Dave Barry’s Greatest Hits
Page 9
Meanwhile, technology marches on, thanks to new inventions conceived of by brilliant innovative creative geniuses such as a friend of mine named Clint Collins. Although he is really a writer, Clint has developed an amazingly simple yet effective labor-saving device for people who own wall-to-wall carpeting but don’t want to vacuum it. Clint’s concept is, you cut a piece of two-by-four so it’s as long as your vacuum cleaner is wide, and just before company comes, you drag it across your carpet, so it leaves parallel marks similar to the ones caused by a vacuum. Isn’t that great? The only improvement I can think of would be if they wove those lines into the carpet right at the factory, so you wouldn’t even need a two-by-four.
Another recent advantage in technology comes from Joseph DiGiacinto, my lawyer, who has developed a way to fasten chopsticks together with a rubber band and a little wadded-up piece of paper in such a way that you can actually pick up food with them one-handed. You don’t have to ask your waiter for a fork, which makes you look like you just tromped in from Des Moines and never even heard of sweet and sour pork. If you’d like to get in on this high-tech culinary advance, send an envelope with your address and a stamp on it to: Chopstick Concept, C/o Joseph DiGiacinto, Legal Attorney at Law, 235 Main Street, White Plains, NY 10601, and he’ll send you, free, a Chopstick Conversion Kit—including a diagram, a rubber band, and instructions that can be wadded up for use as your paper wad—just as soon as I let him know that he has made this generous offer. He also does wills. And what other advances does the future hold, technology-wise? Even as you read these words, white-coated laboratory geeks are working on a revolutionary new camera that not only will focus automatically, set the exposure automatically, flash automatically, and advance the film automatically, but will also automatically refuse to take stupid pictures, such as of the wing out the airplane window.
Trouble On The Line
I want them to stop explaining my long-distance options to me. I don’t want to know my long-distance options. The more I know about my long-distance options, the more I feel like a fool.
They did this to us once before, with our financial options. This was back in the seventies. Remember? Up until then, if you had any excess money, you put it in a passbook savings account paying 51/4 percent interest, and your only financial options were, did you want the toaster or the electric blanket. For a really slick high-finance maneuver, you could join the Christmas Club, where you gave the bank some money each week, and, at the end of the year, the bank gave you your money back. These were simple, peaceful times, except for the occasional Asian land war.
And then, without warning, they made it legal for consumers to engage in complex monetary acts, many of them involving “liquidity.” Today, there are a whole range of programs in which all that happens is people call up to ask what they should do with their money:
“Hi, Steve? My wife and I listen to you all the time, and we just love your show. Now here is the problem: We’re 27 years old, no kids, and we have a combined income of $93,000, and $675,000 in denatured optional treasury instruments of accrual, which will become extremely mature next week.”
Now to me, those people do not have a problem. To me, what these people need in the way of financial advice is: “Lighten up! Buy yourself a big boat and have parties where people put on funny hats and push the piano into the harbor!” But Mr. Consumer Radio Money Advisor, he tells them complex ways to get even more money and orders them to tune in next week. These shows make me feel tremendously guilty, as a consumer, because I still keep my money in accounts that actually get smaller, and sometimes disappear, like weekend guests in an old murder mystery, because the bank is always taking out a “service charge,” as if the tellers have to take my money for walks or something.
So I feel like a real consumer fool about my money, and now I have to feel like a fool about my phone, too. I liked it better back when we all had to belong to the same Telephone Company, and phones were phones—black, heavy objects that were routinely used in the movies, as murder weapons (try that with today’s phones!). Also, they were permanently attached to your house, and only highly trained Telephone Company personnel could “install” them. This involved attaching four wires, but the Telephone Company always made it sound like brain surgery. It was part of the mystique. When you called for your installation appointment, the Telephone Company would say: “We will have an installer in your area between the hours Of 9 A.M. October 3 and the following spring. Will someone be at home?” And you would say yes, if you wanted a phone. You would stay at home, the anxious hours ticking by, and you would wait for your Phone Man. It was as close as most people came to experiencing what heroin addicts go through, the difference being that heroin addicts have the option of going to another supplier. Phone customers didn’t. They feared the power of the Telephone Company.
