Pennsylvania license plates among nation's worst

(701 words)

My 8-year-old daughter is like her old man in that she sees the world and recognizes it’s full of petty irritants.

That, to me, is just another petty irritant because it increases the likelihood that one day a guidance counselor will advise her the only thing she’s cut out to do is blog.

But unlike your typical blogger, she sees something that annoys her and she does something about it.

That’s how she began re-designing the Pennsylvania license plate.

She says it’s too boring. She’s correct.

Pennsylvania is a scenic and historical state that’s home to about five or six great native breweries. Famous Pennsylvanians include Christina Aguilera, Ben Franklin DJ Jazzy Jeff, Sharon Stone and “Gong Show” host Chuck Barris.

And if that’s not an A-list roster for a historical party, I’m canceling my Entertainment Weekly subscription.

We’re Independence Hall, Valley Forge, Gettysburg, Kate Gosselin and Three Mile Island, the latter two being warning reminders that even the best places can be marred by human error capable of sickening innocents.

Yet, what is our license plate? It’s a bar of blue with “PENNSYLVANIA” in white letters above a white bar with blue license numbers atop a bar of yellow that in blue says, “visitPA.com”

How awful. How mundane. And subliminally urging motorists to click on a cheesy promotional website when they should be paying attention to driving is downright reckless.

What’s most infuriating is you know that some lame Harrisburg marketing firm was paid hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to come up with it.

I could sketch a more compelling license plate on a beer napkin in less time than it takes to pour an actual beer.

How’s this? An image of Ben Franklin waving a Terrible Towel above the sudsy Franklin observation: “Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy!”

As license plates go, mine practically polkas.

I think everyone would love it, especially our plate-making convicts. The only thing worse would be a plate-maker in New Hampshire and having to make license plates emblazoned with “LIVE FREE OR DIE!”

The situation confounds even us ardent fans of irony.

My favorite PA plate was the simple blue one emblazoned in gold letters with the cheery motto: “You’ve Got a Friend in Pennsylvania!”

But state mottos can be easily satirized. I think it got to crooked legislators when newspapers kept headlining stories of their corruption with “You’ve Got a Felon in Pennsylvania!”

I still have an uproarious ’92 clip from a West Virginia newspaper that had snarky staffers responding to then Gov. Gaston Caperton’s $880,000 contract to replace the outstanding “Wild, Wonderful” plate motto with the lame, “A Welcome Change.”

Here’s some favorites:

“West Virginia: Live Poor and Die!”

“West Virginia: Where All That Government Cheese Goes”

“West Virginia: The Edcuatoin State”

“The Ballcap and Tube Sock State”

“West Virginia: The Persistent Vegetative State”

“Thank God for Mississippi!”

“The Show-Me-A-Bribe State”

“Land of 10,000 Jakes”

“West Virginia: Charles Manson Lived Here”

My daughter’s version has no motto, but features an enormous shining sun, two half-man/half-bird creatures waving finger wings, and our family (including the stupid dog) in a car about to drive to our certain death right into a huge tree.

And Pennsylvania is spelled differently.

Note: I said it was spelled differently, not incorrectly. I don’t judge and wouldn’t want to say anything that might stunt her elementary school creativity.

She’s very proud of it.

She should be. It’s far superior to our current plates.

So I’m going to send her drawing to Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett, who polls say is fighting an uphill battle for his second term.

And I’m going to tell Corbett if he announces my daughter’s stick figure drawing is the new state plate, well, he’ll have my vote. Hers, too, if he can hold onto office through 2024.

It’ll be a big deal.

My daughter will have seen something incredibly lame that didn’t work and taken positive steps to whip it into shape.

I just hope she never looks at me and realizes just how much her Daddy has in common with our Pennsylvania license plates.

Related . . .

