Lessons From Lucy

by Dave Barry

  It’s more valuable now.

  * * *

  7 Answer: on your forehead.

  8 Which I hope will take me to the Penthouse of Paradise, and not the Sub-Basement of Eternal Damnation.

  9 Lucy is Jewish.

  10 It’s a good thing they don’t allow firearms in airports, because by now I definitely would have shot a CNN monitor.

  11 This is assuming that your destination is not New York’s LaGuardia Airport and Permanent Construction Hellzone, which is littered with the skeletons of travelers who died of starvation waiting for the correct shuttle bus.

  12 Really. Look it up.

  13 Technically known as a “trickle.”

  14 In fact the official Ranger motto is “You’re only young once, but you can always be immature.”

  15 Supplied by the Collegiate Cap & Gown Co., proudly located in Arcola.

  16 After performing with the Remainders, Springsteen told us: “Don’t get any better, or you’ll just be another lousy garage band.”

  17 Possibly six.

  THE THIRD LESSON FROM LUCY

  I was one of the last people to find out about “mindfulness.” By the time I’d heard of it, major corporations and government agencies were putting their employees through mindfulness training. I did not view this as a positive sign. In my experience, any trend that reaches the point where large organizations are inflicting it on their personnel has a high statistical probability of being stupid.

  A good example is “diversity training.” This is a process whereby a corporation makes a group of employees sit in a room with a professional diversity trainer, who subjects them to lectures, videos and role-playing exercises about the importance of respecting each other until the employees finally come to the realization that they hate the diversity trainer and want to do the diametrical opposite of whatever he or she is telling them.

  I’ve been subjected to diversity training several times, and every time the trainer treated us employees like exceptionally dull-witted six-year-olds, unable to grasp how racist and sexist and generally wrong-thinking we were. This is not a good way to win people over. Of course we all said the right things in diversity class, because compliance was mandatory and we wanted to get out of there. But inside we were seething. We were ready to go out and join the Klan. Even the black employees. That’s how resentful we were.

  No, that’s a joke. I apologize if it offends you. But that brings me to another thing I hated about diversity training: the trainers insisted that if anybody is offended by something you say, you are automatically wrong. The problem with that is, there are people who are offended by everything. Being offended is their primary reason for existing. If you let them decide what you can and cannot say, they will suck all the humor out of the world.

  I am an expert on this topic. In my humor-columnist career I wrote tens of thousands of jokes, and, based on the mail I received, I believe that every single joke offended somebody. For example, I once wrote that “Hoosier” is a stupid nickname for Indianans to call themselves because nobody seems to know for sure what it means. “For all we know,” I wrote, “ ‘Hoosier’ could be a Native American word for ‘has sex with caribou.’ ”

  This joke was deeply offensive to many Hoosiers, who wrote me angry letters informing me in no uncertain terms that everybody knows exactly what “Hoosier” means, and then proceeded to provide several dozen completely different definitions. My favorite letter came from an offended Hoosier who wrote: “Indiana has no caribou.” Case closed!

  My point is that diversity training, at least in my experience, is annoying and counterproductive. Yet corporations continue to push it, just as they continue to hold “team-building” and “bonding” exercises, wherein employees are required to go on “retreats” and participate in “adventures” such as whitewater rafting, rock climbing, bear wrestling and worm grunting. The idea is that these employees develop a bond of mutual trust based on not ratting each other out to management when they sneak away from the retreat and go to a bar.

  My favorite example of insane things that corporations do to innocent employees involves Burger King, which, in 2001, held a motivational event for employees of the marketing department. (Whenever you see the word “motivational” used in a corporate-training context, you should mentally substitute the word “stupid.”) At this event, Burger King had its employees, under the guidance of a paid consultant, break boards, smash bricks, walk on sharp nails and bend steel bars with their throats. So far, so good. These are all skills that are no doubt invaluable in the modern corporate marketing environment.

