by Dave Barry
But the medical staff didn’t have time to appreciate Jeff’s career. They were—understandably—focused on doing their jobs. To them Jeff was just another patient to be cared for before they moved on to the next patient, and the next. Jeff was a name on a chart.
Mr. MacNelly.
Mike said he thought about this, as he watched his best friend dying, and he realized something: In the end, all that really matters—all you really have—is the people you love. Not your job, not your career, not your awards, not your money, not your stuff. Just your people.
I asked Mike if this realization had changed him in any way. He said it had. Before, he said, if he was working and his wife or kids wanted to talk to him, he’d half-listen, but he’d keep holding his pen and looking at his drawing, sending the message: I’m busy. This isn’t your time. I have work to do. But now, he said, he made himself put down his pen, turn away from his drawing, look the other person in the eyes and listen. And he’d keep listening for however long it took. And if that meant his work had to wait, that was OK.
“And you’re still doing that?” I said. (Remember, this was months after Jeff’s funeral.)
“I am,” he said.
That conversation took place more than fifteen years ago, but I think about it every time some tragedy jolts me out of dithering about the distractions in my life and forces me to focus, if only briefly, on the people who actually make my life worthwhile. So when I was writing this chapter, I decided to call Mike, to see if (a) he remembered our conversation, and (b) he was still putting down his pen when his loved ones interrupted his work.
He said yes, absolutely, to both. These days the interrupters tend to be his grandkids, and instead of wanting to talk, they want him to jump with them on the trampoline. But he still puts down his pen, and he gets up and jumps.
So to summarize:
1. Lucy spends every second she can being as close as she can be to the people she loves. This makes her a happy dog.
2. Mike Peters, who is a busy guy facing constant deadlines, still makes a point of making time for, and jumping on the trampoline with, the people he loves. And he is the happiest person I know over the age of three.
These two happy souls are, by example, teaching an important lesson. And I’m trying to learn it. I’ve been making a conscious effort to focus on the people I’m with, especially my loved ones, and keep my phone in my pocket. This is not always easy. For one thing, sometimes my loved ones are looking at their phones. For another thing, my phone calls to me constantly.
“Dave!” it calls, from inside my pocket. “Oh Daa-ave! You haven’t looked at Twitter for nearly ninety seconds, Dave! What if somebody just tweeted something? What if it’s somebody with a blue checkmark, Dave? And what about Facebook, Dave? What if somebody you barely knew in high school fifty years ago has posted a hot political take or a photo of his or her dinner entrée AND YOU HAVE NOT SEEN IT YET, DAVE???”
It is strong, the call of the phone. But I can be stronger. I can be a better husband, a better dad, a better friend, a better—and happier—person. I can be mindful. I can stop wasting the dwindling minutes of the only life I’ll ever have obsessing over past events I can’t do anything about, and future events that might never happen. I can teach myself to focus on the only time that matters, which is this moment right now, and use this precious time to appreciate, to cherish, the people I love.
I really am going to do this.
Right after I check my phone.
* * *
18 I don’t mean that I fart all the time. Perhaps I do, but that’s not what I mean.
19 His mom gave him his first Superman costume for Christmas when he was eight. Mike recalls: “I felt like it was the Shroud of Turin. I couldn’t put it on so I took it up to my room and hung it in my closet and I just sat there that Christmas and just looked at it. I put it on a couple of times but I didn’t want it to get dirty. I would look out my window and wait for someone to do something wrong. I remember someone dropped a cup out their car window so I put on my Superman suit, ran down to my front porch and then flew over to the cup, picked it up and then flew back to my house and put the cup into the trash. Then I ran back to my room, took off the suit, hung it safely in the closet and waited for the next time to use it.”
THE FOURTH LESSON FROM LUCY
If I had to list the top five things that I am exceptionally good at, I’d go with, in no particular order:
• Sarcasm.
• Ridicule.
• Hand farts.
