Stay Fit And Healthy Until You’re Dead

by Dave Barry

  So unfortunately, balding men, there is little to offer you in the way of hope at this time. If only somebody would develop a proven scientific guaranteed effective totally safe miracle hair-growth substance!

  (News item)

  SCIENTISTS LAUD DAVE BARRY PROVEN SCIENTIFIC GUARANTEED EFFECTIVE TOTALLY SAFE MIRACLE HAIR-GROWTH SUBSTANCE

  BUFFALO OR ST. LOUIS—Scientists wearing white smocks here have announced that in proven scientific tests, the Dave Barry Miracle Hair-Growth Substance did, in fact, bring new life to dead hair follicles belonging to volunteer bald persons who were scientifically monitored as they slept on street grates.

  “As this enlarged photograph shows,” explained Chief of Research Dr. Ernst Viewfinder, “most of the follicles of the untreated volunteers are small and dead—not unlike, I might add by way of a humorous aside, some of the untreated volunteers themselves, ha ha. But in these photographs of the treated volunteers, we can see that the Dave Barry Miracle Hair-Growth Substance has brought their scalps back to life, with sleek and happy follicles the size of adult mice, in some cases completely crowding out the brain! This could well be what happened to Vidal Sassoon.”

  Skin

  What do women find attractive when they look at a man’s skin? Bumps. Yes, bumps. Why do you think women fall all over Robert Redford while virtually ignoring you and me? Go watch Redford in a movie sometime, and you’ll see that he has a number of facial bumps, which look during the extreme close-ups to be big enough to play polo on, and which, as far as I can tell, are the only major physical characteristic in which Robert Redford and I differ.

  So what I am recommending, men, is that as part of your daily grooming ritual, you apply small globulets of Silly Putty to your face, as shown in the illustration, so as to render yourself irresistible to the opposing sex. I regret to point out, however, that Silly Putty comes in only the Caucasian skin hue, which is blatant discrimination against those members of minority groups who also wish to install facial bumps, and I think those of us who are still liberals ought to sit right down and write hostile letters about this to our Congresspersons.

  Makeup

  Makeup is definitely the coming thing in male grooming. Oh, I know what you’re saying. You’re saying, “No way. No way am I going to put on makeup!” But of course that’s exactly what you said about bikini underwear, and hair spray, and blow-dryers, which, if you had used them in a locker room 15 years ago, would have resulted in a situation where if you entered the shower, the other men would have fled from you in very much the way the residents of Tokyo fled from Godzilla, but which are common grooming articles today.

  Yes, men, you might as well face it: it won’t be long before we’re all wearing makeup. And the last thing you want to do is get left behind on this trend and end up looking ludicrously out of date, like the unfortunate individuals you occasionally see who still wear white patent leather shoes and matching belts and always look like assistant deputy sewage commissioners from small towns where the highest form of cultural activity is reading the drive-thru menu at Burger King. So what I recommend you do is gradually start introducing makeup into your grooming routine—a little blusher, a little eye liner, a touch of lipstick—and see if you don’t start making a big impression at your office, maybe even start attracting the attention of people as high up as vice president, people who once seemed unaware you even existed, but who suddenly start looking at you for 20 and 30 seconds at a time on the elevator and trying to discreetly read your security badge.

  Chapter 11. When You Get Sick

  Even the healthiest person, if he follows the fitness program described in this book, will eventually need medical care. Fortunately, we Americans live in a nation where the medical-care system is second to none in the world, unless you count maybe 25 or 30 little scuzzball countries like Scotland that we could vaporize in seconds if we felt like it.

  What we’re going to talk about in this chapter is how you can become more aware of the various problems that your body can develop, so that you’ll be better able to worry about them. We’ll also talk about how, if you actually do become sick, you can explain your problems to the medical-care establishment in such a way that it does not immediately yank out a useful organ.

  How You Can Tell When There Is Something Wrong with You

  Trained medical personnel detect illness or other bodily problems by looking for “symptoms,” the major ones being these:

  Aches Pains A total absence of aches or pains Bullet holes A feeling of not keeping up with inflation A leg bone sticking out through the skin Never having the correct change A stoppage of heart or brain activity Irritability

  Get in the habit of checking yourself every 20 minutes or so for these symptoms. When you notice one, you should immediately follow this emergency procedure:

  1. Take two pills containing a Scientifically Proven Painkilling Formula that has been advertised on television by a reliable avuncular spokesperson such as Robert Young.

  2. Phone your office to tell them that you won’t be in for several days and could somebody please remember to discard any interoffice memoranda aimed at you. If you have no office, you should phone your mother and have her confirm that there is definitely Something Going Around.

  This course of treatment will cure you most of the time. If it doesn’t, you probably have a serious illness, which means you should call your physician’s answering service and make an appointment to go into his office the following month and sit in the waiting room for an hour and 45 minutes reading National Geographic. If that doesn’t work, you should go to a hospital emergency ward and inflict a gunshot wound on yourself, thus increasing the odds that you will see an actual doctor to nearly 40 percent.

