by Dave Barry
The truck driver turned out to be a rabid Yankee fan. The game was very close, and we stood on opposite sides of my bike for the final two innings, rooting for opposite teams, him chain-smoking Lucky Strike cigarettes, both of us hanging on every word coming out of my tinny little speaker.
And of course if you were around back then and did not live in Russia, you know what happened: God, in a sincere effort to make up for all those fly balls he directed toward me in Little League, had Bill Mazeroski—Bill Mazeroski!—hit a home run to win it for the Pirates.
I was insane with joy. The truck driver was devastated. But I will never forget what he said to me. He looked me square in the eye, one baseball fan to another, after a tough but fair fight—and he said a seriously bad word. Several, in fact. Then he got in his truck and drove away.
That was the best game I ever saw.
HERE COMES
THE BRIDE
We’re coming into wedding season, a magical time when the radiant bride, on her Most Special Day, finally makes that long-awaited walk down the Aisle of Joyfulness to stand next to the Man of Her Dreams, only to sprint back up the Aisle of Joyfulness when she suddenly realizes that she forgot to pluck out her Middle Eyebrow Hairs of Grossness. Because the bride knows that a wedding video is forever. She knows that, twenty years later, she could be showing her video to friends, and as soon as she left the room they’d turn to each other and say, “What was that on her forehead? A tarantula?”
Oh yes, there is a LOT of pressure on today’s bride to make her Big Day fabulous and perfect. Overseeing a modern wedding is comparable, in terms of complexity, to flying the Space Shuttle; in fact it’s worse, because shuttle crew members don’t have to select their silver pattern. This is done for them by ground-based engineers:
Command Center: Okay, Discovery, we’re gonna go with the “Fromage de Poisson” pattern, over?
Discovery: Houston, we have a problem with the asparagus server.
Of course the bride does get some help. The multibillion-dollar U.S. wedding industry—currently the second-largest industry in the United States, behind the latte industry—helps the bride by publishing monthly bridal magazines the size of the U.S. tax code full of products that the bride absolutely HAS to have and checklists relentlessly reminding the bride of all the decisions she has to make RIGHT NOW concerning critical issues such as the florist and the caterer and the cake and the centerpieces and the guest favors for the formal cocktail reception. (Of COURSE there have to be guest favors at the formal cocktail reception! Don’t you know ANYTHING?)
Of course the groom has responsibilities, too. According to ancient tradition, on the morning of the wedding the groom must check the TV listings to make sure that there is no playoff game scheduled during the ceremony, because if there is, he would have to miss it (the ceremony).
But the other 19 million wedding details are pretty much left up to the bride; this is why, when she finally gets to her Most Special Day, she is clinically insane. Exhibit A is Princess Diana. People ask: “What went wrong? Princess Diana had the Fairy Tale Wedding of the Century!” Yes! Exactly! YOU try planning the Fairy Tale Wedding of the Century! This poor woman didn’t just have to think about party favors; she had HORSES in her wedding. A LOT of them. Just try to imagine the etiquette issues: What color should the horses be? Should they be invited to the reception? Should they have centerpieces? What if they eat the centerpieces? These are just a few of the issues Princess Diana was grappling with while Prince Charles was out riding around whacking grouse with a polo mallet. No wonder there was tension!
But it’s not just Princess Diana: Wedding planning makes all brides crazy. Anybody who doubts this statement should investigate what actually goes on at a “bridal shower.” I don’t know about you, but I used to think that a shower was just a sedate little party wherein the bride’s women friends gave thoughtful little gifts to the bride and ate salads with low-fat dressing on the side. Wrong! You would not believe the bizarre things women do at these affairs. For example, I have it on excellent authority that women at showers play this game wherein teams compete to see who can make the best wedding dress out of toilet paper. I’m not making this up! Ask a shower attendee! If a man were to wrap himself in a personal hygiene product, he’d immediately be confined in a room with no sharp objects, but this is considered normal behavior for a woman planning a wedding.
