Dave Barry’s Greatest Hits

by Dave Barry

  So the contestants were all really battling the vinaigrette problem, and you could just feel a current of unrest in the room. Things finally came to a head, or “tete,” when contestant Mark Hightower came right out and said that if the rules hadn’t prevented him, he wouldn’t have chosen any wine at all with the salad. “Ideally,” he said, “I would have liked to have recommended an Evian mineral water.” Well, the room just erupted in spontaneous applause, very similar to what you hear at Democratic Party dinners when somebody mentions the Poor.

  Anyway, the winning sommelier, who gets a trip to Paris, was Joshua Wesson, who works at a restaurant named Huberts in New York. I knew he’d win, because he began his Harmony of Wine and Food presentation by saying: “Whenever I see oysters on a menu, I am reminded of a quote. ...” Nobody’s ever going to try buying a moderately priced wine from a man who is reminded of a quote by oysters.

  It turns out however, that Wesson is actually an OK guy who just happens to have a God-given ability to lay it on with a trowel and get along with the French. I talked to him briefly afterwards, and he didn’t seem to take himself too seriously at all. I realize many people think I make things up, so let me assure you ahead of time that this is the actual, complete transcript of the interview:

  ME: So. What do you think? WESSON: I feel good. My arm felt good, my curve ball was popping. I felt I could help the ball team. ME: What about the vinaigrette? WESSON: It was definitely the turning point. One can look at vinaigrette from many angles. It’s like electricity.

  I swear that’s what he said, and furthermore at the time it made a lot of sense.

  Randomly Amongst The Blobs

  Without my eyeglasses, I have a great deal of trouble distinguishing between house fires and beer signs. I wear the kind of glasses that they never show in those eyeglasses advertisements where the lenses are obviously fake because they don’t distort the attractive model’s face at all. My lenses make the entire middle of my head appear smaller. When professional photographers take my picture, they always suggest that I take my glasses off, because otherwise the picture shows this head with the normal top and bottom, but in the middle there’s this little perfect miniature human head, maybe the size of an orange, staring out from behind my glasses.

  People like photographers and dentists and barbers are always asking me to take my glasses off, and I hate it because it makes me stupid and paranoid. I worry that the dentist and his aides are creeping up on me with acetylene torches, or have sneaked out of the room and left me chatting away at the dental spittoon. So I use a sonar technique originally developed by bats, wherein I fire off a constant stream of idiot conversational remarks designed to draw replies so I can keep track of which blobs in the room represent people. This makes it very hard to work on my teeth.

  Swimming at the beach is the worst. If I go into the ocean with my glasses off, which is the traditional way to go into the ocean, I cannot frolic in the surf like a normal person because (a) I usually can’t see the waves until they knock me over and drag me along the bottom and fill my mouth with sand, and (b) the current always carries me down the beach, away from my wife and towel and glasses. When I emerge from the water, all I can see is this enormous white blur (the beach?) covered with darkish blobs (people?), and I run the risk of plopping down next to a blob that I think is my wife and throwing my arm over it in an affectionate manner, only to discover that it is actually horseshoe crabs mating, or a girlfriend of an enormous violent, jealous weightlifter, or, God help me, the violent weightlifter himself.

  So what I do in these circumstances is wander randomly amongst the blobs, making quiet semidesperate noises designed not to bother any civilians, yet to draw the attention of whatever blob might be my wife. “Well, here I am!” I say, trying to appear as casual as possible. “Yes, here I am! Dave Barry! Ha ha! Help!” And so forth. I’m not sure I’m all that unobtrusive on account of my mouth is full of sand.

  Mostly these days when I go to the beach I just stay out of the water altogether. I sit on the shore and play cretin, sand-digging games with my three-year-old son, and I watch the lifeguards, who sit way up on the beach with their 20-20 vision and blow their whistles at swimmers I couldn’t see even with the aid of a radio telescope, off the coast of France somewhere.

  At least I no longer have to worry about necking on dates, the way I did in high school. That was awful. See, you have to take your glasses off when you neck, lest you cause facial injury to the other necker. So I’d be sitting on the sofa with a girl, watching a late movie on television, and I’d figure the time was right, and I’d very casually remove my glasses, rendering myself batlike, and lean toward the blob representing the girl and plant a sensuous kiss on the side of her head owing to the fact that she was still watching the movie. Now what? Do I try again, on the theory that she has been aroused by being kissed on the side of the head? Or is she angry? Is she still watching television? Is she still on the sofa?

  There was no way to tell. The world was a blur. So I’d have to very casually grope around for my glasses and put them back on for a little reconnaissance, but by the time I found them likely as not the potential co-necker had fallen asleep.

  I suppose I could wear contact lenses, but people who wear contact lenses are always weeping and blinking, and their eyes turn red, as though their mothers had just died. You want to go up to them on the street and say “There, there,” and maybe give them money. Also, you never hear of anybody who wears them successfully for more than maybe three weeks. People are always saying, “I really liked them, but my hair started to fall out,” or, “I had this girlfriend, Denise, and one of her contacts slid up under her eyelid and went into her bloodstream and got stuck in her brain and now she never finishes her sentences.”

