Dave Barry Talks Back

by Dave Barry

  And so I called softly for my son, Robert. “Robert,” I called, and within a matter of seconds he did not appear at my side, because he was in the family room watching TV commercials for breakfast cereals that are the same color and texture as Pez, but have less nutritional content. So I called louder.

  “Robert,” I said. “Fetch me the wooden stick that your pirate flag used to be attached to, and the Peter Pan ‘creamy’-style peanut butter jar with the holes punched in the lid, for I am going to face the spider.”

  Upon hearing those words Robert came instantly, and he looked at me with a respect that I have not seen in his eyes for some time now, not since we got the Nintendo. The Nintendo is an electronic video game that is mindless and noncreative and stupid and hateful, and Robert is much better at it than I am. He is 7, and he can consistently rescue the princess, whereas I, a 41-year-old college graduate, cannot even get past the turtles. The worst part is the way Robert says, “Good try, Dad!” in a perfect imitation of the cheerfully condescending voice I used to use on him back when I could beat him at everything. I don’t know where kids pick up this kind of behavior.

  But there was respect in Robert’s eyes as I strode out to face the spider. As well there should have been. Here in South Florida we have a special name for this kind of spider: We call it “a spider the size of Harold C. Crittenden Junior High School,” although its technical Latin name is Bernice. Bernice had erected a humongous web right outside our front door, an ideal location because in July the South Florida atmosphere consists of 1 part oxygen and 247 parts mosquito, which meant Bernice had plenty to eat. Also on hand in the web was her husband, Bill, who, despite the fact that he was one-sixteenth her size, nevertheless played an important ecological role in the relationship, namely trying not to look like prey.

  “I may be small,” Bill would say, all day long, in spider language, “but I am certainly not prey! No sir! I am a spider! Yes! Just a regular, NON-prey …”

  “Shut up,” Bernice would say.

  “Yes!” Bill would point out. They were a fun couple.

  Nevertheless, I approached them cautiously, hoping any noise I made would be drowned out by the roar of the lawn growing. July is in what we South Floridians call the “Rainy Season” because it would depress us too much to come right out and call it the “Giant Armpit Season.” When we read the stories about drought-stricken midwestern farmers who can’t grow crops in their fields, we are forced to laugh with bitter irony, because down here we can, without trying, grow crops in our laundry.

  And now I was up to the web. And now, with my son’s eyes glued on me, I drew back the pirate-flag stick, and I struck.

  “Hey!” said Bernice, in spider. “HEY!!”

  “Don’t hit me!” said Bill. “I’m prey!”

  But it was Bernice I had my eye on. If I could poke her into the Peter Pan jar, all would be well. But if she turned and lunged for me, I would have no choice, as a man defending his family, but to drop everything and sprint off down the road, brushing wildly at myself and whimpering.

  Fortunately, she went into the jar, and I got the lid on real quick, and for a while we watched her pace around in there and indicate via sweeping arm gestures what she was going to do to us when she got out.

  “I’m gonna sting all of your eyeballs,” she was saying. “I’m gonna lay 175 billion eggs in your ears. I’m gonna …”

  This was fun, but eventually we decided it was time to get rid of Bernice, following the standard procedure recommended by leading ecologists for the disposal of revenge-crazed spiders, namely: Release them on a drug dealer’s lawn. Like many South Floridians, we have our house in a neighborhood that we are pretty sure is occupied by drug dealers, as indicated by subtle clues such as cars coming and going at all hours, bed sheets over the windows, a big sign stating, DRUGS FOR SALE HERE, etc. We decided this would make a fine new home for Bernice, so we drove casually by, and I real quick opened the jar and shook Bernice onto the lawn. She scuttled off angrily straight toward the house. “I’m gonna fill your nasal passages with web,” she was saying. “I’m gonna …”

  But she was no longer our problem. We were already driving off, Robert and I, going shopping for a present for my 41st birthday. We went to Toys Us.

