Prologue
There have been many books written about the United States. This book is unlike those others in many ways. For one thing, those other books contain an enormous amount of facts and figures. This volume contains facts and figures, too, but unlike those other books, my facts and figures are totally “inaccurate.”
You see, in order for me to come up with accurate facts and figures that would mean I would have to spend endless hours doing, dare I say, research. (Yuk!) I hate doing research, especially on the computer. It cuts into my time for streaming videos of cats doing funny things. That just leaves the local library. And, well, to be totally honest with you, I’ve never really mastered the Dewey Decimal System (at least, not since Truman beat him.) Not only that, but the library won’t admit me ever since that Poe incident. (I swear that raven was just for illustration purposes.)
As you can see, I have been plagued with many problems in producing this publication.
There are times when you may think I’m attacking your state. This couldn’t be further (or farther) from the truth. It may seem like the information I am providing is bogus. That’s because it is bogus. (See paragraph 1) You shouldn’t feel offended because 92% (accuracy?) of all Americans do not die in the state they were born. (I don’t mean an infantile state. I mean the geographical state.) So, since, in all probability, you don’t hail from that state anymore, there’s no reason you should feel offended, you traitor.
Personally, I hail from New Jersey. (Don’t think I didn’t hear that snickering out there.) And when I die, (Blood, Sweat and Tears – 1969) I hope to be in an entirely different state (preferably unconscious). So, when I say things like, “New Jersey’s main export is pollution,” I’m not offended because (a) it’s inaccurate and (b) I couldn’t type the correct answer, because I couldn’t see the keys on the computer, on account of my eyes burning from all this brown soot.
Another problem I ran into was in what order would the states be listed? By size? By geographical location? By the number of KFC Restaurants located on the interstates? I finally settled on alphabetical. It’s easy. It’s simple. And it requires no research.
Next, I was faced with the problem of what information should I include about each state? Since I’ve never visited all fifty states, and since the library is so far away, the only real solution to the problem would be I would make stuff up. Things like, State Bird, State Motto, State Smell would all have to come out of my fertile imagination.
The key thing to remember is you found this book in the humor section of your favorite book store. So, if you feel compelled to write a nasty letter, remember, your book store agreed to carry it. Write to them! Hopefully, the reason you were in the humor section to begin with was because you have a sense of humor and not a sense of fanaticism. So, sit back, put down the M-16 and laugh a little.
ii