  I guess I should be grateful that I can see at all, and I am. I just felt like wallowing in self-pity for a while, is all. I promise I won’t do it again. Those of you with worse afflictions than mine, such as migraine headaches or pregnancy, are welcome to write me long, descriptive letters. I promise to look them over, although not necessarily with my glasses on.

  Valuable Presidential Freebies!

  My wife recently got two offers in the mail, one from Ed McMahon and one from President Reagan. Ed’s offer is that if my wife will stick some little stickers on a card and send it back, he’ll give her $2 million. I figure there has to be a catch. Maybe there’s some kind of espionage chemical on the back of the sticker so that when you lick it your nasal passages swell up and explode and you can’t collect your two million. Because otherwise it just seems too easy, you know?

  President Reagan’s offer looks better. He’s offering my wife the opportunity to be on a special Presidential Task Force. Apparently this is a limited offer being made only to a select group consisting of all current and former Republicans, living or dead, in the world. My wife used to be a Republican before she quit voting altogether, except for when there are judicial candidates with humorous names.

  According to the colorful brochure my wife got, her primary task as a member of the Presidential Task Force is to send in $120. President Reagan is going to use this money to prevent the government from falling into the hands of the Democrats, who, according to the brochure, are all disease-ridden vermin. As tokens of the president’s gratitude, my wife will receive a number of Valuable Gifts, including (I swear I am not making this up):

  –A “Medal of Merit” in a “handsome case,” in recognition for highly meritorious service to the nation in the form of coming up with the 120 beans.

  –A lapel pin, which the brochure says will “signify your special relationship with President Reagan.”

  –An embossed Presidential Task Force Membership Card, which “reveals your toll-free, members-only, Washington hotline number; your direct line to important developments in the United States Senate; your superfast way to contact President Reagan and every Republican in the United States Senate.”

  Except for the time that our dog was
throwing up what appeared to be squirrel parts in the living room, I can’t honestly think of any occasion in recent years when we needed to get hold of President Reagan and every Republican in the senate on short notice. Nevertheless, I think the embossed Task Force card hotline number could come in mighty handy.

  Let’s say my wife and I are at the department store and we’re trying to get waited on by a small clot of sales personnel who are clearly annoyed that some idiot has gone and left the doors open again, thus permitting members of the public to get into the store and actually try to purchase things, if you can imagine, right in the middle of a very important sales personnel discussion about hair design.

  Ordinarily what my wife and I do in these situations is stand around in an obvious manner for several minutes, after which we ask politely several times to be waited on, after which we escalate to rude remarks, after which we discharge small arms in the direction of the ceiling, after which we give up and go home. But if my wife were a Task Force member, the sales personnel would notice her lapel pin and say to each other in hushed tones: “That pin signifies that she has a special relationship with President Reagan! We had best make an exception in her case, and permit her to make a purchase!” For they would know that if they didn’t, my wife would be on the horn pronto, contacting President Reagan and all the senate Republicans, and heaven only knows what kind of strong corrective action they would take, except that it would probably involve the shipment of missiles to camel-oriented nations.

  So all in all I think the president has made my wife a fine offer. Not only does she get the valuable Free Gifts, but she gets to keep the government in Republican hands and thus save the Republic and ensure a brighter future for the entire Free World for generations to come. Of course we must weigh this against the fact that $120 will buy you enough beer to last nearly two weeks in mild weather.

  Valuable Scam Offer

  So I got this letter, which said I had been selected by a “merchandise distribution organization” to receive some merchandise. The way the letter sounded, these people just woke up one day and said, “Hey! We have some merchandise! Let’s form an organization and distribute it!” The letter said I could receive as much as $1,000 in cash, but I was not so naive as to think I would get that. I figure I’d have a better shot at the Disney World vacation, or the 24karat gold bracelet with the rubies and diamonds, or maybe even—you never can tell—the five-function LCD watch.

  So I made an appointment to go get the merchandise, and they told me that, while I was there, they would tell me about a new Leisure Concept, and I had to bring my spouse. This is a normal legal precaution they take to avoid a situation where you sign a contract, and when you get home your spouse finds out and stabs you to death with a potato peeler, which could void the contract.

  So we went to the appointed place and sat for a while in a room filled with other couples, and every now and then a person would come in, call out a name, and lead a couple off, and the rest of us would wonder what was going to happen to them. I thought maybe it would be like a fraternity initiation, in which they’d shove us into a darkened room where sales representatives would taunt us and poke us with sharp sticks, then give us our merchandise. But it turns out they don’t let you off that easy.

  Finally, our name was called by a person named Joe. Joe is the kind of person who cannot begin a sentence without saying, “Let me be honest with you,” and cannot end one without grasping your forearm to let you know he is your best personal friend in the world. When Joe was born, the obstetrician examined him briefly and told the nurse: “Do not sign anything this baby gives you.”