  Dealing with Doctors

  To get the most out of a doctor, you have to understand how he perceives the world, which is best summed up by the last sentence of the Hippocratic Oath:

  “AND ABOVE ALL, REMEMBER THAT THE PATIENT HAS NABISCO BRAND SHREDDED WHEAT FOR BRAINS.”

  Yes, doctors tend to feel just a tad superior to the general public, but this is understandable. Doctors are generally smart people, the kind who were attending meetings of the National Honor Society while you were leaning out the study hall window seeing if you could spit on passing nuns. In college and medical school, doctors spend years associating with other smart people and learning complicated things like the location of the pituitary gland. When they get out, the last thing they feel like doing is consorting with a bunch of cretin patients, who not only have no idea where the pituitary gland is, but also are often sick besides.

  So the important rule to remember when you’re dealing with a doctor is this: never tell him what you think the problem is, even if you’re absolutely certain. If you tell him what you think, he’ll become irritated and go out of his way to prove you’re wrong:

  YOU: Doctor, I think I have suffered a knife wound to the stomach.

  DOCTOR (sneering): Oh you do, do you? And what makes you think that?

  YOU: Well, several hostile urban youths accosted me on the street and stuck a knife in my stomach. See? Here’s the knife handle, sticking out of my stomach.

  DOCTOR (examining your foot): That could be caused by any number of conditions, such as an amalgamation of the pyloric valve or an interdiction of the right epistolary oracle. I’m going to send you to the hospital for some tests next week.

  The phrase “send you to the hospital for some tests” is medical code for “drain all the blood out of your body.” Blood removal is the primary form of health care in the United States, and it has been ever since April 4, 1906, when the founder of the Mayo Clinic, Dr. Ted Clinic, happened to be cutting open diseased woodland creatures, as was his wont, and made an amazing discovery: all of the creatures contained blood. He concluded that blood must be a leading cause of disease, which is why today when you go into the hospital, various personnel are always lunging at you with needles. They are very conscientious about this because they don’
t want to get a nasty note from the doctor (“3 P.M.—Patient still contains traces of blood! Let’s not let this happen again”).

  If blood removal doesn’t work, they start taking out your organs. Usually they start with organs you have two of, such as kidneys, then move up to the really vital ones, so it’s very important that you convince the doctor you’re getting better while you still have a chance to survive:

  DOCTOR: So! How are we feeling today?

  YOU (hastily): Fine! Great! Never felt better!

  DOCTOR (frowning at your chart): Really? Are you sure? Because I see by your chart here that you still have several organs left, and we could ...

  YOU (staggering out of bed, trailing intravenous tubes): No! No! Look! I feel terrific! (You attempt a deep knee bend, then collapse in agony.)

  DOCTOR: Okay, but I’ll be back to check on you in an hour.

  Paying for Your Hospital Treatment

  Always examine your hospital bill closely. It should look like this:

  Aspirin tablet.

  $11.05

  Little Dixie cup for water to wash aspirin tablet down with

  6.80

  Water

  31.80

  Removal of childproof cap from aspirin bottle (Dr. Viewfinder)

  460.00

  Removal of little tuft of cotton from aspirin bottle (Dr. Beaner)

  385.00

  CAT scan from when Dr. Spinnaker thought he might have heard a little whistling noise in the patient’s chest that was probably nothing but You Always Want to Be Sure about These Things

  87,354.50

  Consultation among Dr. Spinnaker, Dr. Viewfinder, Dr. Beaner, Dr. Whelk, Dr. Pilsner, and Dr. Frackmeyer while they were peeing (per doctor)

  275.00

  Also Dr. Whelk mentioned it to Dr. Hogworth at the polo match

  340.00

  Gratuity

  85.00

  If, after examining the bill carefully, you feel satisfied that all the dollar amounts are lined up neatly on the right-hand side, you should submit it to your insurance company, which will, without even looking at it, send it back to you with a testy note telling you that you filled out the forms all wrong. This will give you time to sell your house and children to raise the cash you’ll need for when you finally get everything filled out right and the insurance company notifies you that the only thing you’re actually covered for is 60 percent of the Dixie cup.

  Home Emergency First-Aid Chart to Be Kept Posted on the Bulletin Board underneath the Coupons That, If You Save Up Ten of Them, Get You a Free Medium Pizza

  HOME EMERGENCY TREATMENT Decapitation. Elevate head; shriek for assistance. Victim has swallowed fabric softener. Induce vomiting by showing the victim a videotape of that speech Richard Nixon gave about his mother after he resigned. Victim has swallowed a can of chicken gumbo soup. So? What’s so bad about that? Victim has swallowed the actual can. Oh. Is this by any chance the same victim that swallowed the fabric softener? Boy, that victim has a real problem.

  Chapter 12. Fitness Q And A

  Fitness and the Expectant Mother

  Q. I am currently pregnant to a considerable degree. Instead of trying to keep fit, may I just lounge around watching “Days of Our Lives” and reading Glamour Magazine?

