Center is another word that’s become important. Hospitals have long thought of themselves as medical centers, but now libraries have joined the cho-

rus, calling themselves learning resources centers. And just to wrap this section up and returning to show business for a momentno matter what size the place where entertainment was being presented, at some point it was decided they would all just be called venues.

Systems, facilities, spaces, centers and venues: They’re all words to keep an eye on in today’s atmosphere of increasing self-importance.

YOU WANT MORE CHANGES?

Profits became earnings, personnel became human resources, the complaint department became customer relations. People started offering feedback instead of criticism; car sickness turned into motion discomfort; messengers became couriers; junk mail morphed into direct marketing; special delivery was suddenly priority mail; and after all these years, I picked up the phone and discovered information was identifying itself as directory assistance. I don’t even want to mention my dismay at the fact that every old-fashioned, shady used-car dealer in a plaid jacket was suddenly selling certifiedpre-owned vehicles.

By this time, the dump had become the landfill. I guess it was inevitable; the garbagemen who fill it had long since become sanitation engineers, and in some cities, garbage collection was going by the fancy (and misleading) name environmental services.

The changes even got me where I lived. According to the Census Bureau, my apartment had become a dwelling unit, and when I asked my janitor to put & peephole in the door, I discovered later that actually the custodial engineerhad installed an observation port.

Change of pace: One day, a bucktoothed girl told me she had overbite. That was the day I traded in my glasses for prescription eyewear.

Of course, some of these language upgrades are more widespread than

others: admittedly, they’re not all universal. For instance, we still have motels, but some of them wanted to charge a little more, so they became motor lodges. We also still have house trailers, but if they’re for sale and profits are involved, they become motor homes, mobile homes, modular homes or manufactured housing.

So apparently, what we thought all this time was a trailer park is actually a manufactured-home community. I guess the lesson is we never quite know what we’re dealing with. Could it be that all these years on the Jerry Springer show we’ve actually been watching manufactured-home-community trash?

I HAVE A DRUG (STORE) PROBLEM

I guess you’ve noticed a trip to the drugstore has changed a lot too; the products have all been transformed. To start with, the medicine 1 used to take is now called medication. (I have a hunch medication costs more than medicine.) Mouthwashes are dental rinses, deodorants have been joined on the shelf by antiperspirants (probably because sweat has become nervous wetness), a plain old bar of soap these days is being described variously as a bath bar, a cleansing bar and a clarifying bar. Can you imagine a mother saying, “Young man, if I hear that word out of you one more time, I’m going to wash your mouth out with a clarifying bar’} Doesn’t sound right, does it?

The hair people have taken liberties, too: hair spraytoo ordinary. Try holding mist. Of course, if you don’t want holding mist, you can always turn to shaping mousse or sculpting gel. Anything to get you to pay a little more. Cough drops have grown up and turned into throat lozenges, some even calling themselves pastilles or troches. Guess what? Right! Two dollars more for lozenges, pastilles and troches.

I can remember, in television’s early years, when constipation was called occasional irregularity. These days, in a kind of minor, reverse-euphemism trend,

we’re back to constipation, which parallels the recent TV comeback made by diarrhea. No more lower gastric distress. Diarrhea! “Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go, gotta go!” The new TV candor. (Even though you still can’t say shit) By the way, doctors used to claim that constipation could be relieved by eating more roughage; now they’re pushing^z^T. I still prefer roughage. If I want fiber, I eat a basket.

And hey, lady! Advancing age causing vaginal friction? Tell the pharmacist you have a personal dryness problem. I’m sure he has some sort of intimate feminine-lubricating solution to recommend. That’s the way they describe crotch products now. Even a good old-fashioned douche has turned into a feminine wash. And remember feminine hygiene sprays? Personally, they didn’t sound very tasty to me. If they had come in flavors they might have been more successful. Vagin-illa, crotch-ocolate, labia-lime. Just a thought. Anyway, the latest female product I’ve heard of is protective underwear, which, frankly, folks, I don’t even want to think about. More later.

TIPS FOR SERIAL KILLERS

Because I enjoy following the exploits of serial killers, I’m always hoping they never get caught. So I’ve compiled a list of suggestions to help them stay on the loose longer; that way they can provide me with maximum entertainment.

TO THE KILLERS: If you’re looking for some form of perverted attention and publicity I can’t help you. But if you just want to kill a lot of people, one by one, I’m your guy: Here his how you can maximize the time it will take the police to apprehend you.

Make sure your victims are not all the same types. Kill a variety of peo-

pie: tall, short, rich, poor, male, female, young, old. But don’t kill them in any particular order. Do two old men in a row, then do a young woman, then a teenage boy. Mix blondes and brunettes and long hair and short. And don’t bother with prostitutes.

Vary the types of locations where you grab your victims and vary the times of day.

Try to do the work in heavily populated areas where there are more murders to begin with.

If at all possible, travel around the country and kill each victim in a different state. Never kill two people in the same city within a year. And don’t travel in a straight line. Randomness is your greatest ally.

Kill each of your victims in a completely different manner: Do some really weird ones, and then do some ordinary ones. Sexual, non-sexual; ritual, non-ritual. Don’t specialize. Patterns are your enemy.

Dispose of the bodies as far from the murder sites as possible, always at least a hundred miles. Bury some, burn some and dissolve others in lime and acid. If you encounter any chance witnesses to any part of the killings or the disposals, they should be killed and disposed of with a minimum of fuss. And be sure to dispose of them separately.

When driving to the murder or especially the disposal sites, be careful not to break the law or have an accident. Use cash for everything. Don’t stay in motels. Drive a late-model van-type vehicle you can sleep in, and

don’t park it where police might be expected to patrol. Have a large food supply and eat in the vehicle. If possible, change vehicles after every murder.

Don’t write notes to the police or taunt them in any way. It’s dumb.

Don’t save newspaper clippings. In fact, don’t even read the newspaper accounts.

Don’t keep souvenirs from any of the victims.

Start watching the CSI shows on CBS and the Law & Order shows on NBC. Every now and then you will pick up some piece of information that will help you avoid mistakes.

Be smart and stay alive. Some of us are counting on you.

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The Wall Street Journal reminds you that your job as a businessman is to fuck the other guy before he fucks you. Sometimes you have to do such a complete job of fucking the other guy that he stays fucked for a long time, even to the point of going out of business and losing everything he owns. Quite often, the difference between getting fucked and being the one who does the fucking can be one small piece of business information, such as they re not making steam locomotives anymore, or the zeppelin travel market has begun to decline. Those two important business facts appeared recently in the Wall Street Jour