ZIPpity-doo-duh! A postal money maker

Florida: Rental car abuse

Report lists happy/miserable states

When north Dakota & south Dakota are different parts of same person

Someone keyed my car: suspects abound

Re-Run Sunday: A story on dots, points & periods

It doesn’t happen all that often, but it always pleases me when it does. It’s when this January ’12 pops up. I just loved this one because I could take the tiniest and most inconsequential objects and take it apart and elevate it to something hyper significant.

Am I wrong? See for yourself.

What’s the difference between a dot, a point and a period?

That may sound like the set-up to a tasteless joke regarding menstrual cycles, but it is not. I’m serious.

How did this, the tiniest designation in every printed language, come to mean so much to so many?

It’s invariably the smallest item on any printed page.

Take a closer look:

“ . ”

No bigger than bug dung, it is. I could enlarge this 12-point mark to something like 64-point type, but you get the point. It’s a very small black spot. Butterfly tears have more volume.

Note I said 64 “point” type. Not dot type or period type. Point is a size designation used in graphics and print media.

So there are many kinds of points and many kinds of periods. I’ve been to Point Roberts, Washington, and studied tedious literature from the Elizabethan Period.

There are even a variety of dots. I go to the movies and have trouble resisting those stale Dots jellied candies even though I know they’re capable of extracting decades-old fillings from my molars.

And everyone called my late mother-in-law Dot. At about 5-foot-7, she was probably something like a 600,000 point Dot.

It’s the nearly invisible same thing that serves three distinct functions.

It is the dot in dotcom, the point in version 2.1 and the period at the end of nearly every sentence.

Its most common usage is to convey conclusions, yet when three of them are strung together they mean something that goes on and on, as when the romance novelists mean to extend the drama.

“Spent from her carnal lusts, Chastity fell fast asleep in the cuddle puddle as Tristan beseeched her in vain, ‘Am I the father? Chastity? Chastity? Chastity . . .’”

I learned to be a crackerjack dictation taker -- trust me, it doesn’t pay -- by listening to expert Tennessee reporters transmit breaking news details over the phone with each link of punctuation enunciated for clarity.

Consider, for instance: “The hillbilly widow said, ‘Burt was devoured by the rusty thresher.’” That simple sentence would be dictated as such, “The hillbilly widow said comma quote Burt was devoured by the rusty thresher period end quote paragraph.”

It would have thrown me if the reporter said dot or point instead of period, but really it would make more sense if it were one or the other.

For instance, what if the reporter was dictating a story about an actress who had to cancel her role in a period drama because her period was debilitating?

It would devolve into an Abbott & Costello farce.

Much of the confusion can be laid at the feet of those masters at digitally creating it, those who gave us the internet.

They are the reason why we have dot coms instead of period coms, the reason we have version two point one instead of version two period one. They took a perfectly utilitarian flake of punctuation and turned it into a blizzard of keyboard chaos.

They are identical and, in fact, occupy the same key stroke. It would be easier to pick out differences in the dorky Gosselin kids than differentiating between dot, point or period.

I suppose the reason I am writing about this today is I was reminded of book I read last year about this very topic. It was an honest-to-goodness, 200-page book about the history of the period. The cover had a big dot on top and a subhead about the history of the world’s most consequential piece of punctuation.

Brilliant, I remember thinking. All hail arcane information!

Alas, it was a huge disappointment.

Who could imagine a book about the period could be so utterly pointless?

I remember thinking, “Wow, if some publisher was foolish enough to pay for this, they’ll go crazy for my crap!”

Wrong, again.

I can only guess they probably blew their budget on advances for a book about commas.

Oh, well. Enough for now. Time for me to dash -- and dash is a sprawling punctuational story for another day.

As it would be unfair to conclude a story about the multi-faceted uses for the tiny powerful circle by giving the period the final say, I must let each share the stage for the final bow as I bid you adieu. See if you can guess which is which!

‘til we meet again . . .

Cheer up, America!

It hasn’t even been 10 years since 2002 when Dick Cheney famously said, “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.”

