Dave Barry Is from Mars and Venus

by Dave Barry

  No, I made that last part up. But the rest of the story is true, which raises the following alarming questions for those who live in, or plan to visit, New Zealand:

  it a common practice there to transport deceased sheep via helicopter?

  If one of these sheep were to land on you, would you get “sleepy sickness”?

  What about Mad Cow Disease?

  For the record, tree sheep are not the only bizarre phenomenon to occur lately in New Zealand. I have here a document, sent in by alert reader Gretl Collins, stating that a researcher in New Zealand has discovered a new, improved method for growing tomatoes hydroponically. (“Hydroponically” comes from the Greek words “hydro,” meaning “a,” and “ponically,” meaning “way of growing tomatoes.”) According to the document, the researcher has found that he gets excellent results when he grows the tomatoes in: brassieres. I am not making this up. This leads to still MORE questions, including:

  Does this give new meaning to the expression “Get a load of those tomatoes”?

  Would it be tasteless to make a joke here about growing zucchini in athletic supporters?

  What about Mad Tomato Disease?

  There’s probably nothing to worry about, but until we get some answers, I think everybody should panic for a while and then get some sleep. I myself am suddenly feeling VERY sleepy, so I’m just going to put my head down and…

  Moo.

  FOOD FIGHT

  Today we present another part of our ongoing series, “Stuff That Guys Do.”

  Our first example of guys doing stuff comes from the University of Washington Daily, which on February 27 published a report written by Jeremy Simer and sent in by alert reader Donna Bellinger, headlined “Fraternity Game Turns Into Arrest.”

  What happened, according to this report, was that some guys were up on the roof of the Theta Delta Chi fraternity house, and, as guys will do when they spend any time together in an elevated location, they began sharing their innermost feelings.

  I am of course kidding. These guys, being guys, began dropping things off the roof, starting with smaller items, and eventually escalating—this is when the police were summoned—to a chair and a rowing machine.

  A fraternity member is quoted as follows: “We’re frat guys. What can you say?”

  Far be it from me to indulge in sex stereotyping here, but I am willing to bet that the reaction of you readers to this story is divided along gender lines, as follows:

  Female Reaction: “Why would anybody do anything so STUPID?”

  Male Reaction: “A rowing machine! COOL!”

  The simple truth is that guys have this overpowering urge to watch stuff fall and crash. If you ever see an inappropriate object, such as a piano, hurtling toward the Earth from a great height, you can be virtually certain that guys are responsible.

  Ask yourself this question: If you were standing in the middle of a bridge spanning a magnificent wilderness gorge, at the bottom of which was a spectacular Whitewater river, what would you do?

  Female Response: Admire the view.

  Male Response: Spit.

  Yes, the truth is that there are few things that a guy enjoys more than proudly watching a gob of spit—HIS spit; spit that HE produced—falling a tremendous distance. This is a male impulse that females frankly cannot relate to, just as males cannot relate to the female impulse to go into greeting-card stores and spend hours shopping for greeting cards even when there is no particular occasion or person you need to send a greeting card to, which is what women frequently do when guys are out spitting.

  I am not suggesting here that all guys ever do is drop stuff. Sometimes they also throw stuff, and sometimes this can lead to trouble. I have in my possession an official U.S. government memorandum, sent to me by an alert but anonymous reader, that was written last year by Paul E. Thompson, acting director, Western Region, Inspection Operations, Food and Safety Inspection Service, United States Department of Agriculture.

  Here is the first paragraph of this memorandum, which I absolutely swear I am not making up:

  “This is to remind all personnel of the danger and inadvisability of engaging in activities commonly referred to as ‘Horseplay.’ A few examples of horseplay include, but are not limited to: throwing spleens, squirting water, and flipping lymph nodes.”

  In professional journalism, we have an old saying that we frequently say, which goes like this: “You do not print a story about federal employees engaging in horseplay involving spleens or lymph nodes without making a sincere effort to get the other side.” So I contacted the USDA’s Western Region office, which is located—and let this be a lesson to those who claim that the federal government is poorly managed—in the West.

  I spoke with Dr. Bruce Kaplan, a public affairs specialist, who explained that, “on rare occasions,” poultry and meat inspectors, as well as plant employees, will become bored and flip meat and poultry organs at each other. (He did not specifically state that these were guys doing this, but some things go without saying.)

  “In the poultry plants, they will flip spleens,” explained Dr. Kaplan. “In the red-meat plants, they will flip lymph nodes.”

  Dr. Kaplan stressed that “there is absolutely no danger in terms of food safety.” The problem, he said, is the safety of plant workers: “When they walk on the floor where these organs fall, they could slip.”

  In hopes of making the public more aware of the potential danger. I asked Dr. Kaplan to describe a poultry spleen.

  “These are little small spleens,” he explained. “They’re tiny little slippery spleens.”

  I think we can draw several conclusions from this story:

  First and foremost, “Slippery Spleens” would be an excellent name for a rock band.