  CONFESSIONS OF A WEENIE

  Recently I’ve been reading horror novels at bedtime. I’m talking about those paperbacks with names like The Brainsucker, full of scenes like this:

  “As Marge stepped through the doorway into the darkening mansion, she felt a sense of foreboding, caused, perhaps, by the moaning of the wind, or the creaking of the door, or possibly the Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket full of eyeballs.”

  Of course if Marge had the intelligence of paint, she’d stop right there. “Wait a minute,” she’d say. “I’m getting the hell out of this novel.” Then she’d leap off the page, sprint across my bedspread, and run into my son’s bedroom to become a character in a safe book like Horton Hears a Who.

  But Marge, in the hallowed horror-novel-character tradition, barges straight ahead, down gloomy corridors where she has to cut through the foreboding with a machete, despite the obvious fact that something hideous is about to happen, probably involving the forced evacuation of her skull cavity by a demonic being with the underworld Roto-rooter franchise. So I’m flinching as I turn each page, thinking, “What a moron this woman is!” and Marge is thinking: “Well, I may be a moron, but at least I’m not stupid enough to be reading this.”

  And of course Marge is right. I should know better than to read horror books, or watch horror movies, because—this is not easy for a 42-year-old male to admit—I believe them. I have always believed them. When I was a child, I was routinely terrified by horror movies, even the comically inept ones where, when Lon Chaney turned into a werewolf, you could actually see the makeup person’s hand darting into the picture to attach more fake fur to his face.

  When I was 17—this is a true anecdote—I had to explain to my father one Sunday morning that the reason our car was missing was that the night before, I had taken my date to see Psycho, and afterward I had explained to her that it made more sense for her to drive me home, because of the strong possibility that otherwise I would be stabbed to death by Anthony Perkins.

  For years after I saw The Exorcist, I felt this need to be around priests. Friends would say,“What do you want to do tonight?” And I’d say, “Let’s take in a Mass!”

  I’m still this way, even though I’m a grown-up parent, constantly reassuring my son about his irrational fears, telling him don’t be silly, there aren’t any vampires in the guest bathroom. Part of my brain—the rational part, the part that took the SAT tests—actually believes this, but a much more powerful part, the Fear Lobe, takes the possibility of bathroom vampires far more seriously than it takes, for example, the U.S. trade deficit.

  And so late at night, when I finish my horror novel and take the dogs out into the yard, which is very dark, I am highly alert. My brain’s SAT Sector, trying to be cool, is saying, “Ha ha! This is merely your yard!” But the Fear Lobe is saying: “Oh yes, this is exactly the kind of place that would attract The Brainsucker. For The Brainsucker, this is Walt Disney World.”

  And so I start sauntering back toward the house, trying to look as casual as possible considering that every few feet I suddenly whirl around to see if anything’s behind me. Soon I am sauntering at upwards of 35 miles per hour, and the Fear Lobe is screaming “IT’S COMING!” and even the SAT Sector has soaked its mental armpits and now I’m openly sprinting through the darkness, almost to the house, and WHAT’S THAT NOISE BEHIND ME OH NO PLEASE AAAIIIEEEE WHUMP I am struck violently in the back by Earnest, our Toyota-sized main dog, who has located a cache of valuable dog poo and shrewdly elected to roll in it, and is now generously attempting to share the experience with me.

  Thus the spell of horror is broken, and my SAT Sector reasserts control and has a good laugh at what a silly goose I was, and I walk calmly back inside and close t
he door, just seconds before the tentacle reaches it.

  BLOOD, SWEAT, AND BEERS

  OK, this is it the last day of the Red Cross blood drive at the Miami Herald. Either I am going to do it, or, for the umpteenth consecutive time, I am going to chicken out. All the smart money is on chicken out.

