Sick of the whole carb thing? Wait'll you get hit with monumentia, already tearing across America like a summer flu. While there won't be a Reagan monument in Washington for 20 years, monumentia can strike any city any time. And already is.

The day before Reagan was buried, the governor of Illinois declared that the interstate near his hometown would be renamed in his honor. Fast, cheap, sincere, reversible.

Son-of-Reagan Ron just announced the all Ronald Reagan Channel. Timing, timinTIMING!

What worries me are the monuments, those erections in stone. Those things go up, but they never come down.

Monuments are not just things you have to drive around. They're also things that bring monumental traffic problems, which are actually opportunities to soak money out of people just passing through.

Municipalities across the nation, impoverished by trickle down taxes, will seize on the income from concessions, parking and bribery and graft, those natural byproducts of good government — money so desperately needed to keep the schools open.

This Faith-Based Nation, no longer exactly Under God per se, needs a new god anyway. But prudence behooves the more sinister among us to join the fray without delay before they do to President Reagan what they did to Ayatollah Khomeini, which is to say, canonize him.

Citizenry, be warned, be ready and armed with better ideas. Fire at will! Clog the system!

My submission:

TITLE: "One for the Gipper"

MATERIAL: Available in marble or durable plastic.

DESCRIPTION: There's a famous photograph of young Ronald Reagan as an artist's model, standing on a desk in a tight-fitting bathing suit, holding a football like a living trophy, surrounded by student sculptors who are all studying him just as we are studying him today. This is the monument I'd like to see in marble, including the underwear. DeLuxe versions include the student sculptors who made him in the first place.

MESSAGE: Ronald Reagan, model president, is a cost-effective fund-raising program that replaces lost federal income.

DOCENT PRATTLE: The football in Reagan's hand represents a great catch from Jerry Ford over the head of Jimmy Carter, which Reagan threw to Bush, who fumbled — intercepted by Clinton! Oh NO! Intercepted again! Time out time out, they called, and the game completely stopped in an effort to expel Clinton from the game for fraternization with the cheerleaders. The referrees examined the ball and decided it belonged to... a cheerleader! And onto the field stepped the Son of Bush, who took back the ball smugly and changed all the rules and came to be known as the Smuggler, much as Dutch Reagan was once known as the Gipper.