  But then things got really motivational. Before I tell you what happened, let’s review what sort of corporation Burger King is. It is the sort of corporation that sells hamburgers. Its very name makes reference to this fact. Burger King sells more than two billion hamburgers a year. And what is a hamburger? A hamburger is cooked cow meat. You would think that management personnel at Burger King—even in the marketing department—would be aware of the consequences of exposing flesh to very high temperatures.

  So what do you suppose the Burger King employees did, as the culmination of their motivational event? I will tell you, using capital letters for emphasis: THEY WALKED BAREFOOT ACROSS HOT COALS.

  This is called fire walking, and it is a “confidence-building” exercise that has been popularized by such leading motivators as Tony Robbins, who is so motivational my head hurts just from thinking about him.

  Now, if you try to make a three-year-old child, or a dog, or for that matter a spider, walk barefoot across hot coals, that child or dog or spider will refuse. But your modern corporate employee, eager to remain employed, can be coerced into doing pretty much anything, as evidenced by the fact that one hundred Burger King employees took off their shoes and socks and walked barefoot across what the Miami Herald later described as “an eight-foot strip of glowing, white-hot coals.”

  What could possibly go wrong? Nothing! Unless you count the fact that—to quote the Herald again—“about a dozen Burger King employees suffered at least first- and second-degree burns on their feet.” One woman went to the hospital. Several people were in such pain that they needed wheelchairs.

  Does that mean that the fire walking was a bad idea? Not in the objective opinion of the consultant who was paid to organize it! He told the Herald: “The majority of the people get through it without a nick or a blister. When you see over 100 people and only 10 to 15 people have blisters, I don’t term that unusual.”

  He also said—this is an actual quote, and it may well be the greatest statement ever emitted by a consultant—“Some people just have incredibly sensitive feet.”

  A Burger King marketing vice president who was involved in organizing the event, and who was among those injured, agreed that the fire walking was a swell idea. She told the Herald—this is an excellent example of the marketing mind at work—“It was a great experience for everyone.”

  No doubt it was! I bet the participants felt a new sense of confidence as they walked out of the event, or, in the case of those with incredibly sensitive feet, were rolled out.

  My point is, I am highly skeptical of any trend that large corporations participate in. And so when I heard about mindfulness, I assumed it was just another waste of time. But I kept hearing about it and hearing about it, until finally I took the unusual (for me) step of actually finding out what it is using professional journalism techniques, by which I mean Google.

  As I understand it, mindfulness basically means being fully in the present moment—not rehashing and second-guessing the past, not fretting about the future, but focusing on right now. It means being aware of your physical sensations, your feelings, your thoughts. It also means accepting these thoughts and feelings, without judging whether they’re right or wrong. It means not overthinking everything.

  Mindfulness, according to its advocates, makes you more relaxed, more at peace. Mindfulness training, which includes meditatio
n techniques, is said by many to reduce stress and make you healthier and happier.

  So mindfulness sounds like a pretty good idea.

  You know who’s really mindful, in her own way?

  Lucy.

  She is always in the present moment. She lives for now. She doesn’t dwell on the past or worry about the future. She definitely doesn’t overthink. She spends most of the day in a serene, semimeditative state that I would call Dog Snooze, but she’s always aware of what’s going on around her, and the instant anything happens she is right there, totally into whatever it is, intensely aware of the sounds, the sights and of course the smells.

  She accepts her feelings; she does not second-guess herself. Sometimes these are not happy feelings: for example, when the man comes to take our garbage, Lucy objects vociferously, because—she cannot believe we allow this to happen—he is taking our garbage. But the instant the man is gone from our driveway, he’s gone from Lucy’s mind, and she’s on to the next moment, which usually means back into Dog Snooze. She does not stress, and I envy that.