  A. No! These are the 80s, for God’s sake, and nobody is excused from being fit! Especially you expectant women! If you just let your body go during pregnancy, after the baby comes, you’re going to look as though a team of plastic surgeons have implanted a 35-pound mass of Wonder bread dough under the skin around your hips and thighs. But if you continue to care for your body, if you exercise regularly and maintain your muscle tone, the mass will have a much firmer consistency, like congealed rubber cement.

  Of course, a pregnant woman can’t do the same exercises as a normal person. Most gynecologists, for example, frown on the pole vault after about the seventh month. But there are still some exercises that work very well for the mother-to-be, such as:

  1. TRY TO TOUCH THE WALL. Stand in a relaxed fashion with your arms over your head and your abdominal area forming a large tissue mass directly between you and the wall. Now gradually lean forward until your arms touch the wall, if such a thing is possible, and then return to the full standing position.

  2. TRY TO GET OUT OF A CAR. Have several burly friends somehow place you behind the wheel of a 1979 Chevrolet Chevette, or some equally absurd little car, then have them time you as you attempt to get out of it in such a way that your undergarments are not clearly visible from other planets. Eight minutes is the world’s record.

  3. KNEE CLENCH. Go to a nice restaurant with friends and attempt to get all the way to the appetizers without going to the bathroom more than twice.

  Q. What about fitness for the fetus?

  A. You should indeed embark upon a rigorous program of fetal fitness, for otherwise the fetus will be born pasty and flabby and lacking in muscle definition, and in later life it may have trouble getting accepted by the better aerobic dancing institutes. Of course, getting the fetus to exercise is not easy, any more than teaching the fetus to read is easy, but if you truly are a Concerned Parent, you will find a way.

  I particularly recommend a new product developed by the fine people who make Nautilus equipment. It’s called the “Fetahis” and it’s specially designed for the fetus to use in the womb. It’s a very effective device and well worth the cost, although to be perfectly frank the insertion process is not everybody’s cup of tea.

  Some Helpful Answers for People Who Smoke

  Q. I’m a smoker, and ...

  A. You’re a what?

  Q. I’m a smoker, and I’d really like to ...

  A. You are slime, you know that? You are raw industrial sewage.

  Q. Yes, I know. I really want to quit. I just hate ...

  A. Why don’t you just suck on the exhaust pipe of a poorly tuned automobile, huh? Why don’t you just go around spraying Agent Orange on your fellow restaurant patrons?

  Q. Of course you are absolutely right. It’s just that it’s so hard to stop, and I’m getting desperate, and I was hoping that maybe you’d have some tips on how ...

  A. I’ll tell you one thing. If you ever try to ignite one of those repulsive toxic objects in a restaurant where I am dining, I shall order a reputable brand of designer carbonated water and forcibly pour it into your nasal passages. Do I make myself clear?

  Q. Yes, and I can certainly understand why you feel that way.

  A. Well, you’d damned well better.

  Q. Thank you.

  A. Get out of my sight before I vomit.

  Fitness and the Afterlife

  Q. I am very, very proud of my body. I have calluses on the top of my head formed by bumping into things because I walk around looking down at my various major muscle groupings. My question is: What will happen to my body when I die? Who will take care of it? Will it become soft and shapeless?

  A. You will be pleased to learn that the long-neglected field of postmortem fitness has received a real “shot in the arm” lately with the emergence of the Eterna-Body chain of fitness centers, each equipped with the patented Cryo-Physique Room, which is very much like a sauna, except that instead of exposing living people to heat, it lowers the temperature of dead people to approximately 325 degrees below zero, at which temperature they acquire a firmness of muscle tone that we normally associate only with world-class bodybuilders and certain minerals.

  Fitness and Sex

  Q. About a year ago, my husband got on a rigorous fitness program, and he definitely looks much, much better. The problem is, he has taken to viewing our lovemaking as primarily a form of exercise. Like, for example, he wears ankle weights and Heavy Hands, which are no picnic during foreplay. Also, I have a problem with the idea of having my sexual partner, at a very intimate moment, if you get my drift, shout his pulse rate into a tape recorder. Don’t you think he’s carrying this too far?

  A. Absolutely. First of all, the Heavy Hands aren’t
doing him nearly as much good as dumbbells would, and second, I see no reason why he can’t simply use a felt-tipped marker to jot his pulse rate down quietly on an exposed patch of your skin.

  Fitness and the Third World

  Q. I’m a part of a team of CIA operatives currently operating in a fungal, lice-ridden Central American nation that I, of course, cannot reveal the name of because it’s a secret. Our main mission here is to win over the local peasantry to the cause of Freedom and Democracy via a two-pronged program of (a) teaching them how to make sandwiches, and (b) shooting suspected opposition peasants in the head. What I was wondering was, do you think it would help if we also sponsored Dancercise classes?

  A. Sounds like a winner! There’s nothing that backward peoples enjoy quite so much as dancing, to judge from any number of comical old movies I have seen, wherein the natives are always leaping around and putting Bob Hope in a large iron pot. Be sure your peasants wear an approved style of leg warmer, which the Department of Defense will be able to procure for you at a cost of $63,400 per leg.

  Postwar Fitness