  I am a world-class weenie when it comes to letting people stick needles into me. My subconscious mind firmly believes that if God had wanted us to have direct access to our bloodstreams, He would have equipped our skin with small, clearly marked doors. I’ve felt this way ever since a traumatic experience I had in Mrs. Hart’s first-grade class at Wampus Elementary School in the 1950s. There I was, enjoying life and drawing unrecognizable pictures for my mom to put on the refrigerator, when suddenly—you never know when tragedy is going to strike—Mrs. Hart announced in a cheerful voice that somebody named “Dr. Salk” had discovered a “vaccine” for “polio.” I had no idea what any of this meant. All I knew was that one minute I was having a happy childhood, and the next minute they were lining us all up in alphabetical order, with You Know Who in front, marching us to the cafeteria, where we encountered a man—I assumed this was Dr. Salk—holding a needle that appeared to be the size of a harpoon.

  “You’ll hardly feel it!” said Mrs. Hart, this being the last time I ever trusted a grown-up.

  And it got worse. It turned out that you had to get vaccinated several times, plus there was talk that you had to get a “booster shot,” which, according to reliable reports circulating around Wampus Elementary, turned your entire arm purple and sometimes made it actually fall off. I realize now that Dr. Salk was a great scientist, but at the time I viewed him as a monstrously evil being, scheming in his laboratory, dreaming up newer, more horrible vaccination procedures (“I’ve GOT it! We’ll stick the needle into their EYEBALLS HAHAHAHAHA”) and then traveling around the nation, like some kind of reverse vampire, injecting things into innocent victims selected by alphabetical order.

  And when we talk about fiendish plots to jab large needles into small children, we certainly have to mention the huge and powerful Tetanus Shot Corporation, which employed undercover agents who were constantly sneaking into my doctor’s office, getting hold of my medical file, and altering the date of my last tetanus shot. The result was that whenever I cut myself semi-seriously, which was often, Dr. Cohn would look at my file and say to my mother: “Well, he’s due for a tetanus shot.”

  “But I had one LAST WEEK!” I’d shriek. They never believed me. They were grown-ups, so they believed the stupid file, and sales continued to boom at the Tetanus Shot Corporation.

  Of course I am no longer a little boy. I’m a grown-up now, and I’m aware of the medical benefits of inoculations, blood tests, etc. I’m also aware that the actual physical discomfort caused by these procedures is minor. So I no longer shriek and cry and run away and have to be captured and held down by two or more burly nurses. What I do now is faint. Yes. Even if it’s just one of those procedures where they prick your finger just a teensy bit and take barely enough blood for a mosquito hors d’oeuvre.

  “I’m going to faint,” I always tell them.

  “Ha ha!” they always say. “You humor columnists are certainly …”

  “Thud,” I always say.

  One time—this is true—I had to sit down in a shopping mall and put my head between my knees because I had walked too close to the ear-piercing booth.

  So I have never given blood. But I feel guilty about this, because more than once, people I love have needed blood badly, and somebody, not me, was there to give it. And so now I am forcing myself to walk down the hall to the blood drive room at the Miami Herald. And now one of the efficient Red Cross ladies is taking down my medical history.

  “Name?” she asks.

  “I’m going to faint,” I say.

  “Ha ha!” she says.

  And now I’m sitting down on some kind of medical beach chair, and a Red Cross lady is coming over with … with this bag. Which I realize she intends to fill with my blood. I am wondering if, since this is my first time, I should ask for a smaller bag. Also I am wondering: What if she forgets I’m here? What if she goes out for coffee, and meanwhile my bag is overflowing and dripping down into the Classified Advertising Department? What if …

  Too late. She has my arm, and she’s, oh no, she is, oh nooooooo

  Hey! Look up there, in the sky! It’s Red Cross ladies! Several of them! They’re reaching down! Their arms are thousands of feet long! They’re putting cold things on my head!

  “It’s over,” one of them is saying.“You did fine.”

