Lessons From Lucy

by Dave Barry

  Does Lucy get angry? Of course she does. As I have mentioned, she becomes irate when men come and take away our hard-earned garbage. And sometimes, when we’re outside looking for exactly the right place to make a crucial weewee, we will encounter a dog that Lucy decides—for some subtle dog reason that I am incapable of sensing, although I would not question Lucy’s judgment—is an asshole.

  Lucy also hates the Goodyear blimp, which occasionally flies over our house. Apparently back in prehistoric times a primitive blimp did something horrible to Lucy’s ancestors, and she has not forgotten or forgiven. When the Goodyear blimp appears, she barks furiously at it until it goes away, which it always does, because, for all its size and fame, it is a coward.

  So Lucy definitely gets angry. But not often, and—this is the important thing—never for long. The instant the cause of her anger is gone, she’s over it, a calm and carefree dog once again, snoozing and farting. She does not dwell on past irritations. She lets her anger go.

  I need to learn to do that. I’m not saying that I can, or even should, completely ignore the world’s jerks. But I need to accept certain realities:

  • My hating a jerk for jerky behavior doesn’t hurt the jerk at all. The jerk, being a jerk, is unaware of my feelings. So all I’m doing, by marinating in my anger, is making myself unhappy.

  • Most of the time, the annoyance caused by jerk behavior is minor and short-lived. We’re talking about waiting a few seconds longer in line, that kind of thing. It’s rarely worth stressing about, or creating a confrontation over.

  • If I got to know the strangers who annoy me, I’d probably discover that some of them—maybe most of them—really aren’t such bad people. I might even like them.

  • Except the guy revving the Harley. He is vermin.

  No, seriously, even the Harley guy probably has redeeming qualities. Most people do, if you give them a chance. And if they don’t—if they’re really just awful people—then their lives are already miserable. My hatred won’t make them feel any worse. It’s a waste of my time; it saps my energy and sours my life.

  So here’s the fourth Lesson from Lucy:

  Let Go of Your Anger,

  Unless It’s About Something Really Important,

  Which It Almost Never Is.

  I definitely need to learn this lesson. I need to relax, to chill, to forgive and forget (or at least to forget). I need to inhale deeply and exhale slowly, to let all that rage and stress and tension flow out of me like some kind of (I apologize for this image) emotional enema.

  You know who else needs to learn this lesson?

  Everybody.

  I’m serious. The whole world is way too angry these days. If you want proof of that, don some eye protection and take a look at Facebook.

  In case you just woke up from a coma, I should explain that Facebook is a social-media website that literally billions of people visit regularly for the purpose of making some person named Mark Zuckerberg insanely rich. When you join Facebook, you get your own virtual “page,” on which you can post text, photos, videos, links to articles, etc. Then you become “friends” with other Facebook users; you and your friends can see and interact with each other’s pages.

  I joined Facebook because I have a lot of relatives and friends on there, and it’s a good way to maintain human relationships without having to see or talk to other humans. You can read about people’s life milestones, such as birthdays, weddings, anniversaries and deaths. You can see pictures of their kids, grandkids, vacations, pets, wounds,20 etc. You also see a lot of pictures of food, because some people apparently view everything they eat as a life milestone.

  My favorite thing about Facebook is that you can express your reactions to people’s life events simply by clicking on emojis, which are little face drawings depicting emotions. As I write this, the available emojis are “Like,” “Love,” “Haha,” “Wow,” “Sad” and “Angry.” So if one of your Facebook friends has a death in the family, instead of taking on the tedious chore of writing a letter or calling, you can simply click on “Sad,” and just like that, bada-bing bada-boom, you have registered your sincere emotional reaction, and you can get on with your busy life.

  OK, so it’s kind of perfunctory. But it’s better than nothing, and it has enabled me, a pathologically detached person (see the first Lesson from Lucy), to stay at least loosely in touch with people I care about. That’s why I go on Facebook. I like the social aspect.

  What I dislike is the political aspect, which infests Facebook like a toxic mold. I don’t go to Facebook for politics. I’d rather see wounds.

