Dave Barry Talks Back

by Dave Barry

  APOCALYPSE COW

  I have wonderful news for those of you who were disappointed when the world failed to end last year.

  In case you missed it, what happened last year was that a man named Edgar Whisenant, who is a former NASA rocket engineer, came out with a booklet in which he proved via exact mathematical calculations based on the Bible that the world was going to end in 1988, most likely on September 12. I first heard Mr. Whisenant explain this on a radio show one morning when I was in New Orleans for the Republican convention. At the time I was thrilled, because I had spent the previous evening with some other trained journalists at an establishment named Nick C. Castrogiovanni’s Original Big Train Bar, which features a specialty drink that comes in a large foam container shaped like a toilet, and as far as I was concerned the world could not end soon enough. A lot of other True Believers around the country also got very excited over Mr. Whisenant’s prediction, so you an imagine what a letdown it was when September 12 rolled around and—as you know if you keep up with the news—the world did not end, which meant among other things that we had to go ahead with this presidential election.

  Well, guess what. Mr. Whisenant has just come out with another booklet, and in Chapter 1 (entitled “What Went Wrong in 1988”) he graciously admits that there was an error in his calculations. He now scientifically calculates that the world will probably end on—mark it in your appointment calendar—this coming September 1. Yes! Before the World Series.

  So you need to get ready. You need to prepare for The End by doing some real “soul searching” and asking yourself this hard question: “If the world ended tomorrow, could I honestly say that I have done everything I could, as a spiritual person, to run up my VISA balance?” Think about it! Because come September 1 it’s all over. All the people who have led moral lives will go straight to heaven, whereas you and your friends are going to suffer through seven years of wars, plagues, famines, and sitting in a small room while a man named “Nate” explains the advantages of time-sharing. And then you will go to hell, which as you frequent fliers know is located in Concourse D of O’Hare International Airport. See you there!

  Please bear in mind, however, that just because the world is coming to an end does NOT mean that you are relieved of your civic responsibility to be alarmed about the ongoing international epidemic of exploding organisms. I regret to report that the situation has worsened drastically, to the point where we here at the National Exploding Organism Alarm Bureau (B.O.O.M.) are declaring a Condition Red Alert Mode Status Condition.

  As you know if you read this column regularly but have retained some brain functionality, over the past year we have gone through an escalating series of Alert Conditions in response to documented reports of organisms exploding, as follows:

  CONDITION YELLOW: Snail.

  CONDITION BROWN: Pig, Cow.

  CONDITION YUCK-O-RAMA: Human stomach, municipal toilets.

  CONDITION POTATO: Potato.

  But we are now forced to declare Condition Red in response to a recent deluge of letters from readers who want to know the proper pronunciation of “deluge.” Also we have received many alarming new reports of exploding organisms. For example, each of the following items was submitted by several Alert Readers:

  The Chicago Tribune reported that a bison at the Atlanta Zoo “was overfed and then transported in a truck. Its stomach exploded en route, killing the animal.”

  The Baltimore Sun reported that when a 40-ton whale carcass turned up in Baltimore harbor, sightseers were kept away because, according to a federal official, the decomposing whale “might explode.”

  The National Law Journal reported that a man is suing the Arm & Hammer baking soda company, claiming that after he took some baking soda for indigestion, his bison exploded. No! Wait! He claims his stomach exploded. Sorry if we alarmed you.

  The Virginian-Review in Covington, Virginia, published a column entitled “Aunt Mary’s Letter Box,” at the top of which is a drawing of a sweet-looking elderly lady with wire-rimmed glasses. The first letter asks how to get rid of pesky black ants. Here’s Aunt Mary’s answer, which I swear I am not making up: “Make a small ring of jelly and in the center place some yeast. The ants will eat through the jelly and then get to the yeast. After they eat the yeast they will explode.” Ha ha! That Aunt Mary! I’d love to find out how she got rid of pesky Uncle Bill.

  But this is no time for speculation. No, this is a time for courage. There’s an inspirational saying that high-school football coaches use to send their young “gladiators” out onto the “battlefield” to have their knee cartilage turned into “gumbo,” and it goes like this: “When the going gets tough, everybody should crawl under the dinette table of his or her choice and commence whimpering.” If you have no dinette table, you should purchase one, scheduling your payments to start sometime after September 1.

  POP GOES THE WEASEL

  This is getting scary.

  I am referring to the alarming increase in the number of spontaneously exploding animals. If you read this column regularly, you definitely need to get some kind of therapy, but you also are aware that we have repeatedly presented documentary proof of explosions involving the following broad spectrum of animal life:

  1. A snail.

  2. A cow.

  The snail, you will recall, exploded in a restaurant in Syracuse, New York, whereas the exploding cow was in New Zealand. So clearly we are looking at a Global Trend, yet our so-called “leadership” remains silent. What is it going to take? Must we wait until the president of the United States, demonstrating his concern for Agriculture, poses for a photo opportunity at a dairy farm, and suddenly the air is filled with the unmistakable sound (“whumph”) of detonating beef, and the leader of the Free World is caught in a hail of bovine organs, including up to four stomachs, traveling at up to 350 miles per hour? Wouldn’t that be great? Ha ha!

