Boogers Are My Beat

by Dave Barry

  Here's what a stupid parent I am: On our first flight, I brought two newspapers on board. I did not read one word of either one. What I read was a book called Farm Faces, which is made entirely of cloth. There's a cow on the cover, and each page has a new animal. Here's the entire text: “chick,” “lamb,” “pig,” “duck,” “horse,” “worm.” I read this book to my daughter maybe forty times, using a dramatic and excited voice to show her how fascinating it was. I mean, talk about a surprise plot twist! I NEVER would have guessed worm!

  I also tried to interest Sophie in the in-flight movie, which was The Perfect Storm, in which George Clooney goes to sea in a fishing boat and is killed by special effects. Sophie did not care for it. I could see her point: I thought Farm Faces was less formulaic.

  It goes without saying that your baby will poop massively on the plane. This must have something to do with atmospheric pressure, because it never fails. Each year, more baby poop is produced on airplanes than in all of Portugal. Fortunately, most planes have a little changing shelf in the bathroom, which is the perfect size for a baby, provided that it is a baby gerbil. For human babies, you have to use the seat, which then must be burned when the plane lands. The only really practical place to change a baby on an airplane would be on the wing but, of course, you can't take the baby out there. The other passengers would never let you back inside.

  You know what we need? We need an airline just for people with babies (it could be called “Shrieking Prairie Dogs from Hell Airlines”). The planes would not have seats: Everyone would squat on the floor. The preflight safety lecture would consist of a demonstration of how to get a Lego out of a child's mouth. The in-flight meal would be Cheerios eaten off the floor. If the noise reached a certain decibel level, plastic tubes would automatically pop out of the ceiling to dispense liquid horse tranquilizer to the parents. The in-flight movie would be Farm Faces, starring George Clooney as Worm.

  Humvee Satisfies a Man's Lust for Winches

  It is time for our popular feature “Stuff That Guys Need.” Today's topic is: the Humvee.

  Most Americans became aware of the Humvee (military shorthand for HUgely Masculine VEEhickle) during the Gulf War, when U.S. troops, driving Humvees equipped with missile launchers, kicked Iraq's butt and taught Saddam Hussein a lesson that he would not forget for several weeks.

  After the war, a few wealthy Californians got hold of Humvees. This led to some mishaps, most notably when Arnold Schwarzenegger, attempting to open his garage door, accidentally launched a missile. Fortunately, it landed in a noncelebrity neighborhood.

  But once the “bugs” were ironed out, the Humvee became available for civilian purchase. I test-drove one recently thanks to my co-worker Terry Jackson, who is the Miami Herald's automotive writer and TV critic. That's correct: This man gets paid to drive new cars AND watch television. If he ever dies and goes to heaven, it's going to be a big letdown.

  When I arrived at Terry's house, there was a bright-yellow Humvee sitting in his driveway, covered with puddles of drool deposited by passing guys. In terms of styling, the Humvee is as masculine as a vehicle can get without actually growing hair in its wheel wells. It's a big, boxy thing with giant tires and many studly mechanical protuberances. It looks like something you'd buy as part of a toy action-figure set called “Sergeant Bart Groin and His Pain Platoon.”

  Terry told me this particular Humvee model cost $101,000, which sounds like a lot of money until you consider its features. For example, it has dashboard switches that enable you to inflate or deflate your tires as you drive. Is that cool, or WHAT? In a perfect guy universe, this feature would seriously impress women.

  GUY: Look! I can inflate the tires as I drive!

  WOMAN: Pull over right now, so we can engage in wanton carnality!

  Unfortunately, the real world doesn't work this way. I know this because when I took my wife for a ride in the Humvee, we had this conversation:

  ME: Look! I can inflate the tires as I drive!

  MY WIFE: Why?

  Another feature that my wife did not appreciate was the winch. This Humvee had a SERIOUS winch in front (“It can pull down a house,” noted Terry). There's nothing like the feeling of sitting in traffic, knowing that you have a MUCH bigger winch than any of the guys around you. Plus, a winch can be mighty handy in an emergency. Like, suppose some jerk runs you off the road into a ditch. After a tow truck pulls you out, you could find out where the jerk lives, then use your winch to pull down his house.

