Spend a little time at the Home and Vacation Show at Riverside Arena, and you quickly learn what’s on peoples’ minds.

Number one: The Mower County Jail and Justice Center project.

They don’t understand the paradox: Build a new jail and justice center for $30.7 million and raise taxes to do it, while cutting programs, services and jobs.

Isn’t that what George Bush did: make tax cuts and spend the nation into debt?

All I could do was listen to their complaints last weekend.

Thank you for stopping by and sharing your opinions, people.

It was good to get away from the office, where temperatures were rising.

The mayor didn’t like my “petunias yes, rodents no” observation about the mess on North Main Street after the Jan. 15 fire.

Then, I offended an entire floor at the Austin City Hall, when I relayed the complaints at Steve’s Pizza about having to cut a new fire door in the place after it opened.

All I needed was a close encounter with the Austin fire chief to make it complete and that happened, too.

That’s what made the Home and Vacation Show so much fun: getting away from critics.

Yes. It’s true: I did accept a free Austin Post-Bulletin from a woman handing them out Saturday.

Yes also, I delivered an Austin Daily Herald to their booth to even the score Sunday.

A guy came up to me and started lecturing me about sex, marriage and family values. He said, “l didn’t sleep with my wife before we got married. Did you?”

I responded, “I’m not sure. What was her maiden name?”

He canceled the paper on the spot.

Another fellow walked up and bragged about how his divorce case went in court. “The judge said he decided to give my ex-wife $775 a week. I thanked the judge and told him I would try to send her a few bucks at Christmastime.”

I gave him a Herald coffee mug.

(Obviously, by now you can see today’s column is going nowhere.)

A retired Mower County sheriff’s deputy swiped a couple of Herald pens and told me about the time he pulled over a Dexter farmer, who had a little too much to drink after spotting his pickup weaving violently all over the road.

“So,” I asked the driver, “‘Where have you been?’ and he said, ‘Why, I’ve been to the Oasis, of course,’ slurring his speech.”

“Well,” the deputy recalled, “I told him ‘It looks like you’ve had quite a few to drink this evening.’”

“I did all right,” the drunk said with a smile.

“Did you know,” the deputy asked him, “that a few intersections back, your wife fell out of your pickup?”

“Oh, thank heavens, deputy,” the drunk said. “For a minute there, I thought I’d gone deaf.”

I gave the deputy an official Herald book bag and forged his name to a year’s subscription to the Herald.

I’m back on the bike again, when it isn’t raining and a truck-driving friend told me about different drivers on the road today and where they’re from:

1. One hand on wheel, one hand on horn: Chicago.

2. One hand on wheel, one finger out window: New York.

3. One hand on wheel, one finger out window, cutting across all lanes of traffic: New Jersey.

4. One hand on wheel, one hand on newspaper, foot solidly on accelerator: Boston.

5. One hand on wheel, one hand on nonfat double decaf cappuccino, cradling cell phone, brick on accelerator, with gun in lap: Los Angeles.

6. Both hands on wheel, eyes shut, both feet on brake, quivering in terror: Ohio, but driving in California.

7. Both hands in air, gesturing, both feet on accelerator, head turned to talk to someone in back seat: Italy.

8. One hand on latté, one knee on wheel, cradling cell phone, foot on brake, mind on radio game: Seattle.

9. One hand on wheel, one hand on hunting rifle, alternating between both feet being on the accelerator and both feet on brake, throwing McDonalds bag out the window: Texas.

10. Four-wheel drive pick-up truck, shotgun mounted in rear window, beer cans on floor, squirrel tails attached to antenna: West Virginia.

11. Two hands gripping wheel, blue hair barely visible above windshield, driving 15 on West Oakland Avenue in the left lane with the right blinker on: Austin.

The driver to really worry about is:

Behind sunglasses on a cloudy day, carrying book bag full of groceries, bike wobbling, being passed by joggers on Queen’s biking path, waving at people he can’t see, possibly filling pipe with both hands cruising through intersection, muttering obscenities at squirrels darting into path, an Austin Daily Herald tucked under his arm … WATCH OUT!