A few weeks ago, I was looking around my apartment for something really sharp with which I could gouge out my eyes, or perhaps carve my initials in my spleen. I couldn't find anything, so to produce the same effect, I went on a date with an idiot.

I can't stand stupidity. And I like it even less when I'm paying for its dinner. Yet I have a knack for dating it. I think it's less that I am attracted to stupidity (trust me, I'm not), and more that the majority of people out there possess the quality.

I can't fault the stupid people completely. They were raised to be stupid. They were raised to ask stupid questions, thinking it would help them get to know other people. They were raised to create bizarre scenarios where every answer is pointless and then quiz their dates on the minutia of their answers until their heads explode.

"So if we were to get married, and then I died, and you got remarried, and then you both died, would you spend more time in heaven with me or her?"

"Well honey, that's a...POP!"

A date once asked me what I'd bring if I were stranded on an island. My answer was simple - a boat. She pointed out that I didn't know how to drive a boat. I countered by saying I didn't know how to drive an island either, and I'd probably have better luck with the boat. She insisted I answer her for real. But since I pride myself on being practical, I asked her which island.

"If it were Staten Island, I'd bring a ferry schedule. If it were Long Island, maybe I'd bring a diner, some hair gel, an attitude. And if it were Fantasy Island, I'd bring condoms for all the cheap sluts I'd bang. I mean, who knows where they've been! I want to be safe for you, honey."

So we broke up. Which freed me to date the next girl, who asked me which vegetable I could be, if I could choose any one vegetable.

"Um, what?"

"If you could be a vegetable, which would you be?"

I don't recall ever actively wanting to be a vegetable, so I wasn't sure how to answer. Maybe there are other people who secretly dream of being carrots or asparagus or kelp, but I have never thought through the consequences of being a salad.

"I kind of want to be a ninja," I said. "Is that a vegetable?"

"Come on," she said. "If you could be a vegetable - any vegetable - which would you be?"

"Oh, ANY vegetable? Well, then I'd be a pirate."

She was getting angry. I think it was because if you've ever seen what a pirate wears, you'd know that pirates are much closer to the fruit family (badum!). She seemed to want a clear answer - but I didn't even fully know what my choices were. I thought back to 4th grade when we learned the difference between fruits and vegetables. Mrs. Hershenhous (whose name I could not accurately spell in 4th grade or now) said that if it has seeds, it's usually a fruit. Using this method, I chose my vegetable.

"Fine," I said. "A seedless ninja."

It was then that she claimed I wasn't taking her seriously. And that pissed me off.

I was 23 years old, a published author and a graduate of an Ivy League school, and she wouldn't date me unless I told her what vegetable I'd be. And I wasn't taking HER seriously.

And apparently I wasn't, because she demanded I pick a vegetable.

"Any vegetable?" I asked

"Yes, any vegetable," she responded.

"Fine," I said. "Your uncle Alan."

So we broke up.

Since then, I've dated girls who have asked me what book I'd like to live in, if I'd rather be blind or an amputee, and would I prefer world peace or to cure all diseases (because apparently, the two are mutually exclusive).

"Well," I said, "it would be awfully difficult for me to do either, since I am just a piece of kelp, stranded on an island with my future dead wife."

So we broke up. Which is too bad, because I really liked her. I liked her so much that even tried carving one of those hearts with our initials.

Too bad I couldn't find anything around the apartment that was sharp enough.

We were listening to Mozart, going 42 miles an hour down I95. It didn't start that way. And even if it did, I wouldn't admit it. But 12 hours earlier, we really were doing 90 and listening to Kid Rock. And we had four tires, too.

Let me rewind. While I write newspaper columns each weekend, during the week, I am mild-mannered stand-up comedian Clark Kent. My current tour involves myself and fellow comic Josh Jacobs, and the current leg of it involves 10 states in one week. 11, if you count the state of confusion produced when you have to drive a car with less than four tires.

Our original plan called for two stops between Columbia, South Carolina and Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. But Josh's grandparents live in Ft. Lauderdale. Let me make that clearer - free rooms and free food live in Ft. Lauderdale.

Just before 11:00 that morning, we packed our car and set out to Ft. Lauderdale, by way of the post office and the Food Lion. I, sans license, even did a little of the driving. I know, I'm a badass. Actually, I'm just a bad driver. 23 minutes into the trip, Josh took over. And why I don't have a license is another column for another time. (See week, next).

South Carolina was easy - we hurtled down I95 and set our sights on the Georgia border. Which we could practically see when our back right tire exploded. When I say exploded, I mean exploded. There were pieces everywhere - other tires stopped to leave flowers and candles.