It was the reason he used to justify the massive Bush tax cuts to then-U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill. Those trickle-down tax cuts and the Iraq War fiasco are the reasons the $230 billion Clinton surplus went, “Wheeee!!!”

Now last night in the museum dedicated to the sainted Reagan all the leading Republicans asserted nothing but deficits matter.

Well, Cheney was for the most part right. Most deficits don’t matter, certainly not to the hysterical extent the Republican presidential candidates currently contend (at least until one of them becomes president).

But there is one key deficit that goes unmentioned because it runs counter to the scare-mongering so prevalent in Congress.

It’s the optimism deficit.

The country is morose at a time when it should be getting ready to strut.

Why?

The biggest reason happens Sunday, the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

We’ve survived 10 of the worst years in the history of the republic. The attacks and our misguided overreaction -- Iraq -- could have devastated America. Instead will wind up fortifying us.

Historians will look back and wonder how we survived the last decade.

We survived Bernie Madoff, Fannie & Freddie, al-Qaeda, gulf oil spills, Abu Ghraib, Katrina, the steroid dismantling of baseball’s most hallowed records, the collapse of Detroit, Sanjaya, shoe and underwear bombers, TSA pat-downs and the 15th anniversary of Radio Disney.

Man, are we ever due.

We survived the untimely death of Texas troubadour Stephen Bruton (1948-2009). He co-wrote many of the songs for the fine Jeff Bridge’s movie, “Crazy Heart,” a 2009 Oscar winner dedicated to his memory.

This is from his 1995 song, “Right on Time,” and it strikes me as Americana apropos of the past decade.

I watched my luck run right out that door

I felt the future slam in my face

You know with luck this bad, I just had to smile

I’m only sticking around to see what else is gonna take place

We are witnessing the end of a really messy epoch in American history. It won’t bookend until the next election.

But, I swear, we’re on the short end of it. Detroit’s been miraculously reborn and businesses are sitting on nearly $1 trillion in profits and are bound to soon pull the trigger on more hiring.

The daily headlines scream you should be afraid.

Nonsense.

This isn’t about defeating the menace of global Communism or killing Osama bin Laden.

We’re being terrified by a bunch of accountants.

To me it seems almost treasonous to be so afraid of a future in a country so historically exuberant. This country positively percolates with great, innovative men and women who when challenged kick ass.

We defeat polio, bloodthirsty tyrants and nations audacious enough to think they can beat us to the surface of the moon.

These have been some damned tough times. People are struggling.

Hang in there. It’s going to get better.

Here’s a quick booster shot of some things that ought to make you more optimistic when the headlines scream you’re a fool for feeling that way.

• The NFL’s back and Brett Favre isn’t.

• With the exception of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the Republicans at the debate didn’t all look as batshit crazy as you’d think they might have been. That bodes well for an issue-based 2012 presidential race.

• In 2001, the pessimists predicted we were on the verge of Islamic theocracies sweeping the Middle East. Ten years later the Arab world is rising up to demand Democracy. They’re dying for it in Egypt, Libya and Syria. And Bill Clinton hasn’t even paid them a visit yet.

• We’ve still got Clint Eastwood!

• Tea Party influence has peaked and so has Sarah Palin.

• You’re starting to see evidence everywhere that major corporations are finally starting to take eco-issues seriously.

• Kate Gosselin’s out of work.

• A coalition of CEOs led by Starbucks honcho Howard Schultz is gaining traction in a movement to get America working again. The group is pressuring Congress and business leaders to focus on innovative job creation. This could get interesting.

• Moammar Ghadafi hasn’t had a good day in at least five months.

• Only 16 shopping days until I rerun my ever-popular Lt. Frank Burns tribute on September 29, birthday of the late, five-times married actor Larry Linville!

I’m not sure if any of that will help perennial pessimists who are morose about the future.