• Locating the bar at a wedding reception.
• Developing an instantaneous hatred for people I don’t know.
It’s the last one that I want to talk about in this chapter. I have a black belt in instantly hating strangers. Let’s say you’re at the front of a line of people waiting to buy ice cream, and I’m somewhere in the line behind you. And let’s say it’s the kind of ice-cream shop where, if you ask, they’ll give you a sample on a little tasting spoon so you can decide what flavor you want.
I’m OK with you getting a sample flavor. I’m even OK with you getting two sample flavors, even though, as I said, there’s a line. So if you simply taste your samples and make your decision, you will not annoy me. OK, you will annoy me a little bit with the second sample, but not to the point of actual hatred.
But let’s say that you’re the kind of person who, knowing that people are waiting behind you, still takes thirty seconds or so to savor each sample—head cocked, lips smacking, as if you were tasting an expensive wine—and that you feel the need to share your opinions on each sample with your companions (you always have companions, who are also savoring multiple samples). And then, after your third or fourth sample, you frown thoughtfully, as though pondering a major financial transaction such as purchasing a house, and you turn from your companions to the harried employee waiting behind the counter, scoop in hand, for you to actually order something, and—as the line behind you lengthens—you say, “Let me try the coconut boysenberry rutabaga kale swirl again.”
You need to know that I hate you. I don’t care if you’re taking a brief ice-cream break from your self-funded humanitarian mission to cure third-world orphans of horrible diseases: I hate you. If everybody else in the line hated you as much as I do, your body would burst into flames from the hate rays being beamed at it.
This is also how I feel about you if you wait until you get to the front of the line at a fast-food restaurant or movie-theater snack counter before you even begin your leisurely perusal of the menu, which has been posted prominently overhead the whole time.
Or if you drive your car past a long line of vehicles waiting to exit an expressway so you can butt in at the front.
Or if, when you stop for a red light, you immediately look down at your phone, and it apparently does not occur to you to glance up at the light from time to time in case for some reason—who knows, in this crazy world?—it might turn green again, which means that when it does turn green, to get you moving again, I—because I am always the driver behind you—have to honk, and in response you shoot me an annoyed glance in your rearview mirror, as if to say, Can’t you see I’m texting?
Or if you talk so loudly into your mobile phone that the rest of us can’t avoid hearing your end of your conversation, which for the record is always inane.
Or if, at a concert or sports event, you repeatedly stand up when nobody else around you is standing up, so the people behind you—and I am always one of the people behind you—have to either stand up themselves or repeatedly ask you to sit down, which annoys you because in your mind standing up shows that you’re a REAL fan, when in fact it shows that you’re a jerk.
Or if you smoke your cigar where the rest of us have to smell it.
Or if you litter.
Or if you summon your waiter by snapping your fingers.
Or if you sit on your Harley in a crowded public space and repeatedly rev the stupidly loud engine for no apparent reason other th
an that you need attention.
Or if I am holding the door for you and you walk past me without so much as a glance, let alone a thank-you.
Or if you are giving a breakfast speech, and you begin by saying, “Good morning!” and the audience, which is trying to wake up, mumbles, “Good morning,” and instead of starting your speech you say, “Come on, now! You can do better than that!” And you make the audience say, “Good morning” again, after which you say, “That’s better!” with a big, self-satisfied grin, as if you are being original and clever, instead of hackneyed and irritating. Just give your stupid speech and let us drink our coffee, OK?
All of these behaviors, and many more—do not get me started on airline passengers—will cause me to hate complete strangers. I am capable of hating dozens of strangers in a single day. If I’m driving in Miami, surrounded by motorists who exhibit the same understanding of basic traffic laws as brain-damaged flatworms, I can hate dozens of complete strangers per minute.
At this point you may be thinking: Whoa, Dave, you sound like you might have an anger problem there.
No, I do not have an anger problem. I simply have a low tolerance for idiots and jerks, OK? So why don’t you take your amateur long-distance psychoanalysis and shove it up your . . .
