck, her skirt was knee-length, and her sleeves went nearly to the elbow.

Elsewhere on the cover were nine headlines, not one of which used the word “sex” or anything else filthy or shameful.

So why cover up the magazine? Looking around, I realized a lot of magazines were covered up, apparently at random. Among those covered: Redbook (“5 Sex Moves All Men Absolutely Love”) and Glamour (“How to Have Insanely Good Sex”). Also covered, though, were several magazines with absolutely nothing objectionable on their covers, including: Seventeen, GQ, YM, In Touch, Marie Claire and Self. The Globe (“TV Bachelor is a Jerk!”) was covered, while the National Enquirer (“Snipers: Their Secret Gay Life”) was left visible.

Over at the magazine rack, nothing is covered up. This includes the Sports Illustrated “Ultimate Swimsuit 1964-2002” issue, complete with a somewhat naked woman on the cover; several muscle magazines that feature nearly-nude, extremely oily men; and Woman’s Own, whose main cover headlines I will now recite for you: “Reaching the 5 Top Sex Highs”; “15 Make-Him-Sweat Moves from a Lap-Dancing Lolita”; “We Test Sex Toys for Money: 4 Women Share Their Favorites”; “You Love Him, but Your Sex Styles Differ”; and “5 Kinky Places to Make Love … at Home!” (Of all places!)

Local Albertson’s stores — this was the north Orem location, but I called some others, too — won’t comment on the policy, referring media types to corporate headquarters. However, corporate headquarters did not respond to repeated requests for comment. So I am left to my own devices at determining why the covering-up seems to be practiced in such a slap-dash manner. My guess: monkeys. Monkeys are turned loose in the store with black cards, and wherever they put them, that’s what gets covered. Maybe sometimes it’s a box of cereal; maybe it’s a piece of ham. Pause for a moment with me and picture the process of monkey-facilitated censorship.

OK, that was fun. The Smith’s stores follow the same practice (of covering magazines, I mean; I don’t know whether monkeys are involved). According to spokesperson Marsha Gilford, Smith’s’s parent company, Kroger, asked all its stores nationwide to cover up Cosmopolitan “because they felt that cover was consistently more explicit than most.” (Two of this month’s headlines: “40 Sex Secrets of Women Who Are Great in the Sack” and “Read His Dirty Mind: The naughty wishes ALL men have.”)

Beyond Cosmo, it’s up to the individual stores, case-by-case. Currently, at the Provo store, Cosmo is the only magazine covered. Uncovered are the aforementioned Redbook and Glamour, and O: The Oprah Magazine (“Girls & Sex: You won’t believe what’s going on”).

Away from the checkstand, in the magazine department, we have the beery men’s magazines like Maxim (“7 Kinds of Sex”), Stuff (a picture of Holly Marie Combs topless, her breasts covered only with her long hair) and Blender (a picture of LeAnn Rimes topless, covering her breasts with her arms, her popularity and dignity lying neglected in a ditch somewhere), along with the muscle magazines, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, and that filthy, filthy Woman’s Own. All of these are in plain view.

My issue with covering the magazines is that it’s done so haphazardly. If a magazine’s cover is consistently offensive to a lot of customers, then stop selling it. If it sells well despite offending some people, then just sell it without acting ashamed of it. Don’t straddle the fence, in other words (“6 Ways to Straddle the Fence”).

But if you’re going to cover up offensive magazines, then cover up ALL the offensive magazines. Of course, that’s a slippery slope; as mentioned, everything is offensive to someone. Madonna offends me, for example, because doesn’t she realize she is so OVER?

When the ATM at my bank runs out of paper, it flashes a message that says, “It’s been crazy today. Do you mind not getting a receipt?” What I wonder is if this offends crazy people, who might object to craziness being applied to such mundane things as a busy day at the bank.

The reason I wonder about this is not that I am concerned about political correctness, because of course that isn’t the case. It’s that there exists an organization dedicated to stopping insensitive references to mental illness, and their fussiness and humorlessness is of near-PETA proportions.

The organization is the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, and they actually do a lot of good in helping improve the lives of the mentally ill through legislation, public awareness and the manufacture of soft, silky straitjackets.

I am kidding on the last one, but NAMI really is a very fine organization with good intentions. However, they also have a division called StigmaBusters whose mission, according to the Web site (www.nami.org), is “fighting the pervasive and hurtful prejudice and discrimination that exists toward persons with mental illness.” This translates into writing angry letters anytime someone uses the word “crazy” to describe people with mental illnesses, which means I guess I can expect one.

An example of StigmaBusters’ extreme touchiness: A commercial for Miracle Whip had a guy with a plate of hamburgers but no Miracle Whip available. This put him over the edge, as you can well imagine, and he wound up in a padded cell. The StigmaBusters complained that the commercial trivialized mental illness, and Kraft Foods pulled the ad. (“It’s still hard to believe that someone actually was paid to script it in the first place,” says the StigmaBuster site. However, this is true of most TV commercials, some of which are scripted not by professional writers but by hens pecking randomly at computer keyboards.)

Also: Magazine ads touting owners’ devotion and care for their Nissan Altimas said, “Known to Cause Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.” StigmaBusters swung into action, decrying the “hurtful” ad, and Nissan pulled it, which probably bothered any obsessive-compulsive people who worked at Nissan’s ad agency, who no doubt expected it to run a certain number of times before stopping.

Also: The New York Times has repeatedly offended StigmaBusters — you will observe that offending StigmaBusters is not hard — with its insensitive crossword puzzles. Often, “loony” is used as a clue for “nuts,” or “wacko” for “crazy.” This hurts the feelings of the actual loonies, nuts, wackos and crazies, apparently, and StigmaBusters complains on their behalf.

As you might suspect, Halloween is not a happy time for StigmaBusters, because exaggerations of mental illness often play a part in Halloween festivities and costumes. This year, StigmaBusters was upset with Disguise Inc., a company which manufactures a “Mental Patient” costume that consists of one (1) straitjacket. I am appalled by this, too: One straitjacket, and you think that’s a costume? Ooh, look, I put on a backpack, now I’m a student!

Anyway, one of Disguise Inc.’s major retail outlets is Spencer Gifts, a chain of mall stores specializing in unusual (i.e., tasteless) merchandise. Spencer classifies the “Mental Patient” thing as a “teen costume,” prompting StigmaBusters to observe that items making light of mental illness should not be targeted at teens, especially when teen suicide (often the result of mental disorders) is so high. “Is Spencer Gifts really trying to become known as a merchant of death?” they ask.

Spencer’s official response is, uh, no, we’re not; would you like to buy a filthy greeting card? For myself, I would like to add that this world needs a lot more of getting over it and a lot less of looking for things to be offended by. I am reminded of the words of Brigham Young, who said, “Anyone who gets offended when no offense was intended is a complete nimrod,” or words to that effect. Of course, then he was vilified by the powerful Nimrod Anti-Defamation League, but what can you do?