  I’m not saying people don’t have a right to express their political views. Obviously they have the right to say whatever they want, and the right to not care what I think about it. I just wish people wouldn’t use Facebook for politics. I get politics spewed at me almost everywhere else I go on the Internet. I’d rather not also see it sandwiched between pictures of people’s grandkids.

  It’s not the specific political views I dislike; it’s the tone. I wouldn’t mind if people said something like, “Hey, here’s what I think about this issue, and here’s why.” And maybe even: “What do you think? Let’s have an open-minded discussion!”

  But that’s almost never the tone. The default tone of political discourse—and not just on Facebook; it’s everywhere—is angry, even CAPS LOCK ANGRY. It is also often wildly melodramatic. Everything that happens is THE WORST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED. And to round out the unpleasantness, the tone is also often lecture-y, sneering, contemptuous, condescending, self-righteous, smug. No matter what the issue is, the message is: This is what I think, and there can be NO DISCUSSION about it because the only possible reason you could have a different opinion is that you are stupid, or evil, or stupid AND evil.

  Perhaps you’re a conservative, and you think I’m talking about progressives here.

  Or perhaps you’re a progressive, and you think I’m talking about conservatives.

  Either way, you’re wrong. I’m talking about you.

  I’m not saying don’t care about politics.

  I’m not saying don’t stand up for what you believe in.

  I’m not saying don’t debate people you disagree with.

  What I’m saying is: Don’t hate them. Try talking to them, instead of calling them names. Try listening to them. And even if you disagree with them—even if you hate what they’re saying—don’t let your hate consume you. Remain calm. Inhale. Exhale. Remember this: however bad you think things are today, however awful you consider our leaders to be, however stupid you think your fellow Americans are, this country has seen worse times, including—to name a few—the Civil War, 9/11, the Great Depression and six seasons of Jersey Shore. We muddled through those times. We will muddle through these.

  So let go of your anger. Even if you think I’m a naïve fool to be optimistic about the future, you should still let go of your anger. It’s not helping your cause, and it’s not hurting the people you perceive as your enemies. Mainly what it’s doing is making you unhappy.

  Just let it go.

  And, Comcast, if you’re reading this: I forgive you.

  For now.

  * * *

  20 Seriously: I have seen people’s wounds on Facebook.

  THE FIFTH LESSON FROM LUCY

  Sometimes when we’re walking Lucy we encounter a male neighborhood dog whom I will call Brutus, in case he reads this. I don’t know what specific breed of dog Brutus is, so I will describe him to you: Brutus is ugly. He looks like a cross between a dog and a toad. He’s short and squat, with a very flat face such as a breed might develop after many generations of repeatedly running face-first at high speed into sliding glass doors. Brutus’s eyes are far apart and bulbous; they protrude so far that you fear they’re going to pop out and roll off down the sidewalk. To complete his look, Brutus has a pronounced underbite, with teeth jutting randomly from the bottom of his drooling mouth.

  So Brutus is not what you wou
ld call a visual treat. But do not try to tell him that. Brutus believes himself to be a stud muffin. When he sees Lucy, he lunges boldly toward her, dragging his owner by the leash. Panting excitedly, Brutus bounces around Lucy on his stumpy legs, doing leash-tangling laps, looking for an angle that will enable him to attain some level of intimacy, which because of the height differential would be impossible without some kind of ramp. Still, Brutus persists, thrusting his flat snout up as close to her butt region as he is able to get, making it clear with every quivering inch of his small mutant canine body that he is ready to party.

  As for Lucy: she is interested. She wags her tail; she takes deep appreciative whiffs of Brutus as he orbits her. This is as far as things ever get, because after a minute or two we owners separate the dogs so we can continue our walks. But for a little while there, magic is happening. Love is in the air. Where I see a genetic mistake, Lucy sees a beautiful being.