  Although it has become fashionable to knock “big government,” we must not forget that, without the quick and decisive action by the USDA in the form of acting director Thompson’s memorandum, the ordinary public, in the form of food-plant workers, would have no protection from the threat of slipping on organs flipped by USDA inspectors.

  If the USDA ever has a shortage of inspectors, it should definitely consider recruiting members of Theta Delta Chi.

  SPEED TRAP

  Recently the federal government, as part of its ongoing effort to become part of the same solar system as the rest of us, decided to eliminate the National Pretend Speed Limit.

  As you are aware, for many years the National Pretend Speed Limit was 55 miles per hour (metric equivalent: 378 kilograms per hectare). This limit was established back during the Energy Crisis, when America went through a scary gasoline shortage caused by the fact that for about six straight months, everybody in America spent every waking moment purchasing gasoline. Remember? We all basically went insane. The instant our car’s fuel gauge got down to fifteen-sixteenths of a tank, we raced to a service station and spent a couple of hours waiting in line with hundreds of other gasoline-obsessed Americans. It’s still a mystery why we did this. Maybe some kind of brain-damaging chemical got in our national water supply, because around the same time everybody also got into disco.

  So anyway, the Energy Crisis came to the attention of the federal government, which, swinging into action as only our federal government can, told everybody to get swine-flu shots.

  No, wait, that was another crisis. What the federal government did in this particular crisis was declare, in 1974, a National Pretend Speed Limit of 55. This has been strictly observed everywhere except on the actual roads, where the real speed limit—the one actually enforced by the police—is a secret, unposted number ranging between 63 and 78, unless an individual police officer does not care for the way you look, in which case the speed limit is zero.

  The result is that, for over twenty years, virtually everybody in the United States has been violating the speed limit except for Ralph Nader and elderly people wearing hats. (This system is similar to the one used in foreign countries such as Italy, where the government puts strict-looking spe
ed-limit signs everywhere, but nobody ever sees them because light does not travel fast enough to catch the Italian drivers.)

  So finally our government, facing reality, has decided to abolish the National Pretend Speed Limit and let individual states decide how fast drivers can go. The most interesting response so far has come from the extremely rural state of Montana (Official Motto: “Moo”), which announced that there would be no speed limit during daylight hours. I was frankly amazed when I read this in the newspaper. I mean, I am not a legal scholar, but to me “no speed limit” means that, theoretically, you can go 400 miles per hour, right?

  If that were true, Montana would immediately become an extremely popular destination for your average guy driver on vacation with his family, because guys like to cover a tremendous amount of ground. A guy in Vacation Driving Mode prefers not to stop the car at all except in the case of a bursting appendix, and even then he’s likely to say, “Can you hold it a little longer? We’re only 157 miles from Leech World!” So if there really were no speed limit, a vacationing guy with the right kind of car—by which I mean “the kind of car that has to be stopped with a parachute”—could cover all of Montana in approximately an hour.

  In an effort to check this out, I called Montana, which has an area code and everything, and spoke with Steve Barry, deputy chief of the Montana Highway Patrol.

  “Can people drive 400 miles per hour up there?” I asked.

  He told me that in all honesty the answer was no. He said that while there was “no theoretical upper speed limit,” there was a practical one, determined by police officers in the field, based on factors such as traffic density, road conditions and type of vehicle. So I asked him: What if all the conditions were perfect? What would be the absolute fastest you could legally go? What is the real Montana speed limit? Barry answered that, if you pinned him down, his estimate would be around 100 miles per hour.

  “At that point,” he said, “the majority of the citizens at large would say that’s too fast for conditions out here.”

  So you vacationing guys are going to have to budget four hours for Montana. But this is still an improvement, and I’d like to see other areas of the country make a similar effort to have realistic traffic laws. For example, right now the “legal” speed limit in downtown Manhattan is 30. This is absurd. This is the speed limit that Manhattan drivers observe on the sidewalk. On the streets of Manhattan, the actual observed speed limits are as follows:

  Traveling Uptown or Downtown: 125 miles per hour, unless you have a chance to hit a pedestrian, in which case you may go 150.

  Traveling Across Town: Nobody has ever successfully traveled across Manhattan in a motor vehicle.

  I’d also like to see speed limits that take into account what song you’re listening to on the radio. Ideally, if a police officer pulled you over for doing, say, 95 mph in a 75 zone, and you could prove to him that you were listening to the Isley Brothers’ version of “Twist and Shout,” he would not only have to let you off, but he would also be required, by law, to sing along with you. It’s something for all of us to look forward to as our ever-evolving nation heads toward the twenty-first century, traveling way too fast for conditions.

  THE HAM

  TERRORIST

  I hate to put a fly in your ointment, but if you think that just because you live in America, you are safe from the terror of terrorism, then I have three words for you: ha ha ha.

  I make this statement in light of a terrifying incident that occurred on Christmas Eve, according to an article from the Newport (Oregon) News-Times, written by Gail Kimberling and sent in by alert reader Deane Bristow, whose name can be rearranged to spell “Sewer Bandito,” although that is not my central point.