  But what I really admire about Lucy’s mindfulness—and here we are getting to the lesson for this chapter—is the way it enables her to be such a wonderful companion. It’s a cliché, but only because it’s so obviously true: nobody loves you the way your dog loves you. When you’re with your dog, you may mentally be elsewhere, but your dog is not; your dog is always right there with you. When you’re gone, your dog is waiting for you to come back, so it can be with you again. Because being with you makes your dog happier than anything else.

  I spend most working days at home, and Lucy is always close, moving from room to room as I do, waiting to see where I settle and then finding a spot on the floor a few feet away. When I walk in her direction, her tail thumps the floor, a Geiger counter of happiness. When I pet her, her entire body quivers with joy. When I talk to her, she listens to me as hard as she can, staring at me intently, head cocked, ears flexed, eager to pick up every sound, especially if one of the sounds turns out to be “chicken.”

  She’s not just near me; she’s with me. And being with me makes her happy. It’s the simple pleasure of being in the moment with somebody you love.

  You know who rarely experiences this pleasure?

  Me.

  I’m often with people I love, but I’m rarely in the moment. I’m checking my phone—even though I checked it fifteen seconds ago—or I’m thinking about things that have nothing to do with the moment. Most of the time these are not significant or pressing thoughts, but my brain insists on thinking them anyway. This means I’m often distracted, which makes me a lousy companion.

  It can also lead to awkward situations. Let’s say I’m sitting at the breakfast table with Michelle, and we’re theoretically having a conversation. But my brain has decided to think about something else. This means that my mouth, which is not the brightest organ in my body, has to fend for itself as it attempts to hold up its end of the conversation without really knowing what it’s talking about:

  MICHELLE: So I’m worried about her.

  MY MOUTH: Yeah.

  MY BRAIN (to itself): The new season of The Walking Dead starts tonight.

  MICHELLE: I mean, why would she say that?

  MY MOUTH: Right.

  MY BRAIN: I definitely want to record that.

  MICHELLE: She never said anything like that before, at least not to me.

  MY MOUTH: Hm.

  MY BRAIN: I recorded last season, so maybe it will automatically record this season.

  MICHELLE: Do you think she means it?

  MY MOUTH: Huh.

  MY BRAIN: I should check the DVR.

  MICHELLE: What?

  MY MOUTH: Right.

  MY BRAIN: I need to make sure it’s recording the high-def version.

  MICHELLE: Does that mean you think she means it?

  MY MOUTH: Hm.

  MY BRAIN: There’s definitely a difference between high def and regular def.

  MICHELLE: Hello? Are you listening to me?

  (At this point, my mouth, sensing that it’s in trouble, sends an urgent back-channel message via my nervous system to my brain.)

  MY MOUTH: MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY

  MY BRAIN: What?

  MY MOUTH: She wants to know if we’re listening to her!

  MY BRAIN: What is she talking about?

  MY MOUTH: I don’t know!

  MY BRAIN: Well THINK, damn it!

  MY MOUTH: I can’t! I’m a mouth!

  MY BRAIN: Now we’re in trouble, you asshole!

  MY ASSHOLE: Hey! Leave me out of this!

  MICHELLE: Did you just fart?

  I do this all the time,18 and not just with Michelle. I can be in the midst of a group of people having a conversation, and I will appear to be fully engaged—my eyes tracking from speaker to speaker, my head nodding at appropriate times, my mouth smiling when it senses that somebody has said something amusing—and I will have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. This would not be so bad if my brain were curing cancer or writing the great American novel. But my brain is almost always thinking about something unimportant or actively stupid.

  Which means I spend a lot of time effectively ignoring people. Time after time I miss out, for no good reason, on the simple pleasure of human companionship. And when the people I’m ignoring are the people I love, I deprive myself of the greatest source of happiness in my life.

  As if I have something better to do.

  I’m a fool.

  This leads us to the third Lesson from Lucy:

  Pay Attention to the People You Love.

  (Not Later. Right Now.)