40 minutes, three exits, and a car donut later, we arrived at the local Walmart. Walmarts are huge to anyone, but tremendous to a New Yorker. This Walmart would have taken up half of midtown. At one point Josh called me to see where I was.

"I don't know," I said, "I see an exercise bike, panties, and a sandwich. I think I'm on the Upper East Side. Wait - it's a ham sandwich. I think I'm in Mike Tyson's apartment."

The car people mockingly explained to us that we shouldn't have left the exploded tire on the side of the road, since it had a piece we needed for the new one. Josh drove to get the poor thing while I went shopping for a few necessities. We needed a wireless internet card, new sneakers, and a bottle of baby powder. The wireless card is obvious, the new sneakers are because my old shoes had gotten smelly, and the baby powder was to prevent the same fate from befalling the new ones.

After easily finding baby powder (Aisle 4,217) and having the guy in the computer department try to answer my questions by reading off the side of the box in my hands, I located a wall of sneakers with exactly four pairs in my size. The four weren't my style, since I prefer shoes that don't have paint chips missing. But I spotted a hidden fifth pair. Not only did it have Velcro, but it, like everything else in the store, was only $9. I loved how retro the shoes looked. And so did a kid who was walking by.

"Man, those are O!," he said.

"Old school?," I replied.

"No. Orthopedic."

Okay, so that part didn't happen - I just thought of it later. Your mind wanders when you're sitting outside a Walmart in Savannah for four hours waiting for the three minutes it takes them to fix your car. And that's what I did. Sat there. Wrote some. Ate some. Broke in my new orthopedic sneakers. And sat there. Josh was obviously not happy with the situation. And neither was I. Hell, with that situation, even that stupid roll-back-prices-Walmart-happy-face was getting a little pissed.

We were thrilled to be back on the road. A bit slower, but with our minds trained on getting to Ft. Lauderdale by midnight. It was about 5:30 when we left Walmart.

And then it happened again. Somewhere between Melbourne and Vero Beach, we started rumbling. A few exits later, we pulled over. The back left tire was done, too. Newly experienced at changing flats, it only took us 12 minutes to get back on the road. And then the decision that could have easily killed us - to set out to Ft. Lauderdale on three tires and a donut.

The thing about a donut is you can't do more than 40 on it. And the thing about Kid Rock is it's not good to listen to when you're already severely frustrated. So twelve hours after we left South Carolina, we found some classical music, put the damn car on cruise control, and I began writing this. We were still 100 miles outside of Ft. Lauderdale. We rolled in (rolled, not drove) at about 2:00 AM. We were fine - or as fine as anyone could be on the same day they spent four hours at a Savannah Walmart.

In other words, I may be a humor columnist, and Josh and I may be both be stand-up comedians. But god has a way better sense of humor than we do.

I used to be scared of dogs. Probably because when I was a one-year-old, a dog tried to maul me. While my parents were looking at houses, a neighbor's dog came a few inches from what I can only assume to be swallowing me whole. And I was a pretty big baby.

As I got older and less swallowable, the incidents continued. I'd temporarily gotten over my fear of dogs by playing with B-V, a fellow resident of 84th Drive. But B-V died when I was four, and B-V Jr. was a crude replacement. A crude four-year-old-eating replacement. I was also upset because I could spell B-V, but the word "junior," to a four-year-old, should not be spelled like the word "jirr."

My dog problems culminated a few years later when I was playing catch with my older brother Adam. We'd been out a while and decided to sit for a few minutes. With no warning other than a bunch of barking and a loud collar jangling, a large dog bolted towards my brother. The dog easily knocked Adam over, no small feat to me considering how large a 12-year-old looked to eight-year-old me. After defeating the leader of the pack (a two-person pack, but a pack nonetheless), the dog headed straight for me in an attempt to finish the job. I did the only thing I could. I ducked. Did Kujo bite me? Scratch me? Shoot me with the laser beam attached to his collar? Worse - it jumped over me, kicking me in the head as it landed.

That's right - I am the only person in the world to have been jump kicked in the head by a dog.

As I got older (see 20s, early), I began realizing my fear of dogs was irrational. I am bigger than most dogs, and thus they should be afraid of me. But it's not COMPLETELY irrational. In a fight, a dog has less to lose. You can't reason with a dog. And dogs don't follow the 11th commandment of "though shall not bite thy opponent in the crotchal area." Nevertheless, I'm now okay with most things of the dog-al persuasion.

My friend Josh helped this process, since his dog Herbie was a total wuss. Herbie was a great dog, and a big dog, but the meanest thing he ever did was chew on our socks. Have you ever had someone you go drinking with, but you know the only contribution he'd make in a bar fight would be to open the door while he's running away? That was Herbie. He got into a surprising amount of bar fights for a dog.