I have been informed by an informed source that women at bridal showers also sometimes play a variation of “Pin the Tail on the Donkey,” except that instead of a picture of a donkey, they use a picture of a man, and instead of a tail, they use something that is not a tail, if you get my drift. I am not suggesting that Princess Diana played this game at her shower, and I am certainly not suggesting that the Queen did, so just get that mental picture out of your mind right now.
All I’m saying is that, with spring upon us, you may find yourself near a woman in the throes of planning a wedding; if so, you need to recognize that she is under severe pressure, and above all you need to do exactly as she says. If she wants you to wrap yourself in toilet paper, or purchase and wear a bridesmaid’s dress that makes you look like a walking Barcalounger, JUST DO IT. You should do it even if you are the groom. Because this is the bride’s Most Special Day, and you want to help her make sure everything is exactly the way you want it when the two of you finally stand together in front of all your friends and loved ones, and you gaze upon her face, and you say the words she has been waiting a lifetime to hear: “Hey! What’s that between your eyebrows?”
THE CIGAR
AVENGER
Just when you’re starting to lose hope that the younger generation will ever amount to anything; just when you’re asking yourself, “Where are the leaders of tomorrow? Where is the next John Kennedy, the next John Wayne, the next John Denver, the next John LeMasters, who attended Pleasantville High School with me and was very good at math?;” just when you’re starting to think that the most significant contributions that today’s young people will make to society will be in the field of body-piercing; just when you’re about to give up in total despair, some young person, when you least expect it, sends you a world-class water gun.
At least that’s what happened to me. The young person in this case is actually named John Young. He’s a graduate student who wrote me a letter informing me that several years earlier, while sitting in a philosophy class—and let this be a lesson to you students who think that studying philosophy is a waste of time—he figured out how to make “the most butt-kickingest water gun the world has ever seen.”
He calls it the Ultimate Water Gun, and when he offered to let me try it, I of course accepted immediately. I had a hunch that this could be my big journalism break, comparable to the time during the Watergate scandal when, in a secret meeting in a parking garage, the man known only as “Deep Throat” changed the course of history by giving Bob Woodward a really good water gun.
But not as good as the one that John Young sent me. This is not some flimsy plastic toy; this is a major contraption that weighs, when fully loaded, as much as a major kitchen appliance. It consists of a pressurized, water-filled fire-extinguisher tank that you wear in a harness on your back; this is connected via a short tube to a garden-hose nozzle riveted to the top of a gold motorcycle helmet, which you wear on your head, so that, when you squeeze a hand-held trigger, the water squirts out in whatever direction your head is pointing. You also wear a firefighter-style jacket that has been spray-painted silver; the jacket does not make the gun work any better, but it does perform the important function, in conjunction with the nozzle-topped helmet, of making you look like: Captain Bill, Space Dork!
I tested this water gun with my son, Rob, at a Miami gas station (we needed the station’s air compressor to pressurize the tank). It is not easy, using mere words, to describe the feeling of power you get when, merely by squeezing your hand, you send a powerful jet of water whooshing from the top of your head, shooting 75 feet or more
in whatever direction you look, but I will try: It is cool.
It also commands respect. At one point, two young men pulled up in a classic Bad Dude car—low to the ground, windows tinted with what appeared to be roofing tar, sound system thumping out bass notes loud enough to affect the Earth’s rotation. They stopped and got out, apparently intending to use the air compressor; but just then, Rob came around the front of my car, silver-coated, gold-helmeted, shooting a blast of water over the gas-station roof. The Bad Dudes were clearly startled, although they recovered and tried to look extremely unimpressed, as if to say, “Ho-hum, another Human Fire Hydrant.” Then they got coolly, but quickly, back into their boombox car and thumped on out of there.