  The Humvee also boasts an engine. Terry offered to show it to me, but I have a strict policy of not looking at engines, because whenever I do, a mechanic appears and says “There's your problem right there” and charges me $758. I can tell you this, however: The Humvee engine is LOUD. I picture dozens of sweating men under the hood, furiously shoveling coal as Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet run gaily past.

  As for comfort: Despite the Humvee's ruggedness, when it's cruising on the highway, the “ride” is surprisingly similar to that of a full-size luxury sedan being dragged across a boulder field on its roof. But a truly masculine, big-winched man does not need comfort. All he needs is the knowledge that he can take his vehicle into harsh and unforgiving terrain. And I gave the Humvee the toughest challenge you can give a car in America. That's right: I drove it to a shopping mall just before Christmas.

  Perhaps you think I was foolhardy. Well, people said that the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama was foolhardy, too, and do you remember what he did? Neither do I. But if he had not done it, I doubt that Portugal would be what it is today: a leading producer of cork.

  And thus I found myself piloting the Humvee through the mall parking structure at roughly the speed of soybean growth, knowing that I was competing for the one available parking space with roughly 20,000 other motorists, but also knowing that ALL of them would have to stop their vehicles if they wanted to inflate or deflate their tires. The pathetic wimps! I could not help but cackle in a manly way. My wife was rolling her eyes at me, but by God I got us safely into and out of there, and I doubt that I used more than 300 gallons of fuel. So Saddam, if you're reading this, please send more.

  Dead or Alive, Turkeys Can Fowl Up Your Life

  It's almost Thanksgiving, a time for us to pause in our busy lives and remember, as the Pilgrims did so long ago, that an improperly cooked turkey can kill us.

  Even a live turkey can be dangerous. I base this statement on an article that I am not making up from the March 14 Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, sent in by alert reader Dan Broucek, which begins as follows:

  “A tom turkey crashed through the windshield of a dump truck early Monday in Butler County and struck a fighting posture with the surprised driver.”

  I didn't know that turkeys had a fighting posture. What do they do? Put up their dukes? But if they put up BOTH dukes, they'd topple over, right? Maybe they put up just one duke, and hop around on the other duke in a threatening fashion. Whatever they do, I'm sure it would be terrifying to see one of them doing it next to you in a dump truck.

  Fortunately, the driver was able to escape and call the police, who responded swiftly, as they do whenever they hear the dreaded radio code 10–84 (“Turkey in Fighting Posture”). The turkey, which weighed twenty-five pounds, was apprehended by a state game official who, incredibly, let it go without pressing charges.

  Now here is where our story gets alarming: According to articles (also sent in by Dan Broucek) from the March 16 and 17 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, just two days after the dump-truck incident, a woman was getting out of her car-pool van in downtown Pittsburgh when something came plummeting out of the sky, missing her by inches, and splatted on the sidewalk. Can you guess what that something was? That's correct: a Pilgrim.

  No, seriously, it was a turkey. Specifically, it was a twenty-five-pound tom turkey, which had apparently crashed into a skyscraper twenty floors above. We do not have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out what happened. I mean, how many twenty-five-pound turkeys could there
be in the Pittsburgh area answering to the name “tom”? Clearly this was the same turkey that went after the dump truck, and when all it received was a slap on the wrist (I am assuming here that turkeys have wrists), it developed a fatal blood lust, as wild animals so often do, for things with windows, and it decided to attack a skyscraper. Remember that there was a time in this nation, centuries ago, when giant herds of these vicious predatory birds roamed the forests, duking it out with whatever dared to get in their way, and shaking their mighty wattles in triumph, knowing that they were the Masters of the Forest, and that “The Mighty Shaking Wattles” would be a good name for a rock band (specifically, the Rolling Stones).

