When I was a teenage kid, there was one TV show that I could not miss each week: “Mission: Impossible.” The series (and more recently, a couple of movies starring Tom Cruise) revolved around the exploits of the I.M.F.—which stood for the Impossible Missions Force. They took on the jobs that the Easy Missions Force, Moderately-Difficult Missions Force—and the Improbable-But-Not-Impossible Missions Force could not handle.

Of course, the I.M.F. was just a fictional organization. (In real life, the closest thing to an Impossible Missions Force might be the Sound Transit Agency.) The I.M.F.’s purpose was to depose evil despots, crack secret codes, rescue benevolent ambassadors, etc.—and to do it so cleverly, so discreetly that no one would be the wiser.

To manage it, the Force used a combination of clever gadgets, elaborate schemes and nifty deceptions. But, best of all, they used masks and disguises—so convincing, that they fooled the bad guys 100 % of the time. (If they were playing sports, of course, that would be 110% of the time.)

In real life, the most talented Hollywood makeup artists can toil for hours to try and make someone look like, say, President George W. Bush. But when all is said and done, that person will perhaps look similar, but not identical—to President Bush. At least not close enough to fool Laura Bush. (Although, in dim light, Dick Cheney might fall for it.)

In the most recent “Mission: Impossible”, the mask bit pretty much reached the saturation point, when in just about every scene someone was donning a mask to look like someone else from the preceding scene—who was also wearing a mask.

Still, there would be definite advantages—and wonderful mischief to be made—if totally convincing masks were available in REAL life: You could don a Dr. Laura mask and walk around town shouting: “I’m kidding about all those things I say on the radio! I don’t really believe any of that stuff! I’m just doing shtick!”

Or put on a Bill Gates mask—and then stand on a street corner with a handmade cardboard sign: “Need Justice Department to cut slack.”

Here’s a suggestion from a friend of mine: Dress up like a woodchuck and stop every passerby saying, “I know what your question is—and the answer is two cords.” (If you don’t understand that one, you wouldn’t get his other suggestion about dressing up like Peter Piper.)

As a teenage kid, the appeal of “Mission: Impossible” had just about everything to do with my obsession with masks. A school buddy and I would spend just about every dollar we had at the local costume and mask shop. My mom would chide me: “I can’t believe you spent money on a stupid mask!”

Stupid? You call a gorilla mask stupid? You call a werewolf mask—with real hair—stupid? You call a mask with one dangling eyeball hanging out of its socket stupid? Oh. You do? Well, I guess just we don’t see eye to dangling eye on that issue.

Well, that didn’t matter to my friend and me. We would pull the masks over our heads—and then, with an unmasked friend behind the wheel—we would tool all over town, pulling alongside other cars and waiting for the occupants to look over at us.

Sometimes they would look slightly startled. (After all, you don’t see that many vampires and Frankenstein monsters driving around in a Dodge Dart.) Other times, they simply looked annoyed. But regardless, we found it hugely entertaining—and not nearly as crowded as the local Mensa meetings.

But one day, in the midst of our fun, a police car came up behind us—lights whirling and sirens blaring. Then another squad car screeched up behind it. Then, a third. The next thing we knew, we were sprawled across the hood of our car—being frisked like the worst career criminals from any episode of “N.Y.P.D.”

As it happened, just an hour or so earlier, a nearby bank had been robbed by (just our luck) two guys wearing Halloween masks. That made us, at least circumstantially, two prime suspects. Luckily, after a minute or two, one of the policeman recognized me as “that nutty Cashman kid.”

For the next ten minutes, we got the lecture of our lives—with the policeman who had recognized me, telling us how irresponsible we had been. “You two goofballs better think twice before you go around wearing masks next time,” he told us. “Maybe it’s about time you started to grow up!”

The officer confiscated our masks and told us we could go. We felt lower than the I-90 bridge just after it sunk. The policeman’s manner had shown us exactly the difference between being immature teenage boys like us—and an intelligent, grownup man like him.

But just before the officer climbed back into his car, we heard him quite clearly say to his partner: “Hey Max, get a load of this cool werewolf mask—it’s got real hair on it!”

I guess boys may grow older and more responsible—but they don’t ever really grow up.

For most of us, THAT would be impossible.

Copyright © 2003 Pat Cashman

If you are reading this while driving at high-speed down the freeway, you might not necessarily be breaking the law—although you ARE living dangerously. But if you are reading this while driving at high-speed down the free-way—and not wearing your seatbelt—you are definitely dead meat.

Specifically, you are 86 dollars worth of dead meat—the fine a policeman could slap on you for driving seat beltless, as of last Thursday. (If you are reading this while wearing a sleeveless tee-shirt, no problem. Your right to do that is constitutionally protected under the 2nd Amendment: “…the right of the people to keep…bare arms, shall not be infringed.”)

The new mandatory seat belt law is something like enacting a mandatory PANTS belt law. It’s a law to protect people from themselves. In the case of seat belts, from injury or worse in a car accident. In the case of pants belts, from embarrassment or worse in a dancing accident.

The zero tolerance change in the seat belt law has been made into a more-easily swallowed pill by the Washington State Patrol’s use of the nifty little slogan “Click it or ticket.” That makes it all sound sort of fun, doesn’t it?:

MOTORIST: “What seems to be the problem, officer?”
COP: “Do you know why I pulled you over?”
MOTORIST: “The body in my trunk?”
COP: “No, Mr. Silly. It’s Click it or ticket!”
MOTORIST: “Click it or ticket? What a sticky wicket, Officer Pickett! Ha, ha, ha!’

