An open letter to my brother-in-law Richie Demato, who just graduated from St. Augustine High School and is now headed for the University of Central Florida.

So you’re a college boy now, huh? Think you’re pretty special, I bet. Like you’re on top of the world. Well … you are! How I wish I was going back to college. People send you money there. That spigot shutdown for me a long time ago.

But I thought I would pass along some of my hard-earned wisdom that I think can help make your college experience much better (or at least more interesting). Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Personal hygiene and laundry are not for wussies. It’s for people who don’t want to end developing five kinds of fungus, including a portabello mushroom farm on their back.

My roommate in college, a good friend named Don, did not wash his bed sheets for an entire year. Not once. They began the year navy blue and ended a color that had never been discovered before. Investigating scientists named it College Crud 186.

Young Don was also not known for doing laundry on a timely basis. As the No. 1 cross country runner at Flagler, this often meant some creative running outfits. One day I remember him rushing in to get ready and realizing he had nothing but a paper towel to wear for a shirt. Having already worn the paper towel the day before, and too fashion conscious to wear it two days in a row, he began digging through a hamper of clothes that smelled like a cheese shop in a week-long blackout.

He picked a tank top that was the least gag-inducing, gave it a spritz of Polo cologne and declared it good-to-go. A green haze rose up from the shirt, and the doorway swelled as he passed through. The coach thought the team was on drugs because everyone running with Don had bloodshot eyes.

• Remember that beer is not one of the major food groups. And while it might look cool in movies, pouring it over cereal only makes it taste like an ash tray.

• Understand that a balanced diet must consist of more than bread, mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce. Listen, you go four years living on only pizza and you’ll end up like a guy I knew who still looks and smells like a stick of pepperoni.

• Be afraid, be very afraid, of the day when your college sends that list of “things” they say you need for school. If you can, don’t let your mother see it … EVER! That list is filled with a kingdom of items you will never want, and as a guy, most likely will never use. College supplies are like your appendix — they’re worthless.

But someone will buy them all for you, and because you’re a nice guy, you won’t throw them away … ever. I still have a miniature tool kit with a hammer the size of a bottle opener. Never been used.

This list might include: a shaving kit (you will shave only once in your college career), a laundry hamper (sometimes re-usable as a beer can recycler), a staple remover (1963 was the last recorded year in which a staple remover was used), yaffa blocks (don’t ask), a spoon, a knife and a fork that can be clipped together (but never unclipped), and an iron and miniature ironing board. (The miniature ironing board is so you can iron all the clothes you shrink in the dryer because you didn’t listen to your mother.)

• Get yourself a hot plate. Even though we’re living in a world where proper food is much more plentiful for the average college student, no one should ever graduate and enter the real world without heating up a can of Beanie Weenies in their dorm room. It’s a time-honored tradition. Like beer in your cereal.

Now good luck and enjoy.

You have got to be kidding me.

Did the front page of the paper really say it? Hurricane season starts in less than two weeks. Did my eyes deceive me?

We just went through hurricane season, the worst we’ve ever known, and it nearly separated our great state from the mainland. We just barely survived, and now there’s another one coming? Don’t we get a rest? A get out of jail free pass?

We get nothing, accept the chance to buy more bottled water, potted meat and assorted knickknacks we don’t need. You ever stock up on D batteries, only to sit around in the dark with your head in your hands because you don’t have anything to use them in?

A year later, they’re still in the pantry, leaking battery acid all over your wife’s favorite embroidered napkins — the ones passed down from a great aunt in Denmark.
So we’ll do it all over again. Do not pass go, do not collect $200 and put the big bullseye back on your roof that reads, “Hurricane parking, $5.”

While the heart of the season is still months off, the predictions don’t look good. The story I read said 12 to 15 tropical storms with maybe seven to nine becoming hurricanes. At least two are expected to team up and charge through the Atlantic like twin buzzsaws, one will learn how to rain fire and another is expected to be rabid with a case of measles.