  My central point is that, according to this story, a husband and wife were in their home outside of Lincoln City, which is in Oregon, when the United Parcel Service delivered a package to their house. They were not expecting a package, and therefore they became convinced (why not?) that it was a bomb. So, according to the story, the woman put the package in her car, drove the package to the Oregon coast, which is also in Oregon, and “heaved it over the cliff” onto the beach.

  The woman then drove to the police station and reported that there was a bomb on the beach. So far you are probably laughing. But you will change your tune when you learn what the investigating police officer found. What he found, lying on the beach, was a box containing—bear in mind that this happened in the United States of America, not some foreign country such as the Middle East—a fifteen-pound Virginia smoked ham.

  Miraculously, the ham had not detonated, so the officer returned it to the couple, who, according to the article, “very reluctantly opened their front door and accepted it.” So luckily this story had a happy ending. But that is no reason for us to break out the celebratory bean dip. Because although in this particular case the package turned out to be an innocent ham, it could have been something infinitely more dangerous: It could have been a toilet. Here I am thinking of a story, sent in by many alert readers, from the December 29 New York Times, headlined LAWSUIT FILED FOR 2 INJURIES FROM TOILETS. This story, as the headline suggests, concerns a lawsuit filed for two injuries from toilets. These toilets, located in a Bronx condominium, allegedly exploded when they were flushed; the lawyer for the victims is quoted as saying that there is “an epidemic of exploding toilets.”

  Not that I am bitter, but I’ve been writing about the exploding-toilet epidemic for years, not to mention the exploding-cow epidemic, the Strawberry-Pop-Tart-combustion epidemic, and the Rollerblade Barbie underpants-ignition epidemic, and have I received any recognition in the form of a large cash journalism award? No, I have been called “sophomoric” and “childish” by various doodyhead critics. But now that the famous New York Times has decided to horn in on this story, I suppose it will become “respectable.” You’re probably going to see presidential campaign debates wherein all the leading contenders take positions on commodes. Let’s just hope that this is not televised.

  But the thing to remember is this: If you are at home, and United Parcel Service brings you a toilet that you are not expecting—even one of those nice designer-catalog toilets that have become such popular holiday gifts—do NOT attempt to flush it. Instead, take the simple precaution recommended by law-enforcement authorities such as the FBI and Mel Gibson: Drive the toilet to the Oregon coast and heave it off a cliff. Better safe than sorry!

  Of course just because you, as an American, could at any moment be killed by a toilet or a ham, that does not mean that all explosions are bad. As the French say, “au contraire” (literally, “eat my Jockey brand undershorts”). Sometimes, the explosive power of an explosion can be harnessed to benefit humanity, as we learn from various newspaper articles, sent in by many alert readers, concerning the effort last October to move the World War I monument in the city of LaPorte, Indiana.

  The monument, a massive piece of granite more than six feet tall, was in a secluded, overgrown location. It was scheduled to be moved to a more prominent place in time for Veterans Day, but efforts to dislodge it from its base with drills and jackhammers had failed. What happened next is not entirely clear, but apparently an unidentified local law-enforcement official contacted an Army Reserve group, which provided some unidentified explosives experts, who used some kind of unidentified explosives to separate the monument from the base. This operation went off without a hitch.

  Well, okay, if you want to be picky, there was one teensy hitch, which was that after the explosion, the monument no longer, in a technical sense, existed. But it definitely was not attached to the base anymore. Mission accomplished!

  This story does raise several questions:

  Who were these “experts”?

  How come we never asked them to “move” Saddam Hussein’s headquarters?

  But that is water over the dam. The point I want to make, in closing, is that just because things are blowing up all around us in this country, that is no reason fo
r us to cower like rabbits under our beds. We are just as safe in our closets. As Winston Churchill (whose name can be rearranged to spell “Hurls Cow Chin Lint”) put it: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Of course he was safely over in England at the time.

  This is me with President George Bush. During his term in office, he and I often put on rental tuxedos and discussed world events.

  I AM NOT A

  CROOK

  Not to toot my own horn, but I’m starting to see a strong voter response to my presidential campaign (Motto: “It’s Time We Demanded Less!”).

  Every day, more and more voters are turning toward me. Granted, they immediately turn away and barf, but that is not the point. The point is that I’m getting attention, and I’m getting it without the negative campaigning and cheap-shot name-calling you’re hearing from my dirtbag slimeball opponents.

  How strong is my candidacy? Let’s take a look at the following chart, which shows, state by state, the developing popular groundswell, as measured by the actual percentages of people voting for me in the early state caucuses and primaries (this chart has a margin of error of three-tenths of an inch):

  IOWA—Zero

  NEW HAMPSHIRE—Zero

  DELAWARE—Zero

  ARIZONA—Zero

  THE PLANET EARTH IN GENERAL—Zero

  I’m sure I don’t have to whack you over the head with the significance of these numbers. I’m sure you’ve already reached the obvious conclusion. “Hey!” you are thinking. “Dave is getting EXACTLY THE SAME VOTE PERCENTAGE AS COLIN POWELL!”