  Joe told us his organization didn’t invite just any old set of spouses out there to offer this new Leisure Concept to. He said they had already spent somewhere between $400 and $700 on us—not that we should feel obligated or anything!—to check us out thoroughly to make sure we were not convicted felons, because he knew that nice people like us certainly didn’t want to be part of any Leisure Concept that allowed convicted felons to join, right? (Grasp.) So my wife asked exactly how they could check on something like that, which made Joe very nervous. I think it suddenly occurred to him that we might actually be convicted felons, because he launched into a murky speech about “extenuating circumstances,” the gist of which seemed to be that when he said they didn’t allow convicted felons, he didn’t mean us.

  Next we found out how you can get AIDS from hotel bedsheets. The way this came up is, Joe asked us where we liked to stay during vacations, and we said, hotels. So Joe went over the pluses and minuses of hotels for us, and the only plus he could think of was that hotels have maid service, but even then, being honest, he had to admit that you never know who has been sleeping on those sheets, and you have to worry when you read all these newspaper stories about AIDS. You know? (Grasp.) This was when we realized that, whatever Joe’s Leisure Concept was, it didn’t have maid service.

  So finally Joe let it slip out that his Leisure Concept was “resorts.” As he explained it, basically, we were supposed to give them $11,000 plus annual dues, and then we could spend our Leisure Time at these resorts, which Joe’s company had already built some of and plans to build lots more of. To help illustrate their resort in Virginia, for example, they had a nice picture of the dome of the U.S. Capitol, although when we asked Joe about it, he admitted that the Capitol was not, to be honest, technically on the resort property per se.

  My wife, a picky shopper, said that yes, these were certainly very attractive photographs but generally before she spends $1 1,000 on resorts she likes to see at least one in person. So Joe told us they had one right outside, which he showed us. What it was, to be honest with you, was a campground. It was one of those modern ones with swimming pools and miniature golf and video games, the kind that’s popular with people whose idea of getting close to nature is turn the air conditioning in their recreational vehicles down to medium. My reaction was that I would spend my Leisure Time there only if this were one of the demands made by people who had kidnapped my son.

  So we went back inside, and Joe lunged at us with a Special Offer, good only that day: For only $8,000, we could join his resorts! Plus annual dues! Plus we could stay at affiliated resorts! For a small fee! There are thousands of them! They litter the nation! Plus we could get discounts at condominiums! Waikiki Beach! Air fares! A castle in Germany! Rental cars! Several castles in Germany! Snorkeling! Roy Orbison’s Greatest Hits! But we had to act today! Right now! For various reasons! Did we have any questions?!!

  My major question was, essentially, did they think we had the same Scholastic Aptitude Test scores as mayonnaise. My wife’s questions were: What are you talking about? What resorts? What condominiums? How much of a discount? Joe didn’t know. He was more of a specialist in bedsheet hygiene. So he called the Sales Manager, who hauled over a batch of travel brochures, which he kept on his side of the table while he flipped through them at great speed, pausing occasionally to read parts of headlines to us as if they contained actual information.

  The whole ordeal took over three hours, and it was not easy, but we got our merchandise: a calculator of the kind that you have eight or twelve dead ones at the bottom of your sock drawer at any given time because it’s easier and cheaper to buy a new one than to try to put in new batteries, and an LCD watch that really does have five functions, if you count telling time as two functions (telling hours, and telling minutes).

  I would say, even though the watch stopped working the next day, that it was a fun family outing, and I recommend that you try it, assuming you are fortunate enough to get through the strict screening procedure and receive an invitation. Those of you who are convicted felons might want to use your illegal handguns to bypass the Leisure Concept altogether and ask for the $ 1,000 cash up front.

  &@##%$ + ?,.<> +&’%$!!(&#$$%%’&

  I got to thinking about dirty words this morning when I woke up and looked at the clock, realized I had once again overslept, and said a popular di
rty word that begins with “S,” which will hereinafter be referred to as “the S-word.”

  I say the S-word every morning when I look at the clock, because I’m always angry at the clock for continuing to run after I’ve turned off the alarm and gone back to sleep. What we need in this country, instead of Daylight Savings Time, which nobody really understands anyway, is a new concept called Weekday Morning Time, whereby at 7 A.M. every weekday we go into a space-launch-style “hold” for two or three hours, during which it just remains 7 A.m. This way we could all wake up via a civilized gradual process of stretching and belching and scratching, and it would still be only 7 A.M. when we were ready to actually emerge from bed.

  But so far we are stuck with this system under which the clock keeps right on moving, which is what prompts me each morning to say the S-word. The reason I raise this subject is that this particular morning I inadvertently said it directly into the ear of my son, who is almost four and who sometimes creeps into our bedroom during the night because of nightmares, probably caused by the fact that he sleeps on Return of the Jedi sheets with illustrations of space creatures such as jabba the Hut, who looks like a 6,000-pound intestinal parasite.

  I felt pretty bad, saying the S-word right into my son’s ear, but he was cool. “Daddy, you shouldn’t say the S-word,” he said. Only he didn’t say “the S-word,” you understand; he actually said the S-word. But he said it in a very mature way, indicating that he got no thrill from it, and that he was merely trying to correct my behavior. I don’t know where kids pick these things up.