I remember when I was in college, and my roommate Rob somehow obtained a phone. It was a Hot Phone. Rob hooked it up to our legal, wall-mounted phone with a long wire, which gave us the capability of calling the pizza-delivery man without getting up off the floor. This capability was essential, many nights. But we lived in fear. Because we knew we were breaking the rule—not a local, state, or federal rule, but a Telephone Company rule—and that any moment, agents of the Telephone Company, accompanied by heavy black dogs, might burst through the door and seize the Hot Phone and write our names down and we would never be allowed to have phone service again. And the dogs would seize our pizza.
So the old Telephone Company could be tough, but at least you knew where you stood. You never had to think about your consumer long-distance options. Whereas today you cannot turn on the television without seeing Cliff Robertson, standing in some pathetic rural community with a name like Eye Socket, Montana, telling you that if you don’t go with his phone company, you won’t be able to call people in rural areas like this, in case you ever had a reason to, such as you suddenly needed information about heifers. Which sounds reasonable, but then Burt Lancaster tells you what a jerk you are if you go with Cliff because it costs more. But that’s exactly what Joan Rivers says about Burt! And what about Liz? Surely Liz has a phone company!
So it is very confusing, and yet you are expected to somehow make the right consumer choice. They want you to fill out a ballot. And if you don’t fill it out, they’re going to assign you a random telephone company. God knows what you could wind up with. You could wind up with the Soviet Union Telephone Company. You could wind up with one of those phone companies where you have to crank the phone, like on “Lassie,” and the operator is always listening in, including when you call the doctor regarding intimate hemorrhoidal matters.
So you better fill out your ballot. I recommend that you go with Jim & Ed’s Telephone Company & Radiator Repair. I say this because Jim and Ed feature a service contract whereby you pay a flat $15 a month, and if you have a problem, Jim or Ed will come out to your house (Jim is preferable, because after 10 A.M. Ed likes to drink Night Train wine and shoot at religious lawn statuary) and have some coffee with you and tell you that he’s darned if he can locate the problem, but if he had to take a stab, he’d guess it was probably somewhere in the wires.
Read This First
CONGRATULATIONS! You have purchased an extremely fine device that would give you thousands of years of trouble-free service, except that you undoubtedly will destroy it via some typical bonehead consumer maneuver. Which is why we ask you to PLEASE FOR GOD’S SAKE READ THIS OWNER’S MANUAL CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU UNPACK THE DEVICE. YOU ALREADY UNPACKED IT, DIDN’T YOU? YOU UNPACKED IT AND PLUGGED IT IN AND TURNED IT ON AND FIDDLED WITH THE KNOBS, AND NOW YOUR CHILD, THE SAME CHILD WHO ONCE SHOVED A POLISH SAUSAGE INTO YOUR VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDER AND SET IT ON “FAST FORWARD,” THIS CHILD ALSO IS FIDDLING WITH THE KNOBS, RIGHT? AND YOU’RE JUST STARTING TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS, RIGHT??? WE MIGHT AS WELL JUST BREAK ALL THESE DEVICES RIGHT AT THE FACTORY BEFORE WE SHIP THEM OUT, YOU KNOW THAT?
We’re sorry. We just get a little crazy sometimes, b
ecause we’re always getting back “defective” merchandise where it turns out that the consumer inadvertently bathed the device in acid for six days. So, in writing these instructions, we naturally tend to assume that your skull is filled with dead insects, but we mean nothing by it. OK? Now let’s talk about:
1. UNPACKING THE DEVICE: The device is encased in foam to protect it from the Shipping People, who like nothing more than to jab spears into the outgoing boxes. PLEASE INSPECT THE CONTENTS CAREFULLY FOR GASHES OR IDA MAE BARKER’S ENGAGEMENT RING WHICH SHE LOST LAST WEEK, AND SHE THINKS MAYBE IT WAS WHILE SHE WAS PACKING DEVICES. Ida Mae really wants that ring back, because it is her only proof of engagement, and her fiance, Stuart, is now seriously considering backing out on the whole thing inasmuch as he had consumed most of a bottle of Jim Beam in Quality Control when he decided to pop the question. It is not without irony that Ida Mae’s last name is “Barker,” if you get our drift.