The “Click it or Ticket” catchphrase works so well, it makes you wonder why there are not similarly friendly little warning mottoes for the other new state laws that went into effect last week:

• First-time auto thieves could now be sentenced up to a year in jail. “You’rereally gonna feel it…if you steal it.” Or, “If this car is hot, you’ll be in the cooler.”
• Cities cannot ban commuters from operating those new high-tech Segway scooters on sidewalks or bike paths. “It’s the Segway or the highway.”
• Gambling cheaters now face jail time and fines up to $20,000 dollars. “If you’re marking the deck, you’re gonna catch heck.”

One of the trickiest things about being an American is figuring out how to balance being a nation of laws with also being a nation that celebrates its personal freedoms. Freedom of speech, for example, is wonderful—but it doesn’t make it OK for someone to shout “Fire!” in a crowded movie theatre. However, some people believe that an exception should be made in the case of any movie starring Pauly Shore.

Dozens of new laws—besides those previously listed here—went into effect last week, 90 days after our last state legislative session. The 90 days is designed to give legislators time to hide. The seat belt change is the new law getting most of the publicity—but there are many others you need to know about. As far as I know, this column is the first one to officially list the following:

• It is now illegal to say “24/7” in everyday conversation. The reason for this change is that the use of “24/7” is driving people like me nuts—all day long, every day of the week.
• Another punishable offense is the use of the phrase “I’m having trouble getting my mind (or head) around it.” (Example: “I’m having trouble getting my mind around the knighting of Mick Jagger.”) The reason for this new “mind around it” law is to reduce the risk of folks wanting to get their hands around the throats of people who say it ad nauseum.
• TV weather forecasters will now be required to actually look out the window—at least once—before going on the air.
• Only natives of particular Washington state towns can now kid around about those towns. This means that only Kent residents can legally make Kent jokes. Only people who live in Ballard can make jabs about Ballard. If there ARE any Mercer Island jokes, only Mercer Island natives can crack them. However, ANY Washington resident can still make fun of Idaho.

And finally, it is now illegal for anyone to use public elevators if they’ve eaten a large number of garlic fries the night before. In other words: “If our nose you abuse…the stairs you must use.” I know. That one needs work.

Copyright © 2003 Pat Cashman

A couple of days ago, while in the restroom of a Washington State ferry,
I noticed a little warning label on one of those hand-towel gadgets. You
know the kind I mean—you pull down on it and it dispenses a section of
clean cloth a few inches at a time so you can dry your hands after washing
them? (Incidentally, some people do NOT wash their hands after using the
rest room. Some of them, in fact, are prominent government officials, soft-
ware millionaires and local TV news anchors. I will reveal their names in a
future column.)

Anyway, back to that warning sign. It read: “Do Not Put Head Inside.”
Whenever I see a warning like that, I tend to think: “Well, of course you
shouldn’t put your head in there! Who would even think of putting their
head in there? It’s a HAND-drying gadget! Why would anyone need to dry
their HEAD after going to the toilet anyway?” (OK, wait a minute. I re-
member one time I DID get my head pretty wet in the restroom of a state
ferry. The captain had swerved suddenly to miss one of those “Ride the
Duck” boats that had gotten way off course. I fell headfirst.)

However, I finally realized that there was a reason that particular warn-
ing label had been placed there. It must be because someone, sometime,
somehow—HAD put his or her head inside one of those things. Maybe the
person had been drunk. Maybe they had been dared. Maybe the captain had
swerved to miss a “Ride the Duck” boat. But for some reason, someone had
put a noggin in there—and something terrible had happened.
I must have missed that story. Perhaps I was out of town the day the
news headline blazed across the front page of the Eastside Journal {South
County Journal}:

FERRY RIDER NEARLY SMOTHERS WHEN HE STICKS HIS HEAD INTO HAND-DRYING GADGET! APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN WEIRD ACCIDENT, SAY POLICE!
WARNING SIGN SHOULD HAVE BEEN PLACED ON THERE, SAYS VICTIM’S LAWYER! THIS NEWSPAPER’S HEADLINES GETTING WAY TOO LONG, SAYS EDITOR!

Come on, a hand-drying gadget? There must be more crucial places not to place our heads: Do Not Put Head Inside This Waffle Iron! Or, Do Not Put Head Inside This Running Lawn Mower! Aquariums should have a warning sign: Do Not Put Head Into This Tank Full of Piranha!

Warning signs are a relatively modern phenomenon. We’ve got so many of them these days that hardly anybody pays attention to them—especially, I’ve noticed, stop signs and red lights. Sometimes the problem is that the signs are just poorly placed. I saw one recently that warned of dangerous footing—but the warning was placed above a doorway. So by the time the warning could be read, it would already be too late—and the victim would be flat on his face. It would have been better if the sign had read: Get Ready For A Little Surprise!

Historical studies prove that Stone Age cave dwellers did NOT post signs that read: Watch For Low-hanging Stalactites! That’s why so many early men were named Lumpy. (However, some historians insist that early man DID put up some hieroglyphics that translate to: Do Not Put Head Inside Saber-tooth Tiger!)

I really don’t know why that warning sign on the ferry’s hand-drying
gadget is considered necessary—but if it saves even one head, it will be
worth it. Which reminds me that a safety notice would have been useful
during the French Revolution: Do Not Put Head Inside Guillotine!
For that matter, think of all the wars, territorial disputes and family
feuds that could have been averted if only there had been signs clearly
posted: Do Not Put Head Into Other People’s Business!