The Green Red Green

by Red Green

  • The singed remains of his Ford Pinto proof of ownership.

  • A coupon to have his colour done.

  • No money.

  SENIOR SERVICE

  I was in a restaurant for lunch yesterday. It was one of those salad buffet places where you fill your plate with low calorie, no-fat lettuce and tomatoes and then smother it with mounds of creamy salad dressing and a couple of handfuls of bacon bits. So I’m standing at the cashier in a “What a great day” kind of mood, and she says, “Do you get the seniors’ discount?” I was so upset, I could barely go back for seconds.

  Offering a seniors’ discount to people over fifty is a fine incentive for customers and all that, but businesses have got to handle it right. Like most men my age, I think I look about thirty-seven. I don’t need some nineteen-year-old sweetie exploding that myth in front of total strangers. Not for a lousy 10 percent. My pride is worth at least 15.

  HOW TO MAKE YOUR CAR GO FASTER

  It doesn’t take magic to make your car go faster. It takes logic and perseverance, and at the lodge, these things are much rarer than magic. The solution is found with physics, not with psychics. So take a few minutes to understand the principles of friction, gravity, and the internal combustion engine.

  The Importance of Horsepower

  Horsepower is the term for the size of the guns your motor can deliver. It’s determined by three things: the size of the engine (displacement), the tightness of the engine (compression), and the explosiveness of the fuel (where are my eyebrows?).

  Replace your car’s engine with the biggest one you can find. Big things have big engines—semis, earth movers, trains, cruise ships. Increase the compression by tightening the head bolts with a crescent wrench welded to the end of a flagpole (for extra torque). Wrap the whole engine in duct tape. Use two layers in opposite directions for the tightest seal since MarineLand put vodka in the performance pool.

  Now you want a really explosive gas. I suggest jet or rocket fuel, or anything with the numbers 238 after it. Increasing the spark also helps. Try getting a transformer from a nearby hydro pole when the power is off (that last part is important). Wire the transformer between the ignition coil and the distributor. It will raise the voltage from 50,000 volts to 125,0​00,000,​000,000,00​0,000,00​0,000,00​0,000,00​0,0​00,00​0,000,00​0,000,000,000,00​0,000,000, which will make the car easier to start and give you a more interesting hairstyle. There are ways to get even more horsepower, but I feel they’re just too dangerous.

  Reducing Friction

  While friction is a key component in the propagation of the human race, it is a bad thing in every other race. There are two ways to reduce friction in your car. One is to build the vehicle really well using only the best materials under strict tolerances with stringent quality control. And the other, which is what I tend to favour, is to really lay on the lubricant (see also “Propagation”). A good rule to live by is “If it’s dry, something is wrong.” That applies to everything except the driver’s seat.

  Cover everything with lubricant—the shocks, the springs, the linkage, the engine, the driveshaft, the tires, the hood, the windshield, the air freshener, the steering wheel, the door handles, but not the cigarette lighter. A cigarette lighter popping out of your hand can bring an unwanted understanding of the term “grease fire.”

  DEALING WITH GRAVITY

  It’s really difficult to reduce gravity. Even in the deepest valley, there is still enough gravity to get a person down and keep him there. So you’re better off getting gravity to work for you.

  When you’re climbing a hill, you’re fighting gravity, so don’t try to go fast. Why waste the gas? Just go ten or fifteen miles over the speed limit. But when you come over the crest of the hill and start heading down, that, my friend, is a different story. Lay the coals to her. Put both feet on the accelerator and wind her right out. As long as you can focus with either eye, you’re not going the maximum.

  Einstein said that as you approach the speed of light, time will slow down. So if you’re running late, you’ll make up time this way. Einstein also said that when you get moving fast enough, distances shrink. So you can squeeze your car in between two trucks. Unfortunately, Einstein proved that there are problems as you reach the speed of light as well, because you will have infinite mass. Which can cut into the mileage. You’ll probably notice that when you reach around the twelve-hundred-pound mark, you have no neck and your gut starts honking the horn. That’s a good time to ease off on the gas pedal.