  This is why the American Poultry Manufacturers of America stress that, in selecting a Thanksgiving turkey, the No. 1 rule is, quote, “it should be a dead turkey.” Look for one that has been frozen solid enough to deflect a .38-caliber bullet; if it doesn't, put it right back into the freezer and fire into the supermarket ceiling until the Poultry Manager brings you something more acceptable.

  PREPARING THE TURKEY: Proper turkey preparation is critical because, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more Americans die every year from eating improperly cooked turkey than were killed in the entire Peloponnesian War. This is because turkey can contain salmonella, which are tiny bacteria that, if they get in your bloodstream, develop into full-grown salmon, which could come leaping out of your mouth during an important business presentation.

  This does NOT mean you can't serve turkey this Thanksgiving! It just means that you, personally, should not eat it.

  Step one in preparing the turkey is to let it thaw (allow six to eight years). Step two is to reach your hand inside the slimy, dark chest cavity of the turkey and remove the giblets. Be careful, because you are intruding upon the territory of the deadly North American giblet snake, which can grow, coiled inside an innocent-looking 12-pound turkey, to a length of 55 feet. In one of the most horrifying moments in cooking history, one of these monsters attacked Julia Child during her live 1978 Thanksgiving TV special; it would have strangled her if she had not known exactly where to insert her baster. Few people who have seen this chilling footage have failed to order the videotape from PBS.

  Assuming you get the giblets out safely, Step three is to cook the turkey until it reaches a minimum internal temperature of 7,500 degrees centigrade (check by feeling the turkey's wrist). You're all done! It's time to enjoy a hearty Thanksgiving dinner, just like the one enjoyed by the Pilgrims. None of whom are alive today.

  By the Way, Those Turkey Snakes Have Giant Fangs, Too

  In the newspaper business (motto: “Trust Us! We're English Majors!”) we have high standards of accuracy. Before we print anything, we make sure that:

  • We personally believe it's true, or

  • A reliable source (defined as “a source wearing business attire”) told us it's true, or

  • Another newspaper, with a respectable newspaper name such as “The Fort Smidling Chronic Truncator” says it's true, or

  • It's getting late and we need to print SOMETHING so we can go to the bar.

  Despite these safeguards, newspapers are not perfect, as evidenced by the recent front-page New York Times story incorrectly identifying Gen. Colin Powell as “the capital of Guam.” (He is, in fact, the capital of Vermont.) But what makes newspapers special is that, in the words of the great seventeenth-century editor Walter Cronkite, “When we mess up, we 'fess up.”

  That's why I want to correct an error I made recently in a column on preparing a Thanksgiving turkey. Specifically, I wrote that you should be careful when reaching inside the turkey, because:

  “. . . you are intruding upon the territory of the deadly North American giblet snake, which can grow, coiled inside an innocent-looking 12-pound turkey, to a length of 55 feet. In one of the most horrifying moments in cooking history, one of these monsters attacked Julia Child during her live 1978 Thanksgiving TV special; it would have strangled her if she had not known exactly where to insert her baster.”

  After that column appeared, I received a letter, which I am not making up, from a woman in Lima, Ohio, who stated:

  “I have a friend that will not eat turkey now and is afraid to put her hand in the cavity to clean one. I tried to tell her it was humor and no way could a 12-lb. turkey hold a 55-foot snake, nor could Julia Child kill one with a baster. She is not to be consoled. Please write about this in the near future, so my friend can enjoy turkey again.”

  I also received a letter from a woman in Canada who said that her 83-year-old mother now refuses to eat turkey because “people were finding snakes in the internal cavity.”

  So it seems that my column inadvertently started an “urban myth,” like the one about albino alligators in the New York sewers, or the one about the president of the United States being chosen by some “Electoral College.”

  To clear this up, I did some research on the Internet. I wish I'd done so sooner, because with just a few mouse clicks I was able to locate many photographs of naked people. After researching these for several days, I went to an Internet research site and typed in the words turkey snakes; this led me to a site called “Reptiles and Amphibians of Europe,” where I learned that there is a snake, found in Turkey, called the Large Whip Snake, or, in Latin, “Coluber jugularis jugularis” (literally, “chronic truncator”) that grows to a length of 120 inches. According to the description, this snake “. . . strikes with an open mouth . . . the recurved teeth are apparently very difficult to remove if lodged in the skin.”

