ADVENTURE DOG: Sniff sniff sniff.

MASTER: Come on, Earnest.

ADVENTURE DOG: Sniff sniff sniff sniff sniff sniff sniff sniff.

No question about it. The evidence is clear. This is a smell, all right. And what’s more, it’s the smell of—this is so incredible—DOG WEE WEE! Right here in the yard!

MASTER: EARNEST!

ADVENTURE DOG: Sniff sniff sniff sniff sniff.

Adventure Dog is getting the germ of an idea. At first it seems farfetched, but the more she thinks about it, the more she thinks, hey, why not! The idea is—get ready—Adventure Dog is going to MAKE WEE-WEE! Right now! Outside! It’s crazy, but it just might work!

MASTER: Good GIRL.

What was that? It was a sound! Definitely. A sound coming from over there. Yes! No question about it. This is unbelievable! It’s the MASTER out here in the yard! YAAAYY!

MASTER: DOWN, dammit!

THEME SONG SINGER: Adventure Dog, Adventure Dooooooggg ...

ADVENTURE DOG: BARK!

MASTER: DOWN!

Bear in mind that this is only one episode. There are many other possibilities: “Adventure Dog Gets Fed,” “Adventure Dog Goes for a Ride in the Car and Sees Another Dog and Barks Real Loud for the Next 116 Miles,” etc. it would be the kind of family-oriented show your kids could watch, because there would be extremely little sex, thanks to an earlier episode, “Adventure Dog Has an Operation.”

I think it’s getting worse. I’m talking about this habit people have of driving on interstate highways in the left, or “passing” lane, despite the fact that they aren’t passing anybody. You used to see this mainly in a few abnormal areas, particularly Miami, where it is customary for everyone to drive according to the laws of his or her own country of origin. But now you see it everywhere: drivers who are not passing, who have clearly never passed anybody in their entire lives, squatting in the left lane, little globules of fat clogging up the transportation arteries of our very nation. For some reason, a high percentage of them wear hats.

What I do, when I come up behind these people, is the same thing you do, namely pass them on the right and glare at them. Unfortunately, this tactic doesn’t appear to be working. So I’m proposing that we go to the next logical step: nuclear weapons. Specifically I’m thinking of atomic land torpedoes, which would be mounted on the front bumpers of cars operated by drivers who have demonstrated that they have the maturity and judgment necessary to handle tactical nuclear weapons in a traffic environment. I would be one of these drivers.

Here’s how I would handle a standard left-lane blockage problem: I would get behind the problem driver and flash my lights. If that failed, I’d honk my horn until the driver looked in his rear-view mirror and saw me making helpful, suggestive hand motions indicating that he is in the passing lane, and if he wants to drive at 55, he should do it in a more appropriate place, such as the waiting room of a dental office. If that failed, I’d sound the warning siren, which would go, and I quote, “WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP.” Only if all these measures failed would I proceed to the final step, total vaporization of the car (unless of course there was a BABY ON BOARD!).

Too violent, you say? Shut up or I’ll break your legs. No, wait, forgive me. I’m a little tense, is all, from driving behind these people. But something has to be done, and I figure if word got around among members of the left-lane slow-driver community, wherever they get together—hat stores would be my guess—that they had a choice of either moving to the right or turning into clouds of charged particles, many would choose the former.

It is not entirely their fault. Part of the problem is all those signs on the interstates that say SPEED LIMIT 55. I am no psychologist, but I believe those signs may create the impression among poorly informed drivers that the speed limit is 55. Which of course it is not. We Americans pretend 55 is the speed limit, similar to the way we’re always pretending we want people to have a nice day, but it clearly isn’t the real speed limit, since nobody, including the police, actually drives that slowly, except people wearing hats in the left lane.

So the question is, how fast are you really allowed to drive? And the answer is: Nobody will tell you. I’m serious. The United States is the only major industrialized democracy where the speed limit is a secret. I called up a guy I know who happens to be a high-ranking police officer, and I asked him to tell me the real speed limit, and he did, but only after—this is the absolute truth—he made me promise I wouldn’t reveal his name, or his state, or above all the speed limit itself. Do you believe that? Here in the United States of America, home of the recently refurbished Statue of Liberty, we have an officer of the law who is afraid he could lose his job for revealing the speed limit.

When things get this bizarre, we must be dealing with federal policy. Specifically we are dealing with the U.S. Transportation Secretary, who is in charge of enforcing our National Pretend Speed Limit. The Transportation Secretary has learned—you talk about digging out the hard facts!—that motorists in a number of states are driving faster than 55 miles per hour, and she threatened to cut off these states’ federal highway funds. So, to keep the Transportation Secretary happy, the police have to pretend they’re enforcing the 55 limit, when in fact they think it’s stupid and won’t give you a ticket unless you exceed the real speed limit, which varies from state to state, and even from day to day, and which the police don’t dare talk about in public for fear of further upsetting the Transportation Secretary.

I told my friend, the high-ranking police officer, that this system creates a lot of anxiety in us civilian motorists, never knowing how fast we’re allowed to go, and he said the police like it, because they can make the speed limit whatever the hell they want it to be, depending on how they feel. “It used to be,” he said, “that the only fun you had in police work was police brutality. Now the real fun is to keep screwing with people’s heads about what the speed limit is.”

Ha ha! He was just kidding, I am sure. Nevertheless, I think we need a better system, and fortunately I have thought one up. Here it is: The state should say the hell with the federal highway funds. They could make a lot more money if they set up little roadside stands where you could stop your car and pay $5, and a state employee would whisper the speed limit for that day in your ear. What do you think? I think it makes more sense than the system we have now. Of course, the Transportation Secretary wouldn’t like it, but I don’t see why we should care, seeing as how the Transportation Secretary probably gets chauffeured around in an official federal limousine that is, of course, totally immune from traffic laws. Although I imagine it would be vulnerable to atomic land torpedoes.