  And don’t worry about the cops. Radar guns can’t register the speeds you’ll be hitting, and most policemen are hesitant to flag down any vehicle coming toward them at over five hundred miles per hour. Especially if you’ve just dropped the cigarette lighter.

  The most important element is common sense. There’s no point in going really, really fast if there are other cars or pedestrians or farm animals in the vicinity. Driving fast can be fun and safe, but not if you do it. Driving fast is for normal people. The fact that you’re reading this book disqualifies you.

  MY STOMACH IS KILLING ME (and Vice Versa)

  I find that a lot of guys my age have trouble with their stomachs.

  What was once a low-priority and relatively maintenance-free part of their anatomy is now looming large, both physically and medically. I think the main problem is that most of us have no knowledge of or respect for how the stomach works. Here’s my take on it: the stomach is where the food is mixed with chemicals that will break it down so the body can burn it. In other words, the stomach is the carburetor of the body. It’s not the fuel injector. It can’t handle high-quantity intake, no matter how big a supercharger your mouth is. And then there’s the quality issue. You can’t run a high-performance engine—that is, the human body—on chili dogs and draft beer.

  Once in a while you need to fill up on high test (i.e., roughage), something that will get you up and moving, at least during the halftime show. But the biggest problem with the stomach is that it’s connected to the brain. If your mind is upset, your stomach will be too. To calm it, you must deal with whatever is troubling your mind, rather than assaulting your stomach with deep-fried jalapenos hoping that will do the trick.

  HITTING BOTTOM IN THE TOP DRAWER

  I had an unsettling revelation as I was getting dressed the other day. There was some new underwear in my drawer, still in the package. My wife had bought it for me. It’s something she does once in a while. And I don’t know why, but I tried to think back to the last time I bought my own underwear. It was definitely before I got married. And in the period between high school and my wedding, I just made do with what I had. I didn’t buy any in high school either. Or in elementary school. And I didn’t buy any before kindergarten, when I was a rookie in the underwear department. And before that, I was in diapers. So the horrible truth hit me: I HAVE NEVER IN MY WHOLE LIFE BOUGHT MY OWN UNDERWEAR!

  I don’t know what that means, but I suspect it is somehow at the root of so many other problems in my life. If there is anybody out there in the same situation, perhaps we should get together and form a support group. Of course, if we could provide our own support, none of this would be necessary.

  TEN SIGNS THAT YOU’RE READY TO RETIRE

  1) You have toys in your desk.

  2) You carry your golf clubs in the back of your company vehicle (an ambulance).

  3) You have lost your appetite for debt.

  4) Lately you’ve been buying a lot of slippers.

  5) You’re dyeing your hair to make yourself look older.

  6) You leave work by 3:30 so you can take advantage of the early bird special.

  7) You tell your boss how much better the new guy is at doing your job.

  8) You’re obsessed with your lawn.

  9) Your briefcase is full of brochures from Sarasota.

  10) You tried on a pair of pink pants with a white belt and thought they looked sharp.

  TOY BOYS

  I’ve spent
most of my life at first acknowledging and then foolishly trying to identify the differences between men and women. And I think a big one is in their attitude toward toys.

  While both sexes may agree that toys are childish with no redeeming social value, women somehow see that as a bad thing. Or maybe it’s the manufacturers’ fault. They don’t make toys for girls who are past puberty. With men, the process accelerates and the toys get bigger—speedboats, monster trucks, ATVs, radio-controlled cars and planes, bulldozers, nuclear missiles, etc.

  Look around at the stores in your city. How many of them carry toys for women? I’m guessing there aren’t any, except maybe Chippendales. That’s just not fair. In fact, it’s sexism at its worst. I say the time has come to give women equal opportunity to be convinced of the value of toys. Then maybe my wife will let me buy that big screen.