My prediction is that seven storms, and a squaw, will hit Florida, and by the time it’s over, the state will be shaped like a squashed toad and we will be demoted from state to landfill.

Not to be a pessimist, but I know it’s going to be a bad season. There’s one simple reason: my yard looks great. I don’t need the National Hurricane Center or computer models to predict storm activity or how many tropical waves will come off Africa. My bougainvillea is blooming, and it never has since I’ve planted it. That can’t be good.

Peruse your own yard if you don’t believe me. Are plants that have never flowered suddenly looking like they’re juiced on steroids? Are neighbors complimenting your yard, and no longer saying things like, “Wow, that’s handsome dirt” or “Have you considered asphalt?”

Is the grass growing? Are the trees nice and trimmed? Is everything as it should be, like a fairy tale, brimming with flowers and butterflies and singing frogs?

Then we’re doomed!

Yards know — they’re vegetative predictors. A good looking yard means either hurricanes, drought or freezes are on the way, and sometimes all three.

It’s a final gasp of glory, an explosion of color and extravagant vegetation in a big raucous party, all before the winds come and scatter it to Alabama. Enjoy it now.

That said, I’m getting ready this year. No goofing off. No partial planning and perennial procrastinating.

In an old house where the roof is attached by tape and the critters who live in the attic have the good sense to get out and flee as a storm approaches, it’s nerve-racking and I want to be prepared.

I learned some valuable lessons last year. Like how handy a gas grill and a freezer full of frozen, catalog-bought steaks can be. My neighbors taught me that, and they’re Yankees.

Hurricane supplies should not be a six-pack of mini-Cokes, a peanut M&M found between the cushions of the sofa and a slightly-dry moist towelette. That’s for a week-long road trip, not a natural disaster.

So I’m preparing — getting ready to gas the car and board up the windows. I suggest you do, too. And if you don’t believe me, come on over and have a talk with my bougainvillea. He’ll set you straight.

I call them the country cousins, even though they live in the city and should be more sophisticated. My mother ran them through her own version of charm school, but it didn’t take.

They’re my brother’s dogs, a couple of American mutts who know how to make a wild time wherever they go. They’re much different than my dog, Chase, a city dog with refined stylings and cosmopolitan tastes.

The country cousins have bad habits. They drool, smoke and spit. They chew tobacco. When they ride in the car with the windows rolled down, their heads stick out so far that they nip the ears of people passing by.

They make crank phone calls, and don’t use deodorant. They scratch a lot, in the most uncouth areas — it’s not pretty to see. They drip dirt, never know the right thing to say, and generally turn mayhem into an artform.

Did I mention they shed like a stormy sky rains, and barbs on their fur stick tight to everything, like Velcro?

When the country cousins get dropped off for some reason or other, we have to get ready. We put a big sheet down in the middle of the floor, sprinkle a nice layer of sand to make them feel at home, and buy extra paper towels. We notify the authorities, pre-apologize to the neighbors and do some stretching exercises that were specially designed for such occasions.

And then we close all the windows when we go out. We learned our lesson recently. One of them, Sandy, likes to bust out the screen and leap for freedom, her gawky limbs flailing in every direction as she hurtles toward the ground. I can only assume this is what she looks like because I’ve never seen it. I picture her jumping as if from an airplane — butt first, legs extended, tail tucked under, ears back, and attempting a triple backward isosceles triangle.

The first time she did this, my wife and I returned to find her milling around in the front yard, quite content with herself and eating grass.

“Sandy! How’d you get out here,” I yelled, and she didn’t answer. She looked proud and pleased, and also a little rabid.

My screen window was blown out like a rhino had hollered “Geronimo!” and jumped through. And it wasn’t the window on the porch, mind you. She went straight out the window on the side of the house, and straight down. A country cousin leaps before she looks.

I could picture both her sister and my dog standing there watching the whole episode in stunned disbelief.

“Did she just jump out the window?”

I know my dog and I know her reactions. It would have been total shock, and I can see her there, that face that screams, “Holy crap! Now you’ve done it. Now you’re gonna’ be in trouble. How you gonna’ get back in?”