  This is another one of those obvious truths that you rediscover every time somebody you know dies. You think about the times you passed up chances to talk to or be with the person. You wish you could have those chances back. You vow not to make the same mistake with family and friends who are still alive. And maybe for a little while, you keep that vow. But sooner or later—usually sooner—you’re back to paying way more attention to your phone than your loved ones. You’re the same hyper-distracted work android you were before.

  Until the next funeral.

  And so on, rinse and repeat, until the funeral is yours, and they bury you with your phone because God forbid you should miss an important text.

  This depressing train of thought caused me to stop writing this chapter and call up an old friend, Mike Peters. Mike is a cartoonist. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his editorial cartoons, and he draws the syndicated comic strip Mother Goose and Grimm. He is also—and I do not believe this is an exaggeration—the sweetest man in the world. He makes the Dalai Lama look like Pol Pot. If a golden retriever were to be transformed into a human being, that golden retriever would be Mike Peters. When he meets new people, he is so excited, so joyful, that they often think he’s faking it.

  “He’s not faking it!” I tell these people, as Mike is hugging them. “He’s really like this!”

  Here are two more things you should know about Mike:

  1. He has, over the course of his life, owned seven Superman costumes.19

  2. He is the happiest grown-up I know.

  I got to know Mike through a mutual friend, the great cartoonist Jeff MacNelly. Jeff was prodigiously talented: among many other honors, he won three Pulitzers for his editorial cartoons; he also drew the popular Shoe strip. He was a hugely entertaining person—a big, outdoorsy, up-for-fun guy with a booming laugh and a hilariously subversive mind. He would have been welcome on the Washington cocktails-and-dinner circuit, but he was much happier on his farm, driving his pickup through mud puddles.

  In addition to his other work, Jeff illustrated my humor column for a bunch of newspapers. Over the years, and over many beers, we became good friends. Jeff was a joy to collaborate with. Sometimes I’d be late on a column, and he’d call me up and ask me what it was about so he could get started on his drawing, and I’d say something vague, like, “It’s about this guy who was sitt
ing on a toilet and he got bit in the balls by a snake.” And Jeff would say, “What kind of snake?” And I’d say, “A cobra.” And Jeff would say, “OK,” then hang up and produce a brilliant cartoon, much funnier than my column.

  In 1999 Jeff called me and told me he’d been diagnosed with lymphoma. I said the usual inadequate oh-man-I’m-so-sorry things, but Jeff refused to let either one of us be depressed.

  “They tell me that if you have to get cancer, this is the best kind,” he said. “So I guess I should be pretty excited!” Then he laughed that big, booming laugh.

  If there was humor to be found in a situation, Jeff would find it.

  He died in less than a year. He worked right up to the end, drawing his cartoons from a bed in the Johns Hopkins Hospital.

  His funeral was held near his farm in Virginia. A few months later, a bunch of us gathered for another smaller ceremony in Key West, a place Jeff loved. His wife, Susie, had a container of his ashes, and the plan was to go out on a sailboat—Jeff loved boats—and shoot his ashes out of a cannon. Jeff would have appreciated that.

  So that’s what we did. Some words were said, and Jeff’s ashes were blasted out over the Atlantic with a satisfying boom, and everybody had a good cry, and some good laughs and some champagne.

  On the way back to the dock, I sat on the deck next to Mike Peters, the two of us looking out at the water and talking about Jeff. Mike was Jeff’s closest friend; he was with him in the hospital at the end, which was pretty rough. Mike told me that, as hospital staff came around, he found himself trying to make sure they really understood who Jeff was—that he was not just another patient, but a famous, award-winning cartoonist. When Mike tried to explain this, the staff people responded, “Oh yes, we know, this is Mr. MacNelly.” In other words, they knew that was his name. Of course that’s not what Mike meant; he wanted them to know who Jeff was, to appreciate him, his achievements, his fame, all his honors. His career.