  This is often the case when dogs meet. Granted, sometimes two dogs will take an instant dislike to each other, and some dogs, especially your yappy hand-carried microdogs, seem to hate pretty much everybody, dog or human. But for the most part, in my experience, a dog, when it meets another dog, will respond as follows:

  HEY! YOU’RE A DOG AND I’M A DOG! HOLY SMOKES, WE’RE BOTH DOGS!!! LET’S SMELL EACH OTHER’S PERSONAL REGIONS! WOW! YOU ARE GIVING OFF A STRONG DOG AROMA THAT I FIND INTRIGUING! LET’S SMELL EACH OTHER’S REGIONS SOME MORE! WOW! LET’S SMELL EACH OTHER’S REGIONS SOME MORE! WOW! LET’S SMELL EACH OTHER’S REGIONS SOME . . .

  And so on. The dogs will enthusiastically explore each other, and then they will play with each other. If the circumstances are right, they might even commence humping operations. They will do these things regardless of what breed of dog each dog is, or what size it is, or how old it is, or what it looks like. For the purpose of humping operations, some male dogs don’t even care if the other dog is actually a dog. A human leg, or an ottoman, or (I have seen this with my own eyes) a chain saw that happens to be lying on the ground—these can all serve as desirable sex partners for a motivated guy dog.

  This is a beautiful thing about dogs. Not that they will hump a power tool—although you have to admire that “can-do” spirit—but that they do not judge by appearance. They don’t care what they look like—they don’t even know what they look like—and they don’t care what anybody else looks like. I won’t go so far as to say that they judge others purely by their inner spiritual qualities. But they clearly are not hung up on looks.

  Whereas of course we humans are obsessed with looks. We mess constantly with the appearance of our faces, our hair, our bodies. We starve ourselves. We have surgery on our breasts, noses, chins, cheeks, eyelids, ears, necks, arms, stomachs and butts in an effort to make them look more like somebody else’s breasts, noses, chins, etc. We pay people to inject Botox into our faces. We pay people to stick tubes into our thighs and suck out the fat. We pay people to put strips of hot wax on our genitals and then rip them off. (I mean they rip off the strips; the genitals usually remain attached.)

  No dog would ever do any of these things. If a dog were capable of (a) speech, and (b) grasping the concept of genital waxing, that dog would say: “I may drink from the toilet, but I would never do THAT.”

  Why are we humans so obsessed with appearance? The unfortunate truth is, it’s hardwired into human biology. Modern humans evolved around a hundred thousand years ago during the Pleistocene Epoch, which gets its name from the fact that in those days there was a lot of pleistocene around. In order for their species to survive, these early humans had to reproduce by—follow me closely—having sex with each other. The humans who were better at reproducing produced more offspring, which means they were more likely to pass their genes along to future generations than the humans who were not so good at reproducing. This is how evolution works.

  So let’s consider two Pleistocene males, Bob and Fred (not their real names). Bob is thoughtful, quiet and shy. Physically, he’s on the small side and not aggressive. He enjoys admiring the beauty of a sunset and taking long, quiet walks on the beach, assuming they had beaches in that epoch. Bob has sexual urges, but he wants the sex to be part of a multifaceted and mutually rewarding relationship, not just a physical act. When he meets a female he is attracted to—we’ll call her Naomi—he takes it slow, because he wants to get to know her and give her time to get to know him. He wants to make sure they are truly right for each other.

  Fred is larger and more muscular than Bob, and much more aggressive. He attempts to mate with pretty much every female he encounters. If a female lets him know that she is not interested via some body-language indicator such as hitting Fred in the face with a rock, Fred is undeterred; he simply moves on to the next female, confident that sooner or later he will score.

  And score he does. Certain Pleistocene females—we will call them Mabels—prefer a large, aggressive male, because they believe he will be better able to protect them and hunt for them and bring home a nice haunch of mastodon for dinner. Over the course of his lifetime, Fred will copulate with dozens of females, including Naomi, who has grown tired of waiting for Bob to get up enough courage to ask her to the Pleistocene Prom.

  So ask yourself: Which of these males is going to pass along more of his genes to succeeding generations?

  That’s right: the late Hugh Hefner.

