Line #5 YMMV/DaveBarry


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2	* HarsherInHindsight:
3	** In ''Dave Barry's Guide to Guys'', when discussing his fireworks-obsessed mechanic Ed:
4	---> "If those radical Muslim fundamentalist terrorists had Ed on their team back in 1992, the World Trade Center would now be referred to as the World Trade Pit."
5	** In ''Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need'', he tells a story about how he really angered his wife by driving past a roadside attraction that she wanted to see. He jokes that if she ever files for divorce, she'll probably bring that up. A couple years later, they did divorce (whether it was brought up is unknown).
6	** In his 1996 book ''Dave Barry in Cyberspace'', he joked that buying the right computer and getting it to work is about as easy as building a makeshift nuclear reactor out of watch parts. As the world at large learned just two years later in 1998, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn David Hahn of Clinton Township, Michigan]] essentially did just that in 1994, although his nuclear reactor never reached critical mass, thankfully.
7	** In "Dave Barry Turns 50", he mentions getting into an argument with an 18 year old a few years prior where the 18-year-old said "he wished there was a war like Vietnam going on right then, so the the members of his generation would have something big, something exciting, in their lives". [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror The book was published in 1998...]]
8	* HilariousInHindsight:
9	** In a 1990 article about television ratings, he mentioned that if there was a program called ''Eat Bugs for Money'', everyone would watch it. Cue ''Series/FearFactor'' in 2001.
10	** "The worsening economy takes center stage in February, when, amid much fanfare, Congress passes, and President Bush signs, an ''economic stimulus package'' under which the federal government will give taxpayers back several hundred dollars apiece of their own money, the idea being that they will use this money to revive the U.S. economy by buying TV sets that were made in China. This will seem much more comical in the fall."
11	** In an article about parenting, he wrote about how having a teenage daughter would rapidly age him: "I have male friends who have daughters approaching puberty at lightspeed, and when you mention the word 'dating', they get a look in their eyes that makes Charles Manson look like Captain Kangaroo." Sure enough, he had a daughter with his third wife and has even written a book called ''You Can Date Boys When You're Forty.''
12	* MemeticMutation: His column on the Oregon Exploding Whale went viral along with the news recording that inspired the column, greatly spreading knowledge of the event. The column didn't mention that the event happened twenty years prior, so Oregon officials were fielding calls from people who believed it was recent. As it spread, the column lost attribution to Barry, leading people to send him his own column, asking if he'd heard about it.
13	* NightmareFuel: "I'm holding his nose!" from ''Literature/TrickyBusiness''.
14	** Also, the [[http://www.vjbooks.com/v/vspfiles/photos/BARTALK01-2.jpg cover]] of ''Dave Barry Talks Back'' features a picture of him holding the disembodied head of what looks like another Dave Barry, and they're making expressions of "comical surprise" at each other that look like [[Film/TheGrudge Toshio Saeki]] in full-on "meow" mode.
15	* TearJerker:
16	** His columns on 9/11, which would bring anyone to tears.
17	** He also wrote a column about seeing his father for the last time before he died. If you've read the column, there's no way your eyes are dry right now.
18	** His son was once in a pretty serious accident, causing Dave to write about all the times he's felt the horror of wondering if his son was alright. Thankfully, Robert lived and is a healthy adult (and father himself) today.
19	** The story about going to see the Holocaust memorial in Israel with his Jewish daughter.
20	* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids: His book Literature/BigTrouble has an introduction warning readers, ''"This is not a book for youngsters. I point this out because I know, from reading my mail, that a lot of youngsters read my humor books and newspaper columns, and I'm thrilled that they do. But this book is not for them, because some of the characters use Adult Language."'' Enough people ignored the warning and were offended by the language that Literature/TrickyBusiness began with a more explicit ContentWarning in larger letters.

Context YMMV / DaveBarry