  I’d ask her to marry me, except that (a) I’m already married and (b) I’d be too weak to lift her veil. But other than that I feel great. Elated, even. I have a Band-Aid on my arm, a Beige Badge of Courage. And somewhere out there is a bag of my blood, ready to help a sick or injured person become his or her same old self again, except that he or she might develop a sudden, unexplained fondness for beer.

  Not that you asked, but the Red Cross number for information about giving blood is 1-800-GIVE LIFE.

  AN OFFER THEY CAN’T REFUSE

  Recently I received an exciting offer in the mail from my credit-card company. Usually their offers involve merchandise that no actual human would ever need.

  “Dear Mr. Dave Barry,” they say. “How many times have you asked yourself: ‘Why can’t I cook shish kebab AND enjoy recorded music?’ Well, Mr. Dave Barry, because you are a valued customer who has consistently demonstrated, by paying us three million percent interest, that you have the financial astuteness of a lint ball, we are making available to you a Special Opportunity to purchase this deluxe combination gas barbecue grill and CD player.”

  But this recent offer was even better. This was an offer to sell me my own credit rating. Yes. One of the great benefits of living in America is that, regardless of your race or religion or hygiene habits, you are entitled to have a credit rating maintained by large corporations with powerful computers that know everything about you. For example, let’s say that this morning you deposited your paycheck at the bank, made a phone call, wrote a check for your electric bill, and charged some gasoline on your credit card. By this afternoon, thanks to highspeed laser fiber-optic data transmission, the computers will know every sexual fantasy you had while you were doing these things. And don’t think they keep it to themselves, either. They are as human as the next person. They go to computer parties, they have a few too many diskettes, and the next thing you know they’re revealing your intimate secrets at the rate of four billion per second.

  That’s why I was so excited about this offer from my credit-card company to sell me the TRW CREDENTIALS service. TRW is a large company that collects credit information about people and sells it. According to the TRW CREDENTIALS offer, if I give them $20 a year, they’ll let me see my information.

  The offer states: “Financial experts recommend that you carefully review your credit report twice a year to check its information and make certain that it is accurate.”

  In other words—correct me if I am wrong here—they’re telling me that I should give them $20 a year so I can look at the information ABOUT ME that they collected WITHOUT MY PERMISSION and have been selling for years to GOD ALONE KNOWS WHO so I can see if it’s INCORRECT.

  Which it very well could be. Because even with computers, things sometimes go wrong. I know you find this hard to believe, inasmuch as we live in such a competent nation, a nation capable of producing technological wonders such as the Hubble Orbiting Space Telescope, the only orbiting telescope in the universe equipped with dark glasses and a cane. But sometimes mistakes do get made, and they could affect your credit.

  For example, just recently we got a phone call at home, at night, from a woman from a collection agency. She said we’d be in big trouble if we didn’t turn over four cable-TV boxes, which she said we had failed to return to the cable company when we moved a year ago. I explained that, (1) it was only two boxes,
and (2) we had made three appointments with the cable company to come get them, but nobody ever showed up, and (3) we would love to get rid of them, and (4) maybe SHE could get the cable company to come get them. The woman said, basically, that it was too late for that, because this matter had been turned over to a collection agency, which is apparently several levels above the U.S. Supreme Court, and we had better hand over four cable boxes or this would go on our Permanent Credit Record.

  So I called up the cable company, and joined the millions of Americans on hold, waiting to talk to one of the nation’s estimated four cable-company service representatives, two of whom are on break. Future generations, when they look at formal family portraits from this era, will say, “There’s Aunt Martha, who was a teacher, and the man holding the phone receiver to his ear is Uncle Bob, who was on hold to the cable company.”

  Finally, miraculously, I got through, and even more miraculously, they came out and got our boxes. And I was feeling very good about America until the collection-agency woman called again, at night, to inform me that we’d be in big trouble if we didn’t turn over the boxes. All four of them.

  So I don’t know what our credit record says. I wouldn’t be surprised if it holds us largely to blame for the savings-and-loan scandal. So I’m definitely interested in the TRW CREDENTIALS offer.