WARNING: DO NOT EVER AS LONG AS YOU LIVE THROW AWAY THE BOX OR ANY OF THE PIECES OF STYROFOAM, EVEN THE LITTLE ONES SHAPED LIKE PEANUTS. If you attempt to return the device to the store, and you are missing one single peanut, the store personnel will laugh in the chilling manner exhibited by Joseph Stalin just after he enslaved Eastern Europe.
Besides the device, the box should contain:
–Eight little rectangular snippets of paper that say: “WARNING” —A plastic packet containing four 5/17-inch pilfer grommets and two chub-ended 6/93-inch boxcar prawns.
YOU WILL NEED TO SUPPLY: a matrix wrench and 60,000 feet of tram cable.
IF ANYTHING IS DAMAGED OR MISSING: YOU immediately should turn to your spouse and say: “Margaret, you know why this country can’t make a car that can get all the way through the drive-thru at Burger King without a major transmission overhaul? Because nobody cares, that’s why.” (Warning: This Is Assuming Your Spouse’s Name Is Margaret.)
2. PLUGGING IN THE DEVICE: The plug on this device represents the latest thinking of the electrical industry’s Plug Mutation Group, which, in the continuing effort to prevent consumers from causing hazardous electrical current to flow through their appliances, developed the Three-Pronged Plug, then the Plug Where One Prong Is Bigger Than the Other. Your device is equipped with the revolutionary new Plug Whose Prongs Consist of Six Small Religious Figurines Made of Chocolate. DO NOT TRY TO PLUG IT IN! Lay it gently on the floor near an outlet, but out of direct sunlight, and clean it weekly with a damp handkerchief.
WARNING: WHEN YOU ARE LAYING THE PLUG ON THE FLOOR, DO NOT HOLD A SHARP OBJECT IN YOUR OTHER HAND AND TRIP OVER THE CORD AND POKE YOUR EYE OUT, AS THIS COULD VOID YOUR WARRANTY.
3. OPERATION OF THE DEVICE:
WARNING: WE MANUFACTURE ONLY THE ATTRACTIVE DESIGNER CASE. THE ACTUAL WORKING CENTRAL PARTS OF THE DEVICE ARE MANUFACTURED IN JAPAN. THE INSTRUCTIONS WERE TRANSLATED BY MRS. SHIRLEY PELTWATER OF ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE, WHO HAS NEVER ACTUALLY BEEN TO JAPAN BUT DOES HAVE MOST OF SHOGUN ON TAPE.
INSTRUCTIONS: For results that can be the finest, it is our advising that: Never to hold these buttons two times!! Except the battery. Next, taking the (something) earth section may cause a large occurrence! However. If this is not a trouble, such rotation is a very maintenance action, as a kindly (something) viewpoint from Drawing B.
4. WARRANTY: Be it hereby known that this device, together with but not excluding all those certain parts thereunto, shall be warrantied against all defects, failures, and malfunctions as shall occur between now and Thursday afternoon at shortly before 2, during which time the Manufacturer will, at no charge to the Owner, send the device to our Service People, who will emerge from their caves and engage in rituals designed to cleanse it of evil spirits. This warranty does not cover the attractive designer case.
WARNING: IT MAY BE A VIOLATION OF SOME LAW THAT MRS. SHIRLEY PELTWATER HAS SHOGUN ON TAPE.
The Urban Professionals
I’m going to start a rock ‘n’ roll band. Not a good band, where you have to be in tune and wear makeup. This will be a band consisting of people who are Approaching Middle Age, by which I mean they know the words to “Wooly Bully.” This will be the kind of band whose members often miss practice for periodontal reasons—and are always yelling at their kids for leaving Popsicles On the amplifiers. We will be called the “Urban Professionals,” I will be lead guitar.
I miss being in a band. The last band I was in, the “Phlegmtones,” dissolved a couple of years ago, and even that was not truly a formal band in the sense of having instruments or playing them or anything. What it was, basically, was my friend Randall and myself drinking beer and trying to remember the words to “Runaround Sue,” by Dion and the Belmonts.
Before that, the last major band I was in was in college, in the sixties. It was called the “Federal Duck,” which we thought was an extremely hip name. We were definitely 10 pounds of hipness in a 5-pound bag. We had the first strobe light of any band in our market area. We were also into The Blues, which was a very hip thing to be into, back in the sixties. We were always singing songs about how Our woman she done lef’ us and we was gon’ jump into de ribba an’ drown. This was pretty funny, because we were extremely white suburban-style college students whose only actual insight into the blues came from experiences such as getting a C in Poli Sci.