But I’m optimistic it might.

Sarah & the zombies

People lean in confidentially when they ask my opinion of the bloodthirsty monster dividing the public and causing millions of Americans to lose sleep at night.

And I’m not talking about Sarah Palin.

Yet.

Oh, I’ll get to her.

I’m talking about zombies. They are everywhere.

They are to this holiday season what Beanie Babies and Tickle Me Elmos were to gentler days gone by. They are red hot.

What do I think of them? I adore them. Can’t get enough of them.

It surprises even me.

One of my favorite comedies of the past five years is the uproarious “Zombieland.” The Woody Harrelson/Jesse Eisenberg movie is a bloody riot, and I mean that in both the literal and the British sense.

My wife and I have already watched it three times. It has cartoon violence, over-the-top giggles and the best Bill Murray cameo ever.

Then there is the exact reverse of that jolly satire. It’s AMC’s “The Walking Dead.”

The story is one of utter dread. There are no laughs, no sly lines. Just a horrific tale of urban survival and gore galore. Its slim six-episode run just concluded last Sunday. The skimpiness of its first run meant AMC had little faith in its potential.

Guaranteed producers have in their rush to capitalize on the sensation become like zombies themselves, albeit ones who feast on sushi and not careless humans.

So, yes, I’m currently infatuated with zombies. I find myself wondering about them and how I can differentiate one from, say, my friends at the bar.

Zombies have blank expressions. Check.

They aren’t picky about their looks. Check.

They have nothing to do all day. Check.

They eat with their fingers and are confused by things like silverware. Check.

If you think I’m being unduly judgmental about the boys in the bar, you are mistaken.

I was checking on myself.

I don’t think I’m a zombie, but apparently that’ll be an option if the kitchen ever runs low on chicken wings.

So with “The Walking Dead” in production, our TV is event free on Sunday evenings.

God help me, I decided to fill an hour of programming about the walking dead with an hour of TV featuring a woman who is just so, golly gee, full of life it’s surprising someone hasn’t jammed moose entrails down her throat to get her to shut the hell up.

Honest, I was just about to write a post congratulating myself for not having mentioned Sarah Palin all year.

The stinging Aaron Sorkin blast about her killing a caribou to show her bona fides to voters who think Ted Nugent an agile-minded man of reason was, I guess, what got to me.

But the real reason I had to watch was the same reason I used to watch a professional wrestling match when two titanic villains were set to grapple.

Yes, last night it was Sarah Palin vs. Kate Gosselin.

And, let me tell you, it was better than a cage match between George “The Animal” Steel and Rowdy Roddy Piper.

The show started with Sarah shopping for guns, talking about how much she loves guns, about the many problems guns can solve and why guns give her the kind of feelings the rest of us get from watching things like E.T.

I’ve never heard her in any interview gush as much about husband Todd, although guns, even unloaded ones, certainly have more to say than he does. 

The show wound up with the Palins camping with the Gosselins. It couldn’t have been more awkward. Sarah spent the entire time rhapsodizing about the joys of Alaska and Kate kept saying, in essence, gee, I hate Alaska.

Kate looked like I must look when a Jehovah’s Witness is eager to proselytize to me during a Steeler game, only with a snazzier haircut.

Sarah’s father rudely said of mega-mom, “She did nothing but bitch as soon as she got off the plane.”

It was fascinating. Here were the two stars of second tier network doing their best to sabotage each other.

News today is that Sarah is in Haiti on what’s being called a humanitarian mission. I heard some rah-rah sound bites and can only imagine they’d edited out the part where she says the solution to all Haiti’s godforsaken problems is to relocate the entire island to suburban Wasilla.

Coincidentally, Haiti is where zombie folklore originated in 1937. You can look it up.

So it makes perfect sense to cynics like me.

She wasn’t on a mercy mission. She was campaigning.

The only people who can see her in a position of leadership any more are truly brain dead.

