You May Not Tie an Alligator to a Fire Hydrant: 101 Real Dumb Laws

You May Not Tie an Alligator to a Fire Hydrant is a collection of the 101 dumbest real federal, city, and state laws in America, compiled by Jeff Koon and Andy Powell, a couple of high school seniors with a Web site visited by hundreds of thousands of browsers every month. These laws will astonish, possibly outrage, and certainly amuse citizens everywhere.

Here you will learn that forgetting to close a gate is against the law in Nevada; that flying a kite is illegal in Schaumburg, Illinois; and that shaking carpets in the street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is strictly forbidden. You probably haven't tried cutting off your arm to make people feel sorry for you -- but if you live in Alabama, it is against the law. Many Texans will be surprised to learn that their hoes must be no less than four feet long.

Perhaps more disturbingly, Indianans will be forced to recognize that being sexually aroused in public could get them arrested. With so many potential legal pitfalls around us all, it is comforting, finally, to learn in these pages that, in Alaska, the people who make laws have sagely concluded that emergencies are "held to a minimum and are rarely found to exist."

This hilarious compilation features forty-six original illustrations by award-winning artist Ward Schumaker that brilliantly capture the absurdity of so many of our laws with a light and elegant touch.

WARNING
These laws, all verified by the authors and presented along with a reference to the corresponding federal, state, or city statute, may cause readers to lose any desire to pursue a career in law.

Jeff Koon co-authored You May Not Tie an Alligator to a Fire Hydrant at age seventeen while he was a senior in high school in 2002 after starting a website visited by thousands of browsers every month.
 

Andy Powell co-authored to You May Not Tie an Alligator to a Fire Hydrant at age seventeen while he was a senior in high school in 2002 after starting a website visited by thousands of browsers every month.
 

Ward Schumaker is a San Francisco-based artist and illustrator whose work has appeared in over 100 magazines world-wide, including Bloomberg Financial, The New Yorker, Le Monde, Esquire Japan, Macworld, and Fast Company.

He is author/illustrator of three children's books and the illustrator of two limited edition letter-press books. His work has been featured in articles in Communication Arts, Print, Step-by-Step, and Portfolio (Japan). With the Smithsonian Institution, Cooper-Hewit, National Design Museum in New York, he received a Federal Design Achievement Award for his work on "Unlimited by Design."