  KEEP YOUR CREATIVITY TO YOURSELF

  With the increasing amount of leisure time available to middle-aged couples over the past few years, we’ve all started to expand our interests and hobbies. Women are quilting and doing needlepoint and painting in acrylics and making dried floral arrangements. Men are doing woodwork and building model airplanes and renovating unused bedrooms and making lawn ornaments. And all this work is creating a real problem.

  Unfortunately, very few of us are any good at this stuff. What we end up with is some butt-ugly thing that they make better with a machine in Taiwan for about ninety-nine cents. But if it was made by your spouse, you can’t throw it in the garbage without starting the Third World War.

  Some people give their creations to their friends, but there’s a risk of them returning the favour. So I say that the government needs to set up designated hobby centres in abandoned schools or whatever. We can all go there on a Saturday morning and do our hobby thing—build or sew or paint—and then when we’re finished—and this is the important part—the thing we’ve made is NOT ALLOWED TO LEAVE THE BUILDING … EVER.

  HOW TO FIND YOUR TRUE AGE

  I read about some guy on the Internet who has different ways of determining your true age. I think it’s a formula based on your heart rate and blood pressure and weight and whatever. He himself is over fifty chronologically but is actually only 38.6 on this new measurement system. I think if you go to his website, you must already be at least forty. Young people aren’t concerned about their true age unless they get caught in a bar. But I’ve come up with other ways to measure a person’s true age, with some amazing results.

  • Alcohol intake: Doctors say you should take in only two alcoholic drinks per day. At that rate, my uncle Ralph is 173 years old.

  • Hair loss: On average, men have experienced a 50 percent hair loss by the age of forty and a 70 percent hair loss by the age of sixty-five. By this measurement, the boxing promoter Don King is eleven.

  • Waist measurement: A person’s girth increases by 2.5 centimetres (1 inch) every decade. This means I age by fifteen years each Christmas.

  • Favourite TV shows: Since viewers relate best to people of their own generation, a person’s true age is reflected in the TV shows he or she watches. If you watch South Park, your true age is nine. If you watch Jersey Shore, your true age is 36D. If you watch Lawrence Welk, you are reincarnated.

  NEW YEAR, SAME OLD YOU

  By now, you’ve broken all your New Year’s resolutions and are feeling bad about it. Well, don’t. Just think how much worse off you’d be if you hadn’t dieted for that whole week or quit drinking for that day. So don’t beat yourself up for coming back to the same old you. The medical community will tell you when it’s time for you to change.

  HOW TO BUILD YOUR OWN TANK

  There is nothing more embarrassing than getting your car stuck in a ditch somewhere. Well, there is one thing more embarrassing, but usually you can count on your wife not to blab. Anyway, I’ve decided to show those of you who don’t have paved driveways how you can make your car less vulnerable to sinkholes, mudslides, avalanches, and quicksand.

  To go where angels fear to tread, you need one hell of a tread—a tank tread. That’s right, just turn your car into a tank. To do it, you’re going to need a roll of snow fence, a pair of metal snips, and an axe. This idea is so simple you’ll wonder why you didn’t think of it a long time ago.

  The first step is to disconnect the emergency brake from the left side of your vehicle. That’s what the snips are for. If you’re not sure which cable it is, cut them all. Who cares about safety? You’re building a tank.

  Now the emergency brake will stop only the right-side wheels. To balance that out, disconnect your regular brake lines from the right side of the car so they stop only the left-side wheels. Just take a wrench and disconnect them at the wheel cylinders. If they’re rusted on, keep kicking until something breaks. (Toes don’t need a cast anyway.)