One-way tickets to Mars

Washington State University professor Dirk Schulze-Makuch says the key to inevitable space colonization is sending fearless astronauts to places like Mars -- and just leaving them there.

He makes a compelling argument. He says the risks and expenses of one-way voyages that would last as long as six months would be sliced in half and that these men and women would be like American pioneers from centuries past.

For eternal glory, they would face unimaginable hardship, a barren existence and, he says, a longing for human company that would be unquenchable.

Not if I had anything to do with it.

You let me pick who goes and soon Mars will look like the last day of the month at the downtown department of motor vehicles.

Here’s just a partial list of the folks I’m sending on a one-way flight to the Red Planet.

• Brett Favre -- I’m starting to get the feeling Brett Favre spends a lot of time staring in the mirror saying, man, I’m Brett Favre. Martian mirrors would be perfect for that kind of preening. Plus, I figure he’s going to need some place to live after his wife tosses him out for sending dirty pictures to surgically enhanced sideline reporters.

• Those five guys who chirp, “Hey! Where’s the $20 you owe me?” every time I see them. So long fellas. I’ll pay you the very next time I see you. And this time I really, really, mean it.

• Kate Gosselin -- With all her book signings, dancing shows, etc., this is the only way her kids could possibly see any less of her than they do right now so that makes sending this mom to Mars the responsible thing to do.

• Snickers -- I’m still having trouble adjusting to our new dog and figure him spending his wild years on Mars might ease our transition. I’ll sell it to the girls as a historical opportunity for their little purse puppy to earn enduring fame. I’ll agree we can replace Snickers only on the condition that the next pet is just a wee bit more masculine than our nasty little yipper. Then I’ll bring home a hamster.

• Donald Trump -- My list is not purely punitive. I’d like to see what a master developer like Trump could do with some truly pristine real estate.

• “The rent is too damn high!” guy -- He won’t be able to shout that campaign complaint if he lives in a Martian shack, at least if he beats Trump to the planet.

• My friend John -- Because of his callousness at my choking incident, John’s enjoyed a starring role in my blog the last few days. Here’s what he wrote to our friends about what happened. It’s about 90 percent lie. “Chris, buddy, no need to thank me for saving your life at the Chinese place Sunday. I know you'd have done the same for me if I had been choking on a piece of dim sum too. (And no need to be embarrassed by the shrimp projectile you fired from your throat at the patrons at the next table, it's all just part of the Heimlich Maneuver.) Besides, Val's humble words of gratitude were more than enough. And don’t feel obliged about owing me for saving your life. I’m sure it won’t come up again.” In order for him to one-up me on shipping him to Mars, he’d have to arrange from there to have me sent to Jupiter. Ain’t gonna happen.

• Jeff Probst -- This one’s going to really hurt because he’s my favorite pop culture celebrity on this planet. I’ll miss him when he departs it for another one. Still, the opportunity to set up a “Suvivor: Mars” is too obvious to neglect.

• Conan O’Brien -- I’ve watched his manic and uneven new show a couple of times and can’t help but think sending him to Mars would be a sort of homecoming.

• Dirk Schulze-Makuch -- Pioneering history is rife with tales of cannibalism. If the MREs spoil it would be good to have the guy who dreamed up the whole scheme around in case anyone wants to try their hand at some butt jerky.

• Everyone listed in the Greater Boston Area phone directory -- That wouldn’t rid Earth of every obnoxious New England Patriot and Boston Red Sox fan, but it’s a good first step.

So let’s just call that a start. Once we get done with Mars, we’ll still have about seven planets that need colonizing.

Everyone better behave.

And you’d be advised not to pester me about that $20 I owe you while I’m working on my lists.

Pun-free egg disposal suggestions

I can’t help but think there’s got to be a game show out there that could use 550 million spoiled eggs.

I’d watch.