In terms of musical competence, if I had to pick one word to describe us, that word would be “loud.” We played with the subtlety of above-ground nuclear testing. But we made up for this by being cheap. We were so cheap that organizations were always hiring us sight unseen, which resulted a number of times in our being hired by actual grownups whose idea of a good party band was elderly men in stained tuxedos playing songs from My Fair Lady on accordions at about the volume of a drinking fountain.
When we would come in and set up, with our mandatory long hair and our strobe light and our 60,000 pounds of amplifiers, these people would watch us in wary silence. But once we started to play, once the sound of our pulsating beat filled the air, something almost magical would happen: They would move farther away. They’d form hostile little clots against the far wall. Every now and then they’d send over an emissary, who would risk lifelong hearing damage to cross the dance floor and ask us if we knew any nice old traditional slow-dance fox-trot-type songs such as “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,” which of course we didn’t, because it has more than four chords. So we’d say: “No, we don’t know that one, but we do know another one you might like.” Then we’d play “Land of 1,000 Dances,” a very big hit by Cannibal and the Headhunters on Rampart Records. This is a song with only one chord (E). Almost all of the lyrics consist of the statement, I said a na, as follows:
I said a na Na na na na Na na na na, Na na na, na na na; Na na na na.
Our best jobs were at fraternity parties. The only real problem we’d run into there was that every now and then they’d set fire to our equipment. Other than that, fraternity brothers made for a very easy-going audience. Whatever song they requested, we’d play “Land of 1,000 Dances,” and they’d be happy. They were too busy throwing up on their dates to notice. They are running the nation today.
Me, I am leading a quiet life. Too quiet. This is why I’m going to form the Urban Professionals. Right now I am actively recruiting members. So far I’ve recruited one, an editor named Tom whose musical qualifications are that he is 32 years old. He’s going to play some instrument of the type you got handed in rhythm band in elementary school, such as the tambourine. just judging from my circle of friends, I think The Urban Professionals are going to have a large tambourine section.
Once we start to catch on, we’ll make a record. It will be called: “A Moderate Amount of Soul.” After it comes out, we’ll go on a concert tour. We’ll stay in Holiday Inns, and sometimes we’ll “trash” our rooms by refusing to fill out the Guest Questionnaire. Because that’s the kind of rebels the Urban Professionals will be. But our fans will still love us. When we finish our act, they’ll be overcome by emotion. They’ll all rise spontaneously to their feet, a
nd they’ll try, as a gesture of appreciation, to hold lighted matches over their heads. Then they’ll all realize they quit smoking, so they’ll spontaneously sit back down.
The Plastic, Fantastic Cover
I have just about given up on the Tupperware people. I’ve been trying to get them interested in a song I wrote, called “The Tupperware Song,” which I am sure would be a large hit. I called them about it two or three times a week for several weeks.
“You wrote a song?” they would say.
“Yes,” I would say.
“About Tupperware?” they would say.
“It’s kind of a blues song.”
“Yes,” I would say.
“We’ll have somebody get back to you,” they would say.
For quite a while there I thought I was getting the run-around, until finally a nice Tupperware executive named Dick called me up. He was very honest with me. “There’s a fairly limited market for songs about Tupperware,” he said.
“Dick,” I said. “This is a killer song.” Which was true. It gets a very positive reaction whenever I perform it. Of course, I perform it only in those social settings where people have loosened up to the point where they would react positively if you set their clothing on fire, but I still think this song would have widespread appeal.
I wrote it a while back, when friends of mine named Art and Dave had a big Tupperware party in their apartment. It was the social event of the month. Something like 50 people showed up. When the Tupperware Lady walked in, you could tell right away from her facial expression that this was not the kind of Tupperware crowd she was used to. She was used to a subdued all-female crowd, whereas this was a large coeducational crowd with some crowd members already dancing on the refrigerator. The Tupperware Lady kept saying things like: “Are you sure this is supposed to be a Tupperware party?” And: “This doesn’t look like a Tupperware party.” She wanted to go home.