Sorry! OK, maybe you’re right: I can be a pretty angry person. Although you would not know this from observing me. If you were the multiple-flavor-sampling jerk holding up the ice-cream line, and you happened to glance back at me, you would see what appears to be a calm, mild-mannered seventy-year-old man with a hairstyle popularized by the Beatles in 1964. You would have no way of knowing that I am fantasizing about watching you be lobotomized without anesthesia by an orangutan wielding an unsterilized tire iron.
This is because I almost always hide my rage from the person who is enraging me. I keep it bottled up inside, unless I am pushed to the breaking point by some extreme provocation. And when I say “some extreme provocation,” I mean “customer service.”
I will give you an example. One afternoon a few years back I was working at home—and when I say “working,” I mean “not working per se, but looking at my computer”—when the Internet went out. Moments later Wilfredo tapped on the window. Wilfredo is the hardworking man who fights a courageous weekly battle to prevent the aggressive Florida vegetation comprising our “yard” from getting inside our house and killing us all in a savage outburst of photosynthesis. Wilfredo told me, very apologetically, that while trimming some bushes he had accidentally severed the phone and cable-TV lines to our house. He took me outside and showed me the two wires dangling from the pole.
I was bummed, but at that point not angry. I told Wilfredo not to worry, then got on my mobile phone and called our phone company, AT&T. The person I spoke to immediately grasped the problem—namely, the telephone wire was cut—and said he would send a repair truck right away, which he did. The phone line was fixed in about an hour.
After speaking to AT&T I called the cable-TV company, which I will call “Bomcast,” although that is not its real name. Its real name is Comcast.
After waiting on hold for a while and then going through a menu, I was able to speak to a Bomcast customer service representative in a distant land where English is not the first or even necessarily the second language. I did not record our conversation, but this is basically how it went (and if you think I am exaggerating, you have never been serviced by Bomcast):
REPRESENTATIVE: May I have your name so that I can gratuitously repeat it?
ME: David Barry.
REPRESENTATIVE: Thank you, David. How may I help you today, David?
ME: Our cable TV is out. The yard guy accidentally cut the cable.
REPRESENTATIVE: David, I understand you are saying that your cable television is not working.
ME: Right. The yard guy cut the cable.
REPRESENTATIVE: David, I am sorry that your cable television is not working. I will get this problem resolved for you, David.
ME: Thank you.
REPRESENTATIVE: David, can you tell me how many cable boxes you have in your house?
ME: Four.
REPRESENTATIVE: Thank you, David. And can you tell me, David, if the cable is working in any of those TVs, David?
ME: No. It’s not working anywhere. There’s no cable TV coming into the house. The cable was cut. With hedge trimmers. I can see the wire dangling from the pole.
REPRESENTATIVE: Thank you, David. So I understand you are saying that none of your cable boxes are working at this time.
ME: Right, we don’t have cable service, but it’s got nothing to do with the boxes. The problem is that our cable was physically cut. The cable wire is not physically connected to the house. So somebody needs to come and fix the wire.
REPRESENTATIVE: Thank you, David, I will resolve this issue for you, David.
ME: Great, thanks.
(There is a lengthy pause here during which I start to worry that we have become disconnected. Finally the representative gets back on the line.)
REPRESENTATIVE: Can you please do me a favor, David?
ME: Sure.
REPRESENTATIVE: David, I want you to please go to your main cable box and unplug the power cord. Then wait thirty seconds and plug it back in. Can you do that for me, David?
ME: Why?
REPRESENTATIVE: This will reset your cable box, David.
ME: But the problem isn’t the cable box. The problem is that the cable wire was cut.
REPRESENTATIVE: David, we can sometimes restore the cable service by resetting the cable box, David. David David David.
