(Maybe it’s San Andreas’ fault)

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Every now and then, people like me who try to write funny stuff without getting arrested are handed a gift. We get tossed a hot lead, lobbed a slow pitch. Every so often, a humor column just seems to write itself, as if it were an eyewitness account from Hillary of something that never happened.

As a writer, it’s easy to recognize. You know you’ve received one of those gifts when you’re writing as fast as you can type, and you suddenly realize you’ve already written several hundred words – and so far you haven’t had to make anything up. (Is it too soon for another Hillary metaphor?)

Here’s the latest humor writer’s gift: California has announced that they plan to ban shopping bags. You know, at the grocery and so on.

Of course, I won’t be able bag the gift.

Yes, the far left State that thought Jerry Brown was a good idea…twice…is now going to outlaw shopping bags. If you forget to bring your own organic, recyclable, Earth-friendly, monogrammed, natural fiber bag, you’re out of luck and people will think you are hate-filled or … even worse … a gun owner.

That’s entirely their business, of course, banning shopping bags. But if nothing else, the timing is tricky. California also just legalized marijuana. I’m sure you see where this is going. Soon, at the grocery checkout, there’ll be long lines of stoned people clutching armloads of Doritos…and there’s no bags.

Now lots of States have lots of dumb laws, but California’s collection seem odder than most. (To be sure, Florida’s pretty odd, too. But Florida has more or less done away with laws altogether; in Florida, citizens just proceed directly to the gunfire.)

But California’s bagless society legislation is just the latest in a long history of weird West Coast conduct. Witness:

• In California, it is actually illegal for prison workers to have sex with inmates. Has this become a problem?
• It’s illegal for women to drive while wearing a house coat. Thank goodness.
• It is against the law for a dog to chase a bobcat. I’m guessing this one’s a bit hard to enforce, what with the low literacy rate among dogs.
• Animals are not allowed to mate within 1,500 feet of a school. Or a bar. People, on the other hand? Knock yourselves out.
• If you live in the town of Ontario, you can have a pet rhinoceros…as long as you pay for a permit. Please keep the thing at least 1,500 feet from any bars.
• In Baldwin Park, you are not allowed to ride a bike in a swimming pool. You realize what that means – once, in somebody’s Baldwin Park back yard, some guy…
• For the citizens of Glendale, California, it’s against the law to drive in reverse. So if you miss your turn, it’s about 25,000 miles to the next exit.
• In Fresno, it’s illegal for anyone to annoy a lizard in a city park. (Rhinos, we’re looking at you.)
• It’s also illegal for anyone in Fresno to sell gasoline to a drunk. This may be related to the age-old question about why, at bank drive-thru windows, there are instructions in Braille.
• In Pacific Grove, it’s against the law to molest butterflies. I don’t even want to know.

If there’s ever a Best Bizarre Ordinance contest, Chico, California, may be set to sweep the series. The brutally oppressed citizens of Chico are not allowed to bowl on the sidewalk, drive a herd of cattle down the street, or detonate a nuclear device within the city limits.

For a while, I lived in California. This was long ago, after graduating from the University of Georgia (one day in my upperclassman year, I mistakenly drove through town with my window rolled down, and a university regent threw a diploma in the car). My best friend had just survived a stint in the army, and we had no children, debt, or pending warrants, so we liquidated all nine dollars of our collective assets and drove to the West Coast.

I lived and worked in Orange County, which is the law: any conservatives who manage to sneak into California have to stay within Orange County. It’s like one of those World War II-era Japanese internment camps, but for Republicans.

I worked in the kitchen bar of a Mexican restaurant, because my facial features weren’t chiseled enough for me to serve the beautiful people at the public bar. It was the only time in my life when I’ve ever worked six or mores hours without hearing any English whatsoever, except once when I was a junior high substitute teacher. I don’t know what those little maniacs were saying, but it sure wasn’t the King’s English. To this day, I have no idea what a shizzle is.

Every day in the kitchen bar, we prepared gallons and gallons of margaritas, constantly stirred in a giant vat by a broad, rotating paddle, as if we were supplying the US Army with cocktails. I’m guessing that that little culinary detail was not shared with the clientele, but I never asked because I don’t know how to say “Dude, how nasty is that?” in Spanish.

Shortly, after saving my tips, I bought a car from a gay bartender in Laguna Beach, which is redundant. I paid $100 for the car, which is less than a license for a medium-sized rhinoceros.

The vehicle was a tiny, ancient Volkswagen hatchback, a car whose engine, intentionally or not, was located under the hatchback’s carpeted floor. One day, while driving home down the 5 freeway, the carpet caught fire. I pulled over, looked in the back, and saw flames beginning to lick through the floor.

I grabbed my Speedy Gonzales lunch special, jogged a half-mile, and thumbed to the next exit. I never went back. For all I know, the charred VW may still be there.

Unless there are any shopping bags inside.