Rather than grouse over yet another national catastrophe -- yawn -- and symbol of our steady decline, I see a sunny side of the need to dispose of all these rotten eggs (in an effort to make this egg-pun free, I’ll pass on the sunny side up gimme).

First, we should all be grateful this didn’t happen around Easter. And for a moment, let’s wonder why we have an Easter Bunny instead of an Easter Chicken.

It would take some getting used to, but a visit by the egg-bearing Easter Chicken makes more sense.

But what do you do with all these eggs? Bury them? Are they hazardous?

As the guy who’d always stop for eggs prior to every Devil’s Night escapade, I sense opportunity.

There’s just something about the egg, that shape, so easy to toss. Anything it hits, so sure to slime. In the hands of veteran vandals, the egg is a handy goo grenade.

You’d think the producers of “Wipe Out,” the ABC dimwit gloopfest, would grasp the possibilities. I like the show format which involves pulverizing imbeciles, but the idiot host banter makes it unwatchable with the volume up.

It’s just one more reason to look forward to September 15 and the return of “Survivor” host Jeff Probst, the Robert DeNiro of reality show hosts before Robert DeNiro started making too many Ben Stiller movies.

I think these rotten eggs could be used to bind us in ways more patriotic than the kind of binding that occurs after excessive cheese consumption.

I envision communities hosting enormous egg-stacking competitions, egg juggling, long-distance egg tosses. I see enormous egg pyramids being crushed by determined steamrollers.

How about a pay-per-view between warring Republicans and Democrats squaring off in some kind of reenactment of the battle of Gettysburg fought with eggs?

Yesterday may have been the first day in bar history the conversation was dominated by chickens and eggs. Present were three teachers intent on getting soused before being summoned back to educate our community morons.

They were just three stools down from a guy who’d just won $100 at Pittsburgh’s Rivers Casino playing that old county fair standby, the Tic Tac Toe-playing chicken.

When the news about all the bad eggs came on, the teachers immediately talked about the bad eggs they’d soon be charged with teaching things like math. They had a lively discussion of how to rid the world of the bad eggs that make them all sick.

Then the casino patron piped up about his game victory over the chicken.

“The chicken went first and -- get this -- he didn’t take the center spot,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it. So now I got two ways to win . . .”

Had anyone entered the bar in the next five minutes, it would have been understandable if they’d mistakenly thought they were hearing a man recall the time he bested Henry Kissinger at chess. He was very proud of outsmarting that chicken.

The news showed that many of the salmonella eggs came in big cartons of 36 eggs. My buddy wondered who, besides commercial establishments, would ever need so many potentially poisonous eggs.

We concluded only Kate Gosselin and that Duggar family and even the morose teachers’ moods brightened.

Me, I get to enjoy that smug feeling that comes from knowing our eco-sensitivities mean this is one chicken recall I can duck.

We purchase organic eggs from a woman known around the area as The Egg Lady and the superheroic connotation for at least today applies.

She delivers us a dozen delicious eggs for just $1.75 every week or so. How she does it for so little, I do not know.

I do know she’s proud of her chickens and her humane operation. She treats the free range animals with the same dignity and care with which I’d hope I’d be treated if someone oversaw me laying between 250-275 eggs a year, as the average hen does.

Her chickens are so refined that I’ve often thought of visiting these yard birds for a little conversation or perhaps some tea.

But no undignified games of chance. I’d be afraid I’d lose.

When it comes to matching wits with fowl, I’m the chicken.

Report lists happy/miserable states

I experienced a momentary hiccup of dismay upon reading the list of least/most happy states. It said I’d spent nearly all of my most happy years in some of the most miserable states.

Understand, it didn’t ruin my day. I learned years ago that I’m genetically disposed to happiness.

It’s a sort of character defect along the lines of being cheap, lazy or naturally unkempt (I’m three-for-three on those, too).

Yet, a foolish happiness is my most persistent trait. Been that way all my life. It’s an unusual circumstance for anyone who bothers to read the newspaper, as I’ve always done.