  I am kidding, of course. Hugh did not evolve until the early Holocene Epoch. Obviously Fred was the winner in the Reproduction Derby. Succeeding generations of humans contained more Freds and Mabels than Bobs and whomever Bob managed to attract.

  This selection process continued for many thousands of years. Eventually, as civilization got more civilized, physical traits became less crucial for human survival. Today a woman does not need a man to provide her with a mastodon haunch; she can order one from Amazon.21 But after eons of dominance by the Fred/Mabel genes, modern humans still have a tendency to be attracted toward a certain kind of look. Researchers have done studies wherein they display photos of a variety of people and ask subjects to judge them on attractiveness. The results of these studies are summarized by Wikipedia as follows:

  Men, on average, tend to be attracted to women who are shorter than they are, have a youthful appearance, and exhibit features such as a symmetrical face, full breasts, full lips, and a low waist-hip ratio. Women, on average, tend to be attracted to men who are taller than they are, display a high degree of facial symmetry, masculine facial dimorphism, and who have broad shoulders, a relatively narrow waist, and a V-shaped torso.

  If that sounds too technical, and you don’t feel like looking up “dimorphism,” let me translate it into layperson’s terms: scientific tests show that, in general, people are attracted to people who probably don’t look like you.

  OK, maybe I’m projecting a little here. Maybe you actually do have the preferred physical characteristics. Maybe you look like Brad Pitt or Beyoncé or Channing Tatum or Scarlett Johansson or Denzel Washington or Penélope Cruz or the late Bruce Lee or additional examples of attractive people from every major racial and ethnic group because I do not wish to get into trouble here. If so, good for you.

  But many people do not have the look that the Fred/Mabel genes find attractive. Me, for example. I don’t look like the kind of man who, in primitive times, would have participated in the mastodon hunt. I look like the kind of man who would have remained a safe distance away, making comical wisecracks about the mastodon hunters (“Expose your armpits, Fred! That should bring it down!”). I wouldn’t make these wisecracks loud enough that the hunters could actually hear me; my strategy would be to use humor to impress primitive females, so they would want to mate with me. But of course that wouldn’t work: they were primitive but not stupid. They didn’t need jokes. They needed protein.

  Granted that was long ago. In modern times, many women, when surveyed, say that one of the qualities they find most attractive in a man is a sense of humor. They say this, and I think they really be
lieve it. They want to see themselves as the kind of person who is attracted to a sense of humor.

  But their genes still want Fred.

  I base this broad22 generalization on my extensive experience as a class clown attempting to attract females with my zany wit, only to fail miserably time after time. This pattern began when, after an innocent, carefree boyhood spent blowing up mailboxes, I lurched awkwardly into adolescence. I still have memories—vivid memories—of that hellish time. It was like one of those horror movies wherein alien beings take over people’s bodies one by one, except that instead of alien beings, it was puberty. One day, the girl who sat next to you in class would be a girl. The next day, you’d look over and there would be this woman. With bosoms. The boys were also undergoing major bodily renovations, although generally not as early; I personally did not achieve full puberty until roughly age thirty-seven.

  But if my physical change was annoyingly slow, my emotional change was abrupt. Suddenly, all of these vague feelings and yearnings I’d had throughout childhood had a specific, urgent focus. (Bosoms!) I became very, very interested in sex, and how it worked, and above all whether there was any conceivable scenario wherein I personally would be able to engage in it. Fortunately, back then boys my age had access to a vast storehouse of solid information on this topic in the form of slightly older boys, who—although they had no direct personal experience with sex, either—had heard various reliable rumors from boys slightly older than they were, who had acquired this information from slightly older boys, who allegedly knew somebody slightly older who claimed to have actually engaged in some activity that could be construed as sex.

  To augment this knowledge base, boys back then had another major information resource on human sexuality in the form of the massive national strategic stockpile of old Playboy magazines stored under the mattresses of the nation’s older brothers. In terms of commitment to recycling, the “green” movement of today has nothing on the older brothers of the fifties and sixties, who never threw away a Playboy and who risked a lifetime of back ailments by courageously sleeping on mattresses distorted by magazine mounds the size of a dead horse.