  Now, to give our tank treads room to move freely around the wheels, you have to remove the front half of the front fender and the rear half of the rear fender, which you can do easily with a chainsaw. (Don’t use your own chainsaw.) Once that’s done, you’re ready for your tank tread, which you can buy through an army surplus magazine or make yourself from an old escalator. Or if you’re not made of money, just use a piece of snow fence. It’s twice as wide as you need, so just cut her in half and you’ll have a track for each side of your vehicle.

  Mount golf clubs on the roof with duct tape. These will work as guides to keep the treads in line with the wheels. Have the handles attached to the roof so the heads are out to the sides. For long trips use your driver; for short runs the putter is appropriate.

  Now you’re ready to roll. Driving the tank couldn’t be easier. When you want to turn left, you step on the brake. When you want to turn right, you pull on the emergency brake. You can go anywhere. From now on, you don’t need a map of where you’re going, just the coordinates.

  YOUR LUCK CHANGES

  Looking back over the years, I notice how the phrase “getting lucky” has changed its meaning. When I was a little boy, “getting Lucky” meant retrieving my dog from the neighbour’s patio party. After puberty, the phrase took on a whole new definition. The teen years are in fact the golden era of getting lucky. From there, “getting lucky” referred to my first successful job application, then my first mortgage application, then surviving that tax audit, and then avoiding the axe during the company downsizing. Nowadays, “getting lucky” means the medical tests came back negative.

  A ROOM OF HIS OWN

  A lot of guys my age have somewhere they can go to be alone and have peace and think and tinker around or whatever. Sometimes it’s a club or a bowling alley or a bar. More often it’s a place in their own home, such as a basement workshop or a garden shed. But usually, it’s the garage. A guy’ll have an old couch and a TV and a beer fridge in his garage. It’s a place that’s all his. A place where he can do and say whatever he wants, and more important, eat and drink whatever he wants. And if there’s a lawn mower lying there in fifty or sixty pieces with no hope of ever being reassembled … well, that’s nobody’s business.

  Compared to the intimidating environment of the house itself, with the designer furniture and the fancy drapes and the expensive carpets, the garage is pure comfort and relaxation. You can sit anywhere in dirty clothes and put your feet up. You are the master of your environment, instead of vice versa. So to the rest of the family: don’t worry about Dad spending time out there in the garage. You know where he is. You know there’s only so much trouble he can get into. He’s there if you need him. And he will eventually come back into the house a much happier man.

  WORK AT BEING A RETIREE

  I often hear about guys who worked all their lives to save up for their retirement, and then when they do finally get the golden handshake, they keel over in the first year. The most common theory is that men have a problem adjusting to suddenly having nothing to do, and that the secret to a successful retirement is to keep busy, maintaining an active schedule and having real responsibilities.


  I don’t agree. That sounds to me like you’re supposed to solve the problem by making retirement more like work. I prefer to go the other way, making work more like retirement.

  Once you hit the age of forty, take one afternoon a week off work and go sit in the park. When you have a meeting, don’t make any suggestions or comments, and when you’re asked for an opinion, just shrug. Come in late and leave early. Never answer your phone. Read novels at your desk. Avoid responsibility. You may take some flack, but when your retirement comes up—and it may happen sooner than you expect—you’ll be ready.

  STAYING GREY

  I have a couple of friends my age appearing in big network television shows, and they’ve each had to dye their hair to keep their jobs. Apparently the television execs don’t think the audience can stand to see a grey-haired man on a primetime series. Maybe it’s because these execs are twenty-three years old and don’t want men who look like their dads to be stars. But what a horrible message it sends to those of us who have grey hair.

  Is it over for us? Will it come back with a bottle of Grecian Formula? I’m not sure that would work for me. My face and hair are roughly the same age, so they kind of go together. I wouldn’t look right with Russell Brand’s hair, and he wouldn’t look right with my face.

  When I look at myself in the mirror, I kind of think this is the way God wanted me to look, and if it’s good enough for him, it’s okay with me. But God doesn’t run the TV networks. That becomes more obvious every season.