10 Questions for Dave Barry

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YOU HAVE WRITTEN ON SERIOUS TOPICS. I wrote about my dad's death. My mom committed suicide. My son had a very bad accident. In each case, I wrote about them more just to get it out of me. I got a lot of letters that said, You should write more serious stuff. My reaction was, I don't want to. I wrote serious things because really bad things happened that forced me to confront them. I don't want to write about really bad things. I want to write about funny things.

BY SERIOUS I MEANT POLITICS, THE GOVERNMENT. The Federal Government? I don't think anyone outside Washington thinks of it as serious. The humor in government—especially the way we elect Presidents—is the mother lode. When you're watching a man flip pancakes in New Hampshire while answering questions about Social Security reform, you're watching a funny way to choose the leader of the free world.

YOU'VE RUN FOR PRESIDENT AS A WRITE-IN CANDIDATE SINCE THE '80s. Only for the money. I'm not one of those weenies who will drop out of the race just because they held an election and the Electoral College declared somebody else the winner. I just stay in the race and keep accepting cash contributions. That's the kind of candidate I am. Also, I have bumper stickers left over.