Law and disorder

                 "Afternoon, ma'am.  My name's Friday.  I carry a badge."
                 "How can I help you, Sergeant?"
                 "Ma'am, it's come to our attention that you've been sweeping dirt and dust under the rugs in your home.  Is that true, ma'am?
                 "Uh, I think there might have been a time, um, maybe once when......."
                 "Just the facts, ma'am."
                 "Oh, no!  OK.  I admit it.  I'm guilty."
                 "Ma'am, you'll have to come with us, as you're in violation of Section 6, sub-section 7: Surreptitiously Sweeping Soot, Soil or Sediment.  You'll appear before Judge Armand Hammer in Courtroom 409 at dawn tomorrow to resolve this issue."
                 (BUM buh BUM-BUM........BUM buh BUM-BUM BUHHH!)
                 The story you have just read is true.  More accurately, it might well have been true.  Time was in Pennsylvania when a special cleaning ordinance banned housewives from hiding dirt and dust under a rug in a dwelling.  Makes me wonder what in the name of Swiffer that lawmakers were thinking (drinking? smoking?) back then.
                 I was reminded of this old, headscratching Pennsylvania law upon learning this week of an unusual one in Montgomery Township:  It's illegal to back a vehicle out of a driveway and onto any street.
                But unless one has a wide driveway, there probably isn't enough room to turn the vehicle around before exiting.  In that case, the alternative is to back into the driveway from a busy road.  So you're either backing it in or backing it out.
                Later this month, the township hopes to back out of the 46-year-old ordinance by amending the zoning code to allow vehicles to be backed out onto all streets except county, state, and high-traffic secondary township roads.
               While the township attempts to get itself headed in the right direction, I'd like to share some other backward laws throughout our state.
                There used to be a law calling for fire hydrants to be checked one hour before all fires.  I'm not certain, but I believe they were monitored by Madam Zelda's Tarot Card Co. and sponsored by Mystic Pizza.
               There also still exists a law, although it's not enforced, that requires any motorist along a country road at night to stop every mile and send up a rocket signal, wait 10 minutes for the road to be cleared of livestock, then continue.
               If my math is correct, a motorist beginning a 100-mile trip would need to load his trunk with enough explosives to level a 10-story building.  Shouldn't there be a law against that?
              Another unenforced law that's still on the books requires a motorist who sees a skittish team of horses trotting down the road to move to the roadside and cover his vehicle with a large blanket or equivalent to prevent the animals from being spooked.  If that doesn't help calm the equines, the motorist must disassemble his vehicle and move the pieces out of the horses' view.  Me?  I have trouble opening the gas cap.
              Several of these outdated laws dealt with the safety of animals.  That's understandable, given that many of the folks who farmed the land and raised livestock and suchlikely served on the town councils that enacted the laws.
             Pennsylvania isn't the only state with outdated laws.
             In Hartford, Conn., it's illegal to educate dogs.
             In Winona Lake, Wis., it's illegal to eat ice cream at a counter on Sunday.
             In Dennison, Texas, it's illegal for women to adjust their sheer stockings in public.
             In Michigan, a woman cannot have her hairstyle altered without her husband's permission.
             Why?  He legally owns it.
             And finally there's this from the sexist file in Memphis, Tenn. :  It's illegal for a woman to operate a vehicle unless a man waves a red flag in front of it warning others that a woman is behind the wheel.
             Now that's backward.