  Fine, go ahead and have your cheap sophomoric laughs. But perhaps you will not be so amused when we report the shocking information we have obtained recently concerning:

  EXPLODING PIGS

  Yes. Pigs. This was brought to our attention by several alert readers who sent us an article from the Weekly World News, a respected supermarket-checkout publication whose journalism motto is “Licentia Vatun Veritatis” (literally, “Leech Boy Eats Mom”). The article concerns farmers in Brazil who are upset because their pigs, as the News sensitively puts it, “are exploding like bombs.” In case anyone might have the slightest doubt about the accuracy of this story, there is an actual photograph of a pig, which has been cut in half (we’re talking about the photograph), with the word “BANG!” realistically inserted between the two halves. Case closed!

  So we now have solid evidence of explosions in three species of animals. And that, we fear, is not all. This whole animal situation is turning out to be a lot like an iceberg, where you see only a small portion sticking up in the air, but when you look below the surface, you discover a huge quantity of exploding penguins. Because lately we have been receiving a lot of alarming animal-related news articles, such as the one concerning the:

  VIOLENT SPORTSWEAR-OBSESSED ATTACK OWL

  Alert reader Joyce Schwettman sent in this article, from the Anchorage Daily News, concerning a man named Bruce Talbot who was skiing in a park, minding his own business, when a great horned owl swooped down and, over the course of the next few minutes, relieved the increasingly alarmed Mr. Talbot of the following articles of clothing: his hat, his gloves, his coat, his vest, and finally his shirt We are not making this up. The owl would get his talons into a garment, and the only way Mr. Talbot could escape was to remove the garment, and then the owl would latch on to another garment, and so on until the owl had assembled almost a complete skiwear ensemble and Mr. Talbot was half-naked and skiing for his life, hoping to make it to safety before the owl developed a hankering for his pants.

  The article quotes a wildlife official as saying that great horned owls “regularly” attack people
. “They have very powerful feet,” the official says, leading us to believe that it is just a matter of time before these creatures are employed by automobile dealerships (“No thanks really, I was just look … HEY! Let GO!!”).

  But we don’t want to think about that now. Right now we want to devote all our mental energy to trying to comprehend an article from the Montgomery County, Maryland, Journal, alertly sent to us by C. H. Breedlove, Jr., concerning a:

  DRAMATIC LOBSTER RESCUE

  You’re going to be sure that we made this up, but we didn’t. It seems that a Rockville, Maryland, restaurant called The House of Chinese Gourmet installed a lobster tank, which greatly upset some customers who belong to a group called the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, whose members apparently have (1) a deep respect for all living things and (2) a tremendous amount of spare time. They bought seven lobsters from the restaurant for $40, removed them from the tank (according to the article, a PETA member “talked softly and rubbed the lobsters to reassure them”), and then paid $200 to fly the lobsters to Portland, Maine, where they (the lobsters) were released in the ocean, where we are sure they will live happy, productive lives until they are recaptured by lobstermen, who will re-sell them to The House of Chinese Gourmet, which will re-sell them to PETA, and thus will the Great Cycle of Life continue until the lobsters become so airsick that they deliberately hurl themselves into boiling water.

  Our final alarming item is an Associated Press photograph, sent in by various readers, showing an Afghan Freedom Fighter using a rocket-propelled grenade launcher—no doubt paid for with our tax dollars—to shoot at fish. We thought you PETA members should know.

  CHEEP SEX

  Many, many of you have written to me asking the following question: “Dave, are there any new developments in the field of artificial falcon insemination, and could these developments help improve the American electoral process?”

  I am pleased to report that the answer to both questions is “yes.” I have received some very exciting information on this subject from alert reader Lance Waller, who sent me an article from the April issue of Smithsonian magazine concerning the World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise, Idaho. The Center is engaged in the preservation of falcons, fierce birds of prey that are named after the Ford Falcon, which holds the proud title of Slowest Car Ever Built. In certain areas of the country you can go to a stoplight and find Falcon drivers who pressed down on their accelerators in 1963 and are still waiting for their cars to move.

  Anyway, the scientists at the Center are trying to breed falcons, sometimes via artificial insemination, which means they (the scientists) have to get hold of some falcon semen, which you cannot simply pick up in your local supermarket. (Well, OK, you CAN, but it’s not fresh.)

  So according to Smithsonian magazine, these scientists obtain the semen via a process so wondrous that you will insist I made it up, but I did not. Here, according to the article, is how it works: First, a falcon handler hand-feeds a baby male falcon, which eventually “regards its handler as another falcon.” Then, when the falcon matures, the handler goes into a chamber with it and they engage in a courtship ritual, wherein they bow their heads and make cheeping sounds. “The two of them provide an amazing spectacle,” states the article, “man and bird bowing and cheeping, affectionate lovers arousing each other.”

  Then the handler puts on—remember, I am not making this up—“a nondescript fedora with a rubber dam around the crown to catch the semen.” He turns around, and the falcon “flies to the hat and, with much cheeping and fluttering of wings, copulates with it.”

