SIMON SAYS:
People who snore on airplanes should be checked as baggage.
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Has anyone ever aged better than James Garner?
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Like many people, I received a tax refund check from the State of Maryland recently, (yes, if you have silverfish, they can be deducted as dependents) and also got a little pamphlet enclosed with the check titled: "1994 Maryland Terrapin Football."
This pamphlet urged me to buy Terps tickets, travel with the team to Clemson and join the Terrapin Club, which has a scholarship fund for "student-athletes."
I wondered why the Maryland Comptroller's Office was a party to a football fund-raising effort (How many women play football? And why not promote scholarships for art, music, chemistry, etc., too?) and why just at the University of Maryland?
So I called the Comptroller's Office and spoke to Marvin Bond, the director of the office of public affairs, who informed me that:
* The legislature requires that certain entities raise their own money, and for the past seven or eight years some of these entities have asked the comptroller to include a fund pitch with the tax checks.
* The comptroller does so if the fund pitch doesn't increase the cost of the mailing, the printing cost is borne by the entity and the insertion causes no mailing difficulties.
* So this year, 1.6 million households got tax checks and either a pitch for Terps football or for Maryland Public TV.
OK, fine, but why is the football fund pitch limited to the University of Maryland? I asked. Why not other state schools?
"We have not had a request from them," Bond said.
So, hey, Frostburg! Hey, Towson! Hey, everybody else! Listen up! You are missing a chance for new uniforms!
The question I forgot to ask Bond: How come it's spelled "comptroller," but it's pronounced "controller"?
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Want to be at peace with yourself? Take up gardening.
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Half the people who have hidden a spare key outside their houses couldn't find it today if their lives depended on it. (But a burglar probably could find it in about 30 seconds.)
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In the hands of a good chef, there is no better vegetable than spinach.
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For all-around talent, nobody can beat a good circus clown.
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Whatever happened to Ross Perot? Is it true he was seen tending bar at the Rusty Rudder?
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How come I feel as if I have already seen the new Flintstones movie and it hasn't even opened yet?
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Note for the travel season: Never drive off in a rental car with a stick shift without first asking where reverse is.
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Parents who let their underage teen-agers drink at home under the rationalization that it teaches them to drink "responsibly" are just kidding themselves.
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A recent discovery: Business class is what coach used to be.
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People who eat their pie from the side, always maintaining a perfect wedge, need to re-examine their lives.
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I envy people who can nap any time and anywhere. (I believe Ronald Reagan missed much of the '80s this way.)
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I have a feeling that 90 percent of all fancy bottled water actually comes out of a tap in Poughkeepsie.
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They should make decaf coffee a different color so we'd be sure when they bring it to us in restaurants.
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Advice to all baby boomers: Give classical music another chance. It isn't called classical for nothing.
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The only thing worse than having to work next to a hummer is having to work next to a whistler.
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If it weren't for the price tag, nobody would eat caviar.
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Bumper sticker of the month: "Support Mental Health -- Ban Psychiatry."