So we’re talking about a powerful new technology here, and I’ve been pondering how it can best be utilized to benefit humanity in general, and I think I’ve figured out the ultimate use for the Ultimate Water Gun: Cigar Control.
As you know, cigars are now the “in” thing, with hip, fashionable, “with-it” sophisticates lighting up in restaurants and bars, apparently not realizing that, to the many, many people who don’t care for cigars, it smells as though somebody has set an armpit on fire. (I am referring here to your cheaper cigar. Your more expensive cigar smells as though somebody has set a more expensive armpit on fire.)
Of course polite cigar smokers (and there are many) refrain from lighting up where others will unwillingly smell their smoke. But there seems to be a growing group of people—let’s reach deep into our bag of euphemisms and call them “jerkt”—who seem to enjoy lighting up in public places, who talk loudly and proudly about their cigars, as if they truly believe that the rest of us are impressed with a person capable of emitting this level of stench.
So picture this: You’re in a restaurant, and a jerk lights up, and suddenly all the food tastes like cigar. You’re wishing that somebody (not you; you don’t want any trouble) would tell this guy exactly what he can do with his cigar; just then WHAM the door bursts open, and there he is, his silver coat reflecting the candlelight—the Cigar Avenger! His gold helmet turns slowly, scanning the room, and suddenly he squeezes his hand trigger and WHOOOSSH the jerk is drenched from head to foot, with what looks like a wad of dead seaweed hanging limply from his clenched mouth.
As the surrounding diners break into applause, the jerk (he might be a lawyer) sputters: “THIS RESTAURANT HAS NO POLICY AGAINST CIGAR SMOKING!” And the Cigar Avenger calmly replies: “This restaurant also has no policy against extinguishing cigars with a powerful stream of water from a helmet-mounted spray nozzle.”
And then, in a twinkle of silver, he is gone. Probably he is gone to get a hernia operation, because that thing is heavy.
THE INCREDIBLE
SHRINKING BRAIN
I am feeling great, and I will tell you why. It’s because of this article I read recently that said … um … it said … okay, wait just a minute while I get out this article …
Okay, here it is: According to this article, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania did a study showing that as males—but NOT females—get older, their brains shrink. Was I ever relieved to read that! I thought it was just me!
Here’s something I regularly do: I’m walking through an airport, and I see a newsstand, and I think: “Huh! A newsstand! I can get a newspaper there, and perhaps some magazines! I can read them on the airplane, and use the information in them to write informed columns!”
So I carefully select some newspapers and magazines; then I put them on the counter; then I get out my wallet and pay for them; then I carefully put the receipt into my wallet so that I can deduct this purchase for tax purposes; then I go get on the airplane.
Okay, here’s a pop quiz: What will I discover when I get on the airplane? You older, shrinking-brain males probably have no idea. You’re saying to yourselves: “What airplane?”
But you female readers, and you younger males, know the answer: I will discover that I left my magazines and newspapers back on the newsstand counter. I cannot tell you how many times I have done this. (Note to Internal Revenue Service: The reason I still deduct these purchases on my tax return is that I am writing about them here.) I could save time if, when striding through the airport, I simply flung money in the general direction of the newsstand.
Here’s another thing I do: I routinely go to the cleaners for the specific purpose of picking up my shirts, pay for my shirts, then attempt to walk out without my shirts, as though I were just visiting them.
Also: Many times I am looking all over for my reading glasses—looking, looking, looking, looking—and then I walk past a mirror and notice that they are perched on my head. “Ha ha!” they gaily shout to me, their lenses twinkling. “You cretin!”
Also: I have always been terrible at remembering people’s names, but now I forget names instantaneously, before they have gotten all the way through my ear canal. If somebody introduces himself to me at a social event, it sounds as though he’s saying: “Hi. I’m Blah.”
“I’m sorry,” I’ll say. “What was your name again?”
“Blah,” he’ll say.
