Many laws are stupid and serve little purpose other than to further a politician’s career or pad the pockets of Wall Street. So I’ve decided to write my own stupid laws.

Law No. 1: Identity thieves must assume all the responsibilities of their victims’ lives for a period of one year. Examples: mortgage payments, jury duty, high school reunions, cleaning their houses and cars, and visits to Grandma Cranky Pants to hear all about her latest colonoscopy (complete with viewing pictures of Grandma’s colon). Identity thieves also must attend all holiday gatherings and will be forced to eat all the fruitcake at Christmas. And don’t forget to clean the cat box.

Law No. 2: All landlords and investors who purchase new buildings must occupy them for a period of one year before renting them out. In recent years, across the nation, judges have ordered slumlords to occupy their rentals as punishment for refusing to maintain the buildings. If this were made into a legal requirement, landfills would be brimming with orange and green shag carpeting, harvest gold kitchen appliances and brown linoleum.

Law No. 3: People who purchase loud cars and motorcycles must endure five nights of listening to the vehicle start and the engine rev right outside their bedroom windows before they are allowed to use them. “Loud Pipes Save Lives” will become “Quiet Pipes Save Lives” because if you rev that sucker at 6 a.m. just one more time, your neighbors will kill you.

Law No. 4: Make it a felony to break campaign promises. That oughta shorten those stupid campaign ads.

Law No. 5: All celebrities with product lines must prove they used the product for a period of one year before they are allowed to advertise and sell it. Products must be used in public. Which means Martha Stewart must defile her backyard with her tacky outdoor furniture from Kmart and Jaclyn Smith must humiliate herself in those ugly polyester old-lady clothes.

Law No. 6: All congressmen and senators must wear patches that signify what corporations they represent. Like race car drivers. Or they should be forced to wear tight, risqué outfits and strut around the Senate floor saying things like, “Sugar wants some sugar.” Or “Me so loyal. Me love you long time.”

Law No. 7: All instruction manuals for new electronics must be vetted by a panel of 80-year-olds. The panel must be able to use the product within a reasonable amount of time, not to exceed 30 minutes.

Law No. 8: Only 6-year-olds are allowed to vote in the primaries. Which would make politicians’ lies much clearer in their campaign ads. “Kids, I will outlaw school and make every day a holiday. I will make Santa my vice president. I’ll give you lots of candy if you let me be president. Toys for everyone!”

Law No. 9: All household electronics must be tested by monkeys for ease of use. Instead of being designed by monkeys. I still can’t work my microwave without staring at the control pad for a good few seconds to figure it out. Non-intuitive controls dominate my household technology. The PLAY button on the 67-button remote for my DVD player is the size of a BB. Try finding that in the dark when you only have one finger that isn’t covered in Cheetos cheese powder.

Law No. 10: All skinny supermodels’ photos must be accompanied by a disclosure of their actual diets. One carrot, six diet Red Bulls and two grams of cocaine.

Law No. 11: All fast-food ads must feature people who actually consume the products. Like Two-Ton Tilly and Wide-Ride Clyde spilling out of their seats while chowing down on Quadruple-Bypass Burgers, Mega Chili-Cheese Fries and two-gallon Super Soda Bloaters.

Law No. 12: Airline executives are only allowed to fly coach. Let them eat their knees, get blood clots in their legs and be charged to use the lavatory. Bet we’d get the peanuts back and more blankets.

Law No. 13: Actors in television programs must accurately reflect the nation’s populous. Which means one-third of all actors in TV shows must be obese. Instead of just one: Hugo on Lost. Of course, this would present problems for the camera people, trying to fit more than two people on screen at one time. Think extreme long shots.

Law No. 14: Products aimed at middle-aged people and older must not contain fine print. We can’t read it without a magnifying glass with the power of the Hubble.

Law No. 15: Viagra and other erectile dysfunction products can only be obtained with spousal permission. “Sorry, Harry, I gave that up when you started with the comb-overs and pulling your pants up above your fat roll.”

Law No. 16: Photos on frozen dinners must accurately represent the contents. Which means a picture of desiccated brown chunks of a chopped, pressed and formed beef-like substance in a gelatinous, caramel-colored, salty puddle of goop served with limp, spongy, gray string beans in a yellow-dyed, margarine-flavored sauce. Don’t forget the super-sweet, plasticy-tasting, burnt-and-hard-on-one-side-gooey-and-mucky-on-the-other-side, brownie-like cake thing. Mmmmm. Is it time for dinner yet?

Law No. 17: Limit snack manufacturers to only 10 percent extra space in the packaging for “settling of contents.” On most snack packages, the first ingredient on the list should be “air.” Bags of chips, especially. How many times have I bought a big bag of fancy-schmancy expensive potato chips only to find five chips and a few crumbs at the bottom of the bag? This kind of bait-and-switch always makes me feel stupid. I should only feel stupid for stuffing a bunch of fat in my body, not for buying the chips in the first place.

I’d love to hear similar ideas for laws from my readers. Click Contact Janet to send me your suggestions. I’ll print the best either here and/or in CoastViews Magazine, or both. First place winner gets a copy of my book. Second place gets two books. Deadline: July 31, 2010.