Really, anyone who is at all aware of the news or earth trends should awaken borderline suicidal and become progressively more morose as the day progresses. There are mass bombings, random murder, thieves who prey on senior citizens, and here in western Pennsylvania we are besieged by the daily drumbeat of news that, gadzooks, the Steelers have lost five in a row.

How can anyone with an IQ above a hammer be happy?

The AP report I saw said the study was based on residential satisfaction with schools, safety and commuting. By those criteria, Louisiana comes first in cheeriness.

Had more scholarly discrimination been applied, the study would have concluded that the top 10 (see list below) are blessed with an abundance of booze and beaches.

I wouldn’t argue with Louisiana. I’ve been blissfully happy there many times. Once in New Orleans while there on an deep pocket expense account, I was convinced I’d died and gone to happy heaven. It was wonderful.

In fact, if I ever get to actual heaven and someone doesn’t say, “Welcome to New Orleans. Here’s the company credit card,” I’m going to hunt around for a suggestion box.

I also have splendid memories of happy times in Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama and Maine, all states listed in the top ten.

If for some outlandish reason, someone told me I had to move back to Tennessee, I’d do it in a heartbeat. My big brother and his family live there and I have many friends from the years 1985-88 when I called the Volunteer State home. I love the music at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, the barbecue at The Rendezvous in Memphis and all that fine bourbon produced in happy hamlets like Lynchburg and Tullahoma.

Heck, with enough Tennessee sippin’ whiskey within reach I could probably be happy in Hell.

And I’d love to spend more time in the marvelous Low Country of South Carolina, as relaxed a location as anywhere in the country.

But it looks like I’m doomed to spend my days here in Pennsylvania, now ranked the ninth least happy state in the union. As I tap out this post, I can look out the window and see the snows falling that’ll probably lay on the ground until late March.

I don’t know why my fellow Pennsylvanians are so unhappy. Sure, our legislature is full of overpaid crooks, more than 10 percent can’t even find work in the godforsaken coal mines, and the weather sucks from Halloween to clear past Easter.

Plus, if anyone ever made us sit in state-by-state home rooms we’d be stuck with newly single Pennsylvanians Jon and Kate Gosselin.

But is it really all that bad?

Take me. I haven’t earned hardly a dime all year and will stubbornly refuse wage-earning work if I thought it was beneath me or cut too deeply into my bar time. Yet I remain foolishly convinced that today something good will happen to me whether I do something about it or not.

Here’s a thought: maybe the only person they bothered to poll was my poor wife. Now, there’s a person that has ample reason to be unhappy.

Anyhoo, I was surprised more of the geometrically boring states didn’t crack the bottom 10. Kids are always being encouraged to “think outside the box.” How is that even possible in a state as perfectly square as Wyoming?

It’s too bad we don’t have one circular state. It’s such a happy shape I’d love to live there in the round.

Square or round, I guess it wouldn’t make difference for a guy like me. I’m just stuck being happy.

I go through life like a retired fisherman with a fresh bucket full of worms and dirt, ever content to be whiling away the years with the patience and confidence that something good is bound to happen sooner or later.

I guess true happiness is just a state of mind where we can choose to reside or not.

The AP state-by-state list, from happiest to least cheery:
1. Louisiana
2. Hawaii
3. Florida
4. Tennessee
5. Arizona
6. South Carolina
7. Mississippi
8. Montana
9. Alabama
10. Maine
11. Wyoming
12. Alaska
13. North Carolina
14. South Dakota
15. Texas
16. Idaho
17. Vermont
18. Arkansas
19. Georgia
20. Utah
21. Oklahoma
22. Delaware
23. Colorado
24. New Mexico
25. North Dakota
26. Minnesota
27. Virginia
28. New Hampshire
29. Wisconsin
30. Oregon
31. Iowa
32. Kansas
33. Nebraska
34. West Virginia
35. Kentucky
36. Washington
37. District of Columbia
38. Missouri
39. Nevada
40. Maryland
41. Pennsylvania
42. Rhode Island
43. Ohio
44. Massachusetts
45. Illinois
46. California
47. New Jersey
48. Indiana
49. Michigan
50. Connecticut
51. New York

Jon, Kate, 8 plus me

I prepared last evening for a show that six weeks ago I didn’t know even existed on a network I never watch like it was the Super Bowl.