“Ah!” I’ll say, smiling brightly while hoping that a meteor will crash into the building before I have to introduce him to someone else.
Here’s another symptom: I currently own four—that is correct: four—identical, unused tubes of toothpaste, because every time I’m in a drugstore and walk past the toothpaste section, my brain, which by now must be about the size of a Raisinet, racks its tiny shriveled self in an effort to remember whether I have any toothpaste, and it can never come up with a definitive answer, so it always decides: Better safe than sorry!
(The good news is, if the price of Tartar Control Crest rises significantly, I will be a wealthy man.)
Anyway, I was very relieved to find out that this was not just my personal problem, but a problem afflicting the brains of males in general, although, as a frequent flier, I hope it doesn’t extend to male airplane pilots (“Ladies and gentlemen, we are approaching either Pittsburgh or Honolulu, so at this time I’m going to push the button that either illuminates the fasten-seat-belt signs or shuts off all the engines”).
The University of Pennsylvania study (Note to older males: I am referring here to a study showing that, as males get older, their brains shrink) also showed that we older males tend to lose our sense of humor. This is definitely true in my case. I was just talking to my oldest friend, whose name is … Excuse me while I look up his name … Okay, here it is: I was talking to my oldest friend, Joe DiGiacinto, and we were remarking on the fact that when we were teenage males roaming uncontrolled around Armonk, New York, we thought that the most hilarious imaginable human activity was the wanton destruction of mailboxes; whereas we now both firmly believe that this should be a federal crime punishable by death.
So my overall point is that the brain-shrinkage study makes me feel a lot better, because now I know that I’m not getting stupid alone; that billions of guys are getting stupid with me, as evidenced by:
Golf
Comb-overs
The U.S. Senate
Marlon Brando
Here’s what I think: I think Older Male Brain Shrinkage (OMBS) should be recognized as a disability by the federal government. At the very least, we should have a law requiring everybody to wear a name tag (“HELLO! MY NAME IS BLAH”). Older males would be exempt from this requirement, because they wouldn’t be able to find their tags. I have many other strong views on this subject, but I can’t remember what they are.
ROAD WARRIORS
I got to thinking about courtesy the other day when a woman hit me with her car.
I want to stress that this was totally my fault. I was crossing a street in Miami, in a pedestrian crosswalk, and I saw the woman’s car approaching, and like a total idiot I assumed she would stop. The reason I assumed this—you are going to laugh and laugh—is that there was a stop sign facing her, saying (this is a verbatim quote) “STOP.”
I don’t kno
w what I was thinking. In Miami it is not customary to stop for stop signs. The thinking in Miami is, if you stop for a stop sign, the other motorists will assume that you are a tourist and therefore unarmed, and they will help themselves to your money and medically valuable organs. For the same reason, Miami drivers do not interpret traffic lights the same way as normal humans do. This is what a traffic light means to a Miami driver:
GREEN: Proceed
YELLOW: Proceed Much Faster
RED: Proceed While Gesturing
So anyway, there I was, Mr. Stupid Head, expecting a Miami motorist to stop for a stop sign, and the result was that she had to slam on her brakes, and I had to leap backward like a character in a rental movie on rewind, and her car banged into my left knee.
I was shaken, but fortunately I remained calm enough to remember what leading medical authorities advise you to do if you are involved in an accident.
“Punch the car,” they advise.
So I did. I punched the car, and I pointed to the stop sign, and, by way of amplification, I yelled “THERE’S A STOP SIGN!”
The woman then rolled down her window and expressed her deep remorse as follows: “DON’T HIT MY (UNLADYLIKE WORD) CAR, YOU (VERY UNLADYLIKE WORD)!”
I should have yelled a snappy comeback, such as: “OH YEAH? WELL NOW, IN ADDITION TO MY KNEE, MY HAND HURTS!”
But before I could think of anything, she was roaring away, no doubt hoping to get through the next intersection while the light was still red.