©2010, Janet Periat

Okay, so I know I’m not supposed to watch TV while eating dinner. I’m supposed to have a sparkling exchange of dialogue with my husband. But we both work at home and are around each other 24/7 and by nightfall, we’re all out of conversation, sparkling or otherwise. We normally watch the local news, followed by Jeopardy. I think the only other people with this routine are over 100. I came to this conclusion by the type of commercials I see nightly. You’d think they’d be running tantalizing ads for pizzas and food, since this is the dinner hour. Nope. It’s all about men’s equipment failure. If I hear the words “urine stream” or “decrease in semen” one more time, I’m throwing out my TV. But what really repulses me? The ubiquitous Viagra™, Cialis™ and Levitra™ ads.

Let me tell you something, dinner is not the time I want to think about Grandpa’s Four Hour Erection. In fact, there isn’t a time I want to think about Grandpa’s Four Hour Erection. Sorry, but this thought disgusts me. I think even when I’m eighty, I won’t want to be thinking about some bald, bespeckled, saggy-bodied oldster with a raging hard on. I’ll be picturing George Clooney at forty with six-pack abs and a stiffy—not freakin’ Sean Connery with unstoppable wood. Yet, inevitably, as I’m chopping zucchini or some other appropriately shaped vegetable, I hear these same words at least six or seven times: If you have an erection lasting four or more hours, please consult your physician…

I wonder about that warning. At what point does Mr. Wood call the doctor? At four hours exactly? Or is it at four hours and one minute? Five hours? So erections lasting three hours and forty-five minutes are okay? I picture Grandpa lying there, his missile propping up the bedsheets like a Boy Scout tent, staring at the clock. “Edna, has it been four hours yet?” “Oh, stop bragging, old man.” And with our current medical system, is there a doctor waiting to answer Mr. Wood’s call? I assume most seniors would prefer to have sex after dark. Which means they are dealing with this hyper-tumescence problem at around, say midnight or one o’clock in the morning. I don’t know any doctors save emergency room doctors that are up that late. Nor am I aware of any Erection Hotlines. So, this ninety-year-old guy is supposed to drive himself to the emergency room at one in the morning and sit there in the waiting room with his lightning rod sprouting proudly upwards—next to drunks, accident victims and sick babies—hoping someone will be able to tame his anaconda. “Daddy, why’s that old man holding an umbrella in his lap?”

I can’t imagine any male doing this. I can’t imagine any male being upset with having a lasting erection. Especially not an eighty-year-old. I would imagine they’d be delighted the thing still worked. And what better example of virility for an old guy than a permanent erection? Sure, makes it a bit hard to button the trousers, fit into the shower, lie on their stomach. But think of the uses! No longer would the guy have to worry about where to hang his coat. Where to keep his keys. For people with memory problems, this would be a great side benefit. Honey? Where’s the leash for the dog? Why, right here in my pants! The keys to the shed? In my pants! Just think how handy it would be when he helped his wife with the shopping. Turn around honey, I need to hang up my purse. Guys could carry extra groceries—look, ma, no hands! In a retirement community, think of the possibilities for new activities. Men could bring all new meaning to cock fighting. Forget the swords, we have our four-hour-erections!

Of course, we never see real-life examples of Viagra use in those commercials. The ads feature buff guys who look forty with a bit of gray at their temples and this happy, smiling woman (also fortyish) by their side. They’re on some lanai overlooking the ocean, watching a sunset, sipping wine and snuggling in their clean, trendy, pressed and starched clothes. Right.

If Viagra commercials were depictions of reality they would show the overweight and bald eighty-five-year-old Chet wearing his seersucker 70’s pants (Hey, they’re still good!) up over his waist, his comb-over stuck up off his head like a shark fin from his earlier nap, chasing Edna in her gray bubble do, support hose and lime green pantsuit around the retirement home. “Hey baby, I got a somethin’ for ya! Somethin’ you haven’t seen in a while! Heh-heh-heh!” They’d show Edna, finally sick of the old coot pestering her with his four-hour-wood, packing her bags and moving in with her sister in Poughkeepsie. They’d show Chet, alone in his apartment with a rolling pin in his pants, contemplating faking a heart attack so he could get an ambulance ride to the hospital without anyone discovering the truth.

I say, let’s interject some reality into the advertisements. I want to see the Viagra Casualties. I want to see Edna’s horrified expression when she realizes that her lovely twenty-year-sex hiatus is over. I want to see the old guys clamoring for help in emergency rooms, frustrated because they can’t reach the nurse’s desk due to the poles in their pants. I want to see the doctors trying to appear concerned about their patient’s ceaseless wood while snickering behind their hands. I want to see what they do to guys who actually make it to the emergency room. Do they hose them down? Show them naked pictures of Newt Gingrich? Show them the latest stock report?

But mainly, I want the bloody advertisers to stop mentioning Grandpa’s Four Hour Erection during dinner. I don’t ever want to hear the words “urine stream” again while I’m cooking. Yes, a hard man is good to find. But I still don’t want to think about Bob Dole with a log in his pants while I’m trying to eat.

Of course, the ensuing nausea might help with my new diet.

©2009, Janet Periat