  The magazine has an actual photograph of this, showing a man with his arms folded, wearing a facial expression that would look somber and dignified, suitable for a portrait painting of a bank president, except that the man is wearing an extremely comical hat, on top of which is this large, wildly excited bird experiencing a Climactic Moment. (The article doesn’t say what happens next, but I like to think they smoke tiny cigarettes.)

  Anyway, looking at this picture, I couldn’t help but think about the American electoral process. You know how your top political figures traditionally demonstrate their qualifications for high government office by putting on virtually any form of cretin headwear that is handed to them? Well, think how it would be if, during the 1992 presidential campaign, some leading presidential contender was making an appearance in Iowa, and some innocent-looking Girl Scout handed him what she claimed was a special ceremonial headdress, and he put it on, and his head suddenly became a highly erotic stimulant for major birds of prey (“In a surprise campaign development that raises delicate legal issues, Rep. Dick Gephardt was carried off today by a large, cheeping flock of lust-crazed, federally protected falcons”).

  Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Wouldn’t that transform the presidential campaign from an endless droning bore into something you’d genuinely look forward to on the TV news? Oh, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “But what if the politicians like it? What if they start wearing their hats all the time? What if, say, the vice president starts wearing one to formal foreign funerals? Where would he get a hat small enough? Certainly these are large hurdles, but I am certain that, as a nation, we will find a way to overcome them. But not right now. Right now I have to go. Rex is chirping for me.

  DEATH BY TOOTHPICK

  Here at the Bureau of Medical Alarm, we continue to receive shocking new evidence that being human is an extremely dangerous occupation that probably should be prohibited by law.

  For example, consider the alarming article sent in by alert reader Jessica Bernstein from the August 10, 1984 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, entitled “Toothpick-Related Injuries in the United States, 1979 Through 1982.” This article notes with concern that although toothpicks “are long, slender, hard, sharp, and indigestible, they are rarely considered objects of potential injury and death.” Yes! Death! The article reports that during the period studied, there have been thousands of toothpick-related injuries and three actual fatalities.

  What gets our goat, here at the Bureau of Medical Alarm, is that these needless tragedies could be avoided if the government would simply require all toothpicks to carry this printed message:

  WARNING: THE SURGEON GENERAL HAS DETERMINED THAT YOU SHOULD NOT SWALLOW THIS TOOTHPICK OR STAB YOURSELF IN THE EYEBALL WITH IT WHILE TRYING TO READ THIS WARNING.

  Why hasn’t this been done? When will the politicians stop knuckling under the powerful toothpick lobby, with its easy money, fast boats, and loose women? How come powerful lobbies never send loose women down here to the Bureau of Medical Alarm? These are some of the questions that were very much on our minds until we were distracted by an even more alarming article, sent in by alert reader Betsy Powers, from the July 5, 1980 issue of the British Medical Journal. Unfortunately we cannot be too specific about this article, because this is a family newspaper (it has a wife newspaper and two little baby newspapers at home). All we can say is that the article involves an upsetting development that can occur when a well-known male bodily part gets too close to a working vacuum cleaner. This seems to be a fairly common occurrence, at least in Britain. The article contains the following quotations, which we swear we are not making up, although for reasons of tastefulness, the bodily part will be referred to as “Morton” (not its real name):

  “Case 1—A 60-year-old man said that he was changing the plug of his Hoover Dustette vacuum cleaner in the nude while his wife was out shopping. It ‘turned itself on’ and caught his Morton….”

  “Case 2—A 65-year-old railway signalman was in his signal box when he bent down to pick up his tools and caught his Morton in a Hoover Dustette, ‘which happened to be switched on.’”

  These quotations definitely touched a nerve here at the Bureau of Medical Alarm. Clearly males need to be more careful, especially if they get naked anywhere near a Hoover Dustette, which is apparently auditioning for a role as a major appliance in Fatal Attraction II.


  What you are no doubt saying to yourself now is, “Hmmmm, I wonder if there have been any similar incidents involving lobsters.” We regret to report that the answer is yes, as we learned from an article alertly sent in by Janice Hill (notice that it is women who are sending these articles in).

  This article concerns a man who attempted to steal a lobster from a Boston fish market by stuffing it (the lobster) down the front of his pants. The lobster had been wearing those rubber-band handcuffs, but apparently they slipped off, and the lobster, with revenge on its tiny mind, angrily grasped hold of the first thing it found, and we will not go into what happened next, except to say that, if you are a guy, it makes a toothpick to the eyeball sound like a day at the Magic Kingdom.

  We actually have MORE alarming medical items here, including a really good one about a moth that flew into a noted Denver attorney’s ear canal and refused to come out voluntarily. But we’re running out of space, so we’ll just close with this Health Reminder: Don’t smoke or drink. Or eat. Or go outside. Or breathe. And men: If you MUST change a major-appliance plug in the nude, PLEASE wear a condom.

  WHAT HAS FOUR LEGS AND FLIES

  People often say to me, “Dave, when you say you’re not making something up, does that mean you’re really and truly not making it up?” And the answer is yes. Meaning no, I am not making it up. I mention this so you’ll believe me when I say that I’m not making up today’s topic, which is: the Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump.