by Dave Barry
CHLOE
Two men took possession of a crate exactly the size of a proton defrackulator, loaded it into a van, and took off. Also they shot all the dockworkers.
JACK
Hmm. Were they swarthy?
CHLOE (TAPPING)
I’m uploading a photo.
JACK (LOOKING AT PHONE)
Those are terrorists, all right. Do you have a visual on the van?
CHLOE (TAPPING)
Yes.
JACK
What?
CHLOE
Sorry. I mean, affirmative. The van stopped at a wedding reception to deliver a floral centerpiece.
JACK
What kind?
CHLOE (TAPPING)
Cymbidium orchids in a bed of asparagus leaves accented with wisps of bear grass.
JACK
Bear grass?
CHLOE (TAPPING)
Latin name Xerophyllum tenax.
JACK
Copy that. Where’s the van now?
CHLOE
It’s heading toward the Department of Commerce building in downtown Washington on Old Plankton Road.
JACK
Keep me posted. I’m landing at the White House now.
The chopper lands on the White House lawn. Jack jumps out, shoots a Marine attempting to salute him, and strides into the White House. An instant later he enters the Situation Room.
THE PRESIDENT
Mr. Bauer, thank you for . . . Whoa, are those boar bites?
JACK
There was also an ocelot. I’ll be fine.
THE PRESIDENT
Ouch. Anyway, thank you for coming from California in eight minutes.
THE VICE PRESIDENT
I say we arrest him on trumped-up charges for crimes he did not commit.
THE PRESIDENT
Not yet, you moron. Jack, what do you know about the plot?
JACK
The terrorists brought the proton defrackulator in through the Chevy Chase seaport and are heading into Washington on Old Plankton Road.
FBI DIRECTOR
Wait a minute. There is no “Chevy Chase seaport,” and no “Old Plankton Road.”
THE PRESIDENT
If you think that with millions of American lives at stake I’m going to sit here and listen to your legalistic nitpicking just because once a year after thirty-one to thirty-six days of gestation I give birth to a blind hairless infant the size of a lima bean and then nurse it to maturity from a teat in my pouch, then you have another think coming. General, what do the Joint Chiefs recommend?
GENERAL
We—
Jack shoots the general in the thigh.
JACK
There’s no time for that. I’ll need a tactical assault team of extras headed by an attractive woman.
THE PRESIDENT
Done.
JACK
Also I may have to blow up the Department of Commerce. Apparently it’s a terrorist hideout.
THE PRESIDENT
I wondered what they did in there.
Jack strides out. For a moment the Situation Room is silent.
THE VICE PRESIDENT
Wait . . . you’re a female kangaroo?
COMMERCIAL
SETTING: DOWNTOWN WASHINGTON, D.C.
Jack lands the helicopter outside the Department of Commerce Building. As he climbs out, an attractive black-clad woman approaches. Jack shoots her.
WOMAN (CLUTCHING HER THIGH)
Wait! FBI!
JACK
Sorry.
WOMAN
It’s just a bullet wound; it’ll heal in a few minutes. I’m Faye Baker, your romantic interest.
JACK
Be advised that I have a brooding personality and never allow anyone to get too close.
FAYE
Is that because of the lonely burden you bear?
JACK
Also I haven’t pooped in nine years. Have you established a totally ineffective perimeter?
FAYE
Of course.
JACK (SPEAKING INTO PHONE)
Chloe, I need the building schematics now.
CHLOE (TAPPING)
Uploading.
JACK (LOOKING AT PHONE)
These are pictures of you naked.
CHLOE
Whoops.
JACK
Is that a llama?
CHLOE (TAPPING FURIOUSLY)
Here are the schematics.
JACK (FROWNING AT PHONE)
According to these, we can enter the building by . . . the door.
CHLOE (TAPPING)
Jack, there’s something else.
JACK
What is it?
CHLOE
I just ran a cross-modulated algorithm sequentialization series on the HEPCOM database, and for shocking-plot-twist reasons that make no logical sense, which is why I’m talking really fast and using random technical-sounding buzzwords, your son is in that building.
JACK
I have a son?
CHLOE
Apparently this season you do.
JACK
Copy that. TO FAYE: We need to get to the proton defrackulator before the terrorists activate it at the top of the hour.
FAYE
But what about your son?
JACK (BROODING)
I don’t want to talk about it.
FAYE
Don’t shut me out, Jack.
JACK
Dammit, Faye, there’s NO TIME.
Jack runs into the building, followed by Faye and her team. They are met in the lobby by a hail of bullets. Many extras go down. Jack pulls a pistol and fires approximately eight hundred shots, each of which kills an enemy gunman. But more gunmen keep appearing. Jack and Faye crouch behind a lamp. Tens of thousands of bullets ricochet around them.
JACK (SHOUTING INTO BLUETOOTH HEADSET)
Chloe, we’re pinned down by hostiles in the Department of Commerce!
CHLOE
I wondered what they did in there.
JACK (SHOUTING)
I need the location of the defrackulator!
CHLOE (TAPPING)
It’s in the basement, next to the National Aquarium.
JACK
Why is the National Aquarium in the Commerce Department Building?
CHLOE (TAPPING)
Nobody knows. Jack, there’s something else. They’ve put your son into the octopus tank.
JACK
Copy that. Faye, cover me. I’m going down there.
FAYE
I love you, Jack.
JACK
Copy that.
Through a blizzard of bullets, Jack runs across the lobby, killing people en route. He runs into an elevator, which contains fourteen hostile gunmen. The door closes. As the elevator descends, Jack and the gunmen engage in a fierce gunfight, during which he kills them all. The door opens and Jack stumbles out of the elevator into the basement.
JACK (SHOUTING INTO HEADSET)
Which way?
CHLOE (TAPPING)
To the right! Hurry, Jack! We’re almost at the top of the hour!
Jack runs to his right. Ahead is the aquarium tank; inside it, in the grasp of an octopus, is a young man, played by Keanu Reeves. Next to the tank is one of the terrorists, doing something to what looks like a large espresso machine.
JACK (AIMING GUN)
Step away from the defrackulator NOW!
TERRORIST
You’re too late, Bauer!
KEANU REEVES
Dad! Help!
As Jack looks toward his son, Chloe’s voice shouts in his earpiece.
CHLOE
Jack! Look out behind you!
Jack starts to turn, but he’s too late. The second terrorist leaps from a hallway with a machete and whacks Jack’s head off.
CHLOE
Jack! Are you all right?
JACK’S HEAD (ON FLOOR)
I’ll be fine.
FIRST TERRORIST (PUSH
ING A BUTTON)
The proton defrackulator has been activated!
JACK’S HEAD
What does it do, anyway?
FIRST TERRORIST
We actually don’t know. But we assume it’s bad.
The camera zooms in on the proton defrackulator to reveal a digital timer counting down . . . 15 . . . 14 . . . 13 . . .
KEANU REEVES
Dad! A tentacle is grasping my privates! Clock: 6:59:59
THE SCREEN GOES DARK
COMMERCIAL
JACK BAUER’S VOICE
Following are scenes from next week’s 24.
SETTING: THE WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM
CHIEF OF STAFF
Madam President, Newark is gone.
THE PRESIDENT
Newark, New Jersey, or Newark, Delaware?
CHIEF OF STAFF
What difference does it make?
THE PRESIDENT
Good point!
Everybody enjoys a hearty laugh.
QUICK CUT TO: A DIMLY LIT ROOM
Jack, his head hastily reattached to his body with blood-soaked duct tape, stands over a shadowy figure in a chair. Jack is holding a power drill in one hand and a bottle of Tabasco sauce in the other.
JACK
You’re going to talk, do you understand? I’m going to make you talk.
The camera slowly pans around to reveal that the figure in the chair is: the octopus.
QUICK CUT TO: THE SECRET HEADQUARTERS OF THE SHADOWY CABAL THAT RUNS EVERYTHING
Two shadowy cabal members are smoking cigars in a dimly lit room.
FIRST CABAL MEMBER
We need to have Bauer arrested on trumped-up charges again before he finds out what we’re really planning, which will have nothing whatsoever to do with anything that has happened so far.
SECOND CABAL MEMBER
What are we really planning?
FIRST CABAL MEMBER
Those episodes aren’t written yet.
SECOND CABAL MEMBER
Ow!
FIRST CABAL MEMBER
What is it?
SECOND CABAL MEMBER
I put my cigar out on my hand.
FIRST CABAL MEMBER
Damn this dim lighting.
END OF EPISODE ONE
The Full Coward Package
Recently I went shopping for two items:1. A jockstrap.
2. A bag of frozen peas.
These items may seem unrelated to you. But certain men, upon reading that list, will wince when they recognize these as the items that you need when you get a . . .
(Cue scary font)
Vasectomy
The frozen peas are to minimize the swelling in your personal manliness zone. The jockstrap is to keep you from dangling. After a vasectomy—trust me—you do not want to dangle.
Not to sound boastful, but: I went with a size large jockstrap. It brought back vivid memories of gym class at Pleasantville High School, where we male students were required to wear jockstraps so that our larger classmates could use us as human slingshots by grabbing our elastic strap from behind, pulling it back several feet, and releasing it to cause the Twang of Pain.
Shopping for peas was trickier, because the supermarket had such a large selection.
“These are good,” said my wife, holding a bag of Green Giant Steamers Sweet Peas, a premium brand.