The other one, with that goofy grin that makes you wonder if anyone’s home in the hen house, probably just stood there panting, not sure what to make of it all.

Oreo, a part-time manatee, has a face that can only say the variation of one word: Doh? or Doh!

More likely than not, she would have gone out the window, too, if not for the fact that she’s so tubby and would have ended up stuck on the sill, her little fat feet flailing in the wind.

Lucky for me, Sandy had no plan for hopping the fence, and she took to grazing. Now when the country cousins come over we seal up the house and put a parachute on her.

But you know, despite their country pedigree and their penchant for filth, cursing and watching NASCAR, they’re good dogs. They’re family, knots and all. Civilized city dogs and country cousins — they’re all just dogs. Although, the country kind sure do go out a lot of windows.

So gas prices are approaching the cost of college tuition. It’s now cheaper to fly first class to France than it is to drive that SUV down to the convenience mart and pick up a quart of milk. And soon, mark my word, you’ll be caught in a dark alley and hear from the shadows a low voice mutter, “OK, buddy, give me all your gas.”

That’s the fuel-dependant world we live in.

But I feel pretty unique because I don’t live more than a half mile from work. In other words, I haven’t needed to take out a loan yet to cover my gas card bill.

Sometimes my wife and I drive to work, and other times we walk. To mix it up, sometimes I drive, forget the car is there, and then walk home. This makes it interesting when my wife looks out the window and screams, “Where’s the car?”

It prompts me to scream, “Oh no, those blammin’ jimmy-ammies stole it again!”

A moment or two later sanity taps me on the shoulder and I turn to my wife to admit that this isn’t nearly as bad as the time I put my underwear on over my pants.

But think of all that gas I’m saving.

We’re extremely lucky. We’re not adding rubbing alcohol to the tank to make it last longer, or having to lose weight to make road trips more economical.

People tell me how they’re spending ungodly sums of money each week, and I just nod my head in agreement and say, “Man, no kidding. When I filled up in December, I couldn’t believe what a quarter of a tank cost.”

I was thinking about all of this the other day when an issue of U.S. News and World Report arrived with a cover story titled, “There’s a hybrid in your future.”

My first reaction was, “Jeez, I hope they have a cure for that.”

But then I realized it was just talking about these fuel efficient cars of tomorrow, partly run on regular combustion engines and partly run on electrical. I’m just repeating what I’m reading — for all I know you stick two feet out the holes in the floor and power it Flintstone-style.

Personally, I think the idea of the hybrid is great, and I certainly support anything that makes better use of our natural resources … and keeps me from having to wear a gas mask or an aluminum foil suit to protect me from the sun.

Maybe the hybrid is the answer to this fuel crisis. But I tell you I’m a little concerned, and think the biggest hurdle for the hybrid industry is simply selling anything called a “hybrid.” It’s like buying a car that’s called “the mutant.” Is it a monster or a fuel-efficient car? “See Godzilla vs. the Hybrid. One will devour Tokyo on 65 miles to the gallon and the other will run off with a she-lizard called Gladys the Big Tail.”

Not “hybrid.” How about “Hippies Love It” or “Can Still Afford Groceries.” Something catchy, maybe the “Green Gas Mobile.”

At least hybrids are becoming more appealing in their looks. The early ones seemed to be styled after chewed gum or a bunion. Nobody wants to buy a car that looks like a bunion. Who wants that?

Fuel efficiency be damned, Americans want style. They want to look good. And if it were me designing these cars, I would address America’s undying love for really large automobiles. Not that these hybrids have to be large — just sell add-on kits. Sure. It wouldn’t need to be anything more than cardboard cutouts of SUVs or dump trucks that you tape to the frame. Look gets old, get yourself a new one shaped like an MX missile. Why doesn’t anyone consult me on these things?

We’ve got a problem in this country and it’s time we started solving it. I don’t have all the answers, but I’ve got a few. So I’m willing to help, if I could just find my car.