ME: Please listen to me. The problem is not the cable box. The problem is that the cable wire was cut. Do you understand? The cable wire is now in two separate pieces that are not connected to each other, so the television programs can’t get into the house. You need to SEND SOMEBODY TO FIX THE WIRE, OK?
(There is another pause.)
REPRESENTATIVE: David, can you please tell me the model number of your main cable box?
I admit that at that point I lost my temper and yelled at the representative. I imagine that when he went home that night, he said to his significant other, in his native language, something like: “You would not believe the moron I got stuck with servicing today! He couldn’t even understand how to unplug his cable box!”
Eventually I was able to talk to a different Bomcast person, who agreed, somewhat reluctantly, that the problem was probably that the cable had been severed, and scheduled a service appointment. Afterward I felt bad about getting so angry at the first person I spoke to. It really wasn’t his fault. It was the fault of the Bomcast executives who decided that their customer service would be provided by people in distant lands whose training consists of being handed a script that appears to be based on an Abbott and Costello routine.
I have a fantasy. In this fantasy, late one night a cable executive calls 911, only to discover that, as a cost-cutting measure, the police department has outsourced its 911 operation to the cable company:
OPERATOR: Thank you for choosing 911. What is your emergency?
EXECUTIVE: A man broke into my house! He has an ax!
OPERATOR: May I have your name and address?
EXECUTIVE: Bob Timmons, 123 Belchwater Road. Please hurry!
OPERATOR: Thank you, Bob. Bob, I understand you are saying you have an intruder in your house?
EXECUTIVE: Yes! With an ax! Please send somebody!
OPERATOR: Bob, I am sorry that an intruder with an ax is in your house, and I will help you to resolve this problem.
EXECUTIVE: Please hurry! He’s coming up the stairs!
OPERATOR: Bob, in order to assist you, I am going to need to ask you some questions. Is that OK, Bob?
EXECUTIVE: Yes! Just hurry!
OPERATOR: Bob, first, can you tell me, did you give permission for this intruder to enter your house, Bob?
EXECUTIVE: No, for God’s sake! He broke in! With an ax!
OPERATOR: Thank you,
Bob. I understand you are saying that the intruder does not have your permission to be in your house at 123 Elkwater Road, is that correct?
EXECUTIVE: No! I’m at 123 Belchwater Road!
OPERATOR: So, Bob, you’re saying you are at 123 Belchwater Road?
EXECUTIVE: Yes!
OPERATOR: But the intruder is at 123 Elkwater Road, Bob?
EXECUTIVE: NO! HE’S HERE! HE’S BREAKING DOWN THE BEDROOM DOOR! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SEND HELP!!
OPERATOR: Bob, so that I can better assist you, can you please describe the ax?
(On the executive’s end of the line, there are shouts, sounds of a struggle, screams, then silence. A new voice comes on the line.)
VOICE: Who is this?
OPERATOR: This is 911. Is this Bob?
VOICE: No.
OPERATOR: Do you have an emergency?
VOICE: Not anymore.
OPERATOR: So the problem has been resolved?
VOICE: Yes.
OPERATOR: Would you be willing to take a brief customer-satisfaction survey regarding your 911 experience?
VOICE: Sure.
At this point you’re thinking, Dave, isn’t it a bit extreme to fantasize about a cable-TV executive being chopped to death with an ax? Wouldn’t life in prison be punishment enough?
Of course you’re right, assuming you mean in solitary confinement. But my point is, I have anger issues. I get disproportionately annoyed by behaviors that people engage in all the time. So I am angry a lot, and I usually hold my anger in. I bathe in bile. I let it fester and churn inside me, which can’t be healthy. On the other hand, if I let my anger out, people would think I was insane, and they would be correct, because I’d be out in public shouting things like “YOU ALREADY SAMPLED THE COCONUT BOYSENBERRY RUTABAGA KALE SWIRL! NOW MAKE UP YOUR GODDAMN MIND!!”
So what’s the answer?
The answer, which will probably not surprise you, is to learn a Lesson from Lucy.