“I’m not going to eat them,” I said. “I’m going to put them on my b***s.”20
In the end I went with the Birds Eye Spring Garden Peas. I recommend them, if you’re a man who is getting a vasectomy. But before you take this major step, you should get answers to some important medical questions, starting with: Are you insane?
No, really, you should have some information, such as: What, exactly, happens to you in a vasectomy? I can answer this question, thanks to a helpful pamphlet I got from my urologist, titled VASECTOMY: Permanent Birth Control for Men, which I read as carefully as I could, considering that I had my eyes closed.
Based on this research, I would say that the best way to understand a vasectomy is to compare human reproduction to the New York City transit system, with Manhattan as the penis. In normal reproduction, the sperm cells originate in the testicles, represented by Brooklyn and Queens, then proceed via the vas deferens, represented by the Brooklyn Bridge and Queens-Midtown Tunnel, to Manhattan, where they join up with the seminal fluid, manufactured by the seminal vesicles and the prostate gland, represented by Staten Island. The sperm cells then travel through a long tube called the urethra, represented by the IRT Broadway Local line, exiting Manhattan at the tip and being deposited in the female vagina, represented by Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx.
In a vasectomy, the doctor severs the conduits from Brooklyn and Queens, leaving the sperm cells trapped in the outer boroughs, where they eventually die because there are no decent nightclubs. Vasectomy is a safe, effective, and reliable procedure, and there is absolutely no reason to be afraid of it, except that
They cut a hole in your scrotum.
Medically, this is no big deal. It’s an outpatient procedure. When it’s done, you simply get up and walk out. Recovery takes just a couple of days. Most men experience only minor discomfort. Nevertheless, if you’re a man considering taking this step, you need to reflect upon the fact that if you get a vasectomy,
They are going to cut a hole
IN YOUR SCROTUM.
I can hear you veteran women readers going: “You think that’s bad? A little hole? Until you’ve had a baby you have NO IDEA what it means to experience discomfort in the privates.”
OK, on behalf of men, I will stipulate to you women that childbirth is not only very painful, but also a clear violation of the laws of physics. But you have to understand that we men have a very special relationship with our testicles. They are the most sensitive and vulnerable organs we have, and we are very protective of them because of vivid memories of the various times when we took a hard shot to the cubits and spent several excruciating minutes writhing on the ground, curled up like jumbo shrimp, wishing that a medical caregiver would come along and shoot us in the head.
If you’ve ever watched a soccer match, you’ve probably noticed that, during a penalty kick, the defenders—who stand only ten yards away from the guy who’s about to kick the ball really hard—use both of their hands to protect their groins. They do not spare so much as a single hand to protect their heads. These men are clearly saying that, if forced to decide which is their most vital organ, they are not choosing their brains.
So with all due respect to women: You cannot really appreciate the electric shock of fear that shoots through a man when he contemplates the prospect of allowing somebody to take a sharp implement and
CUT A FREAKING HOLE IN. HIS. SCROTUM.
Nevertheless, a lot of guys get it done, because they have reached a stage in their lives when they have the wisdom, the maturity, and the perspective necessary to understand that if they do not get a vasectomy, their wives will never ever stop bringing it up. You may be one of these guys. To determine if you’re a vasectomy candidate, ask yourself: • Do you wish to be rendered permanently incapable of fathering children?
• Would you enjoy spending several days watching TV with a bag of frozen peas in your crotch?
If you answered “yes” to both questions, you should make an appointment to see a urologist. What you should NOT do—this is very important—is go on the Internet and read the vasectomy message boards, because you will see anecdotes like this:One of my co-workers got a vasectomy and his sperm backed up and, long story short, two weeks later his scrotum exploded during his performance review.
And:My brother-in-law was getting a vasectomy and right after the doctor made the incision there was an earthquake and the operating table shook so hard that both his testicles fell out and rolled across the floor and into the waiting room, where a blind patient was waiting with his seeing-eye dog, which . . .
Pay no attention to these hearsay anecd
otes. Your vasectomy will be a walk in the park, although for a day or two it will be the walk of the late Walter Brennan as Grandpappy Amos McCoy. But the procedure itself will be nothing, especially if you do it the way I did it; namely, unconscious.
I’m a big believer in anesthesia. I think it should be used for every medical procedure, including routine physicals. I’d like to be knocked out while I was still in the doctor’s waiting room and not regain consciousness until everything is over, ideally in my car, with no memory whatsoever of what happened.
I’d also like to see anesthesia used in non-medical settings. Like, if for some reason you had to attend the opera, there would be an anesthesiologist in the lobby, next to the candy stand. He’d knock you out and special brawny ushers would drag you to your seat and leave you there, drooling into your lap, until it was over. I think there should also be anesthesiologists on hand for meetings, ballet recitals, banquets, charity galas, and movies based on books that my wife likes (fatal diseases; no punching).