  So I want to set the record straight about reaching into turkey cavities: There is NO DANGER that a 55-foot snake will strangle you. The snake will be at most 10 feet long, and it will merely lodge its teeth permanently in your skin. My mistake!

  This does not mean, however, that we should let our guard down regarding poultry. I say this in light of news reports, sent in by many alert readers, concerning a woman in Newport News, Virginia, who purchased a box of chicken wings at a fast-food restaurant that, in the interest of avoiding a lawsuit, I will call by the totally made-up name “FcFonald's.” Inside the box, the woman found—you guessed it—Walter Cronkite.

  No, seriously, she allegedly found a deep-fried chicken head. She alerted the media, which published photographs of the chicken head: It looks like Sen. Strom Thurmond, only with a more natural hairstyle. When I saw this, I got right back on the Internet, because I wanted to answer a question that has no doubt already occurred to you: Is there a band called the Chicken Heads? It turns out there is. Some band members dress as chickens, but before you dismiss them as a bunch of “wackos,” bear in mind that other members dress as a giant carrot and a wedge of cheese. They have a song called The Man Without Nostrils.

  I hope this clears up any confusion. If you have further questions, please write to me, c/o This Newspaper, 123 Main Street, Colin Powell, Vermont, 12345. I'll be at the bar.

  A GPS Helps a Guy Always Know Where His Couch Is

  I'm a big fan of technology. Most guys are. This is why all important inventions were invented by guys.

  For example, millions of years ago, there was no such thing as the wheel. One day, some primitive guys were watching their wives drag a dead mastodon to the food-preparation area. It was exhausting work; the guys were getting tired just WATCHING. Then they noticed some large, smooth, rounded boulders, and they had an idea: They could sit on the boulders and watch! This was the first in a series of breakthroughs that ultimately led to television.

  So we see that there are vital reasons why guys are interested in technology, and why women should not give them a hard time about always wanting to have the “latest gadget.” And when I say “women,” I mean “my wife.”

  For example, as a guy, I feel I need a new computer every time a new model comes out, which is every fifteen minutes. This baffles my wife, who has had the same computer since the Civil War and refuses to get a new one because—get THIS for an excuse—the one she has wor
ks fine. I try to explain that, when you get a new computer, you get exciting new features. My new computer has a truly fascinating feature: Whenever I try to turn it off, the following message, which I am not making up, appears on the screen:

  “An exception 0E has occurred at 0028:F000F841 in VxD—. This was called from 0028:C001D324 in VxD NDIS(01) + 00005AA0. It may be possible to continue normally.”

  Clearly, this message is not of human origin. Clearly, my new computer is receiving this message from space aliens. I don't understand all of it, but apparently there has been some kind of intergalactic problem that the aliens want to warn us about. What concerns me is the last sentence, because if the aliens are telling us that “it may be possible to continue normally,” they are clearly implying that it may NOT be possible to continue normally. In other words, the Earth may be doomed, and the aliens have chosen ME to receive this message. If I can figure out exactly what they're saying, I might be able to save humanity!

  Unfortunately, I don't have time, because I'm busy using my new GPS device. This is an extremely important gadget that every guy in the world needs. It receives signals from orbiting satellites, and somehow—I suspect the “cosine” is involved—it figures out exactly where on the Earth you are. Let's say you're in the town of Arcola, Illinois, but for some reason you do not realize this. You turn on your GPS, and, after pondering for a few minutes, it informs you that you are in . . . Arcola, Illinois! My wife argues that it's easier to just ASK somebody, but of course you cannot do that, if you truly are a guy.

  I became aware of how useful a GPS can be when I was on a plane trip with a literary rock band I belong to called the Rock Bottom Remainders, which has been hailed by critics as having one of the world's highest ratios of noise to talent. On this trip were two band members whom I will identify only as “Roger” and “Steve,” so that you will not know that they are actually Roger McGuinn, legendary co-founder of the Byrds, and Stephen King, legendary legend.