The next big step was recent, when I was staying in Michigan with family friends. They had two dogs, Chewbacca and Annie. (I love that "Chewbacca" doesn't come up as a new word in spell check). Aptly named, Chewbacca was a loving, yet large and hairy beast, while Annie was a little red-headed brat. After five days of playing with these dogs, I'd grown attached to them. So it was perfectly natural that as I was opening the front door to leave, Annie bolted out and made me chase her for a mile. No, she did not escape by hiding in a laundry basket.

I finally got tired and stopped running - and so did Annie. So I turned around, and she started coming towards me. I stopped again, and she started walking away again. So I started walking back to the house, and she began following me. And that's when I realized it - I'd dated so many girls like that. When Annie finally came close enough for me to grab her collar, I looked her in the eyes and said, "I think we should see other dogs. It's not you, it's me."

Right now, I'm staying in a friend's place in South Carolina, and she has the biggest small dog I've ever seen. It's tiny - I could probably punt it clear across the street - if my friend wasn't watching. But it's bark could wake the neighbors. Okay, it couldn't wake the neighbors. Because who could fall asleep with all that barking?

My friend does what any dog owner does when her dog gets too loud. She shushes it. Now THAT is irrational.

"ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF!"

"Shhh."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Am I disturbing you, human? I can see why you're having such a tough day, what with you being the one not on a leash. I'll try to keep it down. arf! arf?"

But even with all the barking, no ability to reason, and her desire to bite me in the crotch, I'm actually going to miss her when I leave.

I meant the dog, stupid.

If you've been reading this column for at least a year, you'll know by now that my birthday is September 11th. Which means I'll be 21 forever, because I haven't had a birthday since the year 2000.

Actually, I'll be 24 this Thursday. I know, I'm getting old. Hitting on college freshmen has gone from sketchy to really sketchy. The good thing is that it doesn't get really, really sketchy until I'm 28, so I have a few more years of just "really sketchy."

I still celebrate my birthday, but it's different now. My birthday has become a reminder of what I have by showing me what I could have lost. It used to be my most selfish day of the year. Now I use it to look at how I relate to other people. And other people definitely relate to me differently.

I get hugged by bouncers when I show them my ID. I got out of a noise violation for a party I threw. And last year, I got more phone calls asking me how I was than I did the year the tragedy actually happened. For the last two years, people I know have been looking out for me. Though some people need a bit more tact while they're looking.

When people find out my birthday is the 11th, they all have the same reaction: "I'm sorry." What do I say to that? "You're sorry? Wait, that was you? You bastard!"

Obviously, I'm kidding. Kidding is how I deal with the unfortunate. And having a birthday on the worst day of the year is pretty unfortunate. Though there always seem to be a lot of candles around.

Offended? So am I. But not by that joke. I'm offended by people who try to outgrief each other on a day like this. As a lifelong New Yorker with a 9/11 birthday, I hear about that day a lot. Everyone seems to have a story about where they were, who they knew, what their cousin's brother's uncle did when he heard of someone two blocks away.

"My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 flavors last night. And they were totally in New York on September 11th. I guess it's pretty serious."

Everyone relates to the 11th in their own way. And that's alright in my opinion, as long as they're not competing with anyone to see who has grieved the most. Arguing about who has more grief is extraordinary self-centered. Much like how I used to celebrate my birthday.

I used to remind everyone about my birthday for about four months before it happened. Then I'd find clever ways to drop it into conversation that day, like writing about it in my Spanish class, or asking people when THEIR birthday was, or saying subtle things like, "That movie was great - it reminds me of this one birthday I had. Today."

And people forgot my birthday anyway. There was one year I didn't get a single birthday present from anyone other than my grandmother. I got used to people not acknowledging that I'd made it through another year, but then September 11th, 2001 came. And people still forget my birthday. Jeez, what has to happen?

Again, I'm kidding. And I'm glad I am able to. Because September 11th, 2001 was the only day in my entire life where I didn't smile once. The following year, I was all smiles. Making it through one more year means a heck of a lot more when you know a few people that didn't.

I don't mind people forgetting my birthday now. The important thing is that I remember it, and I remember what the day means to this country. I no longer care about getting things in a box with a pretty little bow. I care about the presents I've already been given. Like a family who supports me when I toss aside 9 to 5 to become a standup comic. Like friends who take my calls when things on the road aren't going as well as I'd planned. Like all the wonderful people who have written to me telling me that I have, in some small way, enriched their lives. I couldn't ask for better presents.

But if you happen to be at Radio Shack this week, those camera phones look kind of cool.