I cooked up a big meal. I prepared the snacks. I loaded the frig with beer.

It was time for The Learning Channel’s season premier of “Jon & Kate Plus 8!”

Reality shows register about a 15 percent approval rating from me. I love “Survivor,” tolerate “American Idol,” and won’t watch “Dancing With the Stars” the latest Trump nonsense, forlorn bachelor shows or any of the weepers about more sizable homes or less sizable homely contestants.

Most of it’s too low brow for even a guy like me, someone who, when it comes to TV viewing, has brows that rarely elevate above the belt.

But in the past six weeks “J.K.+8” is that rare show that can raise low brow fare to something that seems Shakespearean.

For me, it all started when I wandered through the living room and saw Valerie and our 8-year-old rapt before the big screen as a squad of runny-nosed toddlers demolished a department store while the parents tried in vain to rein in the squalling herd.

I didn’t care about that. I watch professional sports whenever I can’t make it to the ballgames, but I don’t need to import feckless parenting into my own living room. It’s on even when the power’s out.

What caught my eye was the cut away of the parents being interviewed about the chaos. The woman kept interviewing herself -- “Was it out of control? Yes. Did I feel Jon could have done more? Well, see for yourself . . .” -- and casting baleful glances at the husband.

The husband just stared off camera at some unseen producer. He looked like a prisoner who knew speaking up would lead to months of harsh treatment once the camera shut off. I felt an heroic impulse to round up my buddies from the bar and plan some kind of half-assed rescue mission to save an imperiled brother.

I was hooked. “That’s the most unhappy man on the face of the planet,” I said.

Val told me the show detailed the life of this eastern Pennsylvania couple that had twins and then apparently angered the fertility gods who bestowed upon them sextuplets five years ago.

Some would consider six on top of two a blessing, some a curse. But I know what someone in the Gosselin house -- and I think I know who -- considered it.

It was an opportunity. They conscripted their innocents into a promotional vehicle that would turn every aspect of their lives into reality TV.

I could tell from about 90 seconds of viewing that Jon absolutely hated what his life had become, and I don’t mean the parenting part. He hates that someone -- and I think I know who -- decided to embrace a perverted fame that eventually singes everything it touches.

Pointing a hi-def camera at anything distorts everything.

So I wasn’t surprised when I read a short note in the celebrity corner of the newspaper that said Jon was suspected of cheating with a some smalltown school teacher. That led to accusations that the prim and evangelizing Kate had been getting a little too close to a burly man described as a “bodyguard,” and that guy must take his job way too seriously.

Last night delivered all the bitter wreckage. The two barely spoke to one another throughout the entire riveting hour.

She said she’s always thinking of the kids, even when she’s away for weeks at a time promoting the new season, doing book signings and appearing on shows with guys like Larry King. She said she’s worked too hard to lose things like the free trips to Hawaii for flashy renewals of their wedding vows.

He said he enjoys being a Dad.

She said she doesn’t want to disappoint the multitude of fans who’ve come to consider her and her brood part of their own family.

He said he wishes he could make it all go away.

Both deny the allegations of infidelity. Both admit the future of the franchise is in jeopardy.

I’ve always said every bad marriage is a monster created by two Dr. Frankensteins. But I think the Gosselin marriage that is disintegrating before our eyes every Monday at 9 a.m. with encores throughout the week has just one person to blame.

And I think I know who.