What I'd Say to the Martians
Page 8
My Favorite Thing
It’s not that much to look at. The nubs are completely worn off in some spots, the wooden prongs are swollen and warped, and the springs are so loose they can barely pull the magnets apart. And yet, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Every time I slip it out of its flannel tote bag, oil it up, and fasten down the straps, I feel like a king.
Like many of the best things, it’s old. And rare—only a few thousand were ever made. Most of them, of course, went down with the Titanic. A few were mistakenly turned into bird feeders. And the rest have been avidly sought by museums, collectors, and “sportsmen.”
I found mine many years ago in a run-down little shop in Asbestos, Colorado. The white-haired proprietor was bent over a table repairing it. Even with the rubber tubing, French grommets, and other parts scattered all over, I knew I had to have it. The old man sensed the light in my eyes and told me to come back in a week. I came back in two weeks, because, I don’t know, I was busy or something, and paid the then princely sum of $58,000, plus my watch.
Since then, the shop has been bulldozed down, the old man has died (from a bulldozer), and Asbestos, Colorado, has changed its name to Aspen. But I still have my prize.
People ask me if it still works. That’s like asking a Canadian if he likes puppets. It works like a dream, and not the kind where you wake up screaming.
Nowadays you can buy a modern, mass-produced version. And I admit, they’re stronger, lighter, and much, much easier to turn off. But there’s something about the originals that makes you want to hang on to them, at least until somebody makes you an offer of no less than $45,000.
Reintroducing Me to My Habitat
I would like to take this opportunity to urge conservation-minded people everywhere to pressure the government for the reintroduction of me to my native habitat.
My native habitat, of course, is the desert Southwest, where I used to roam wild and free. But, sadly, I no longer exist there. For several years, I have been largely confined to a small two-bedroom apartment in the Chelsea section of Manhattan.
It is clear that I do not belong here, as my neighbors will tell you. I am still frightened by car horns, and the fancy Eastern food I am fed is at odds with my natural diet of enchiladas and ginger snaps. Often I can be found pacing mindlessly back and forth in my cramped office, which I am told is a sign that I am insane.
Occasionally, there are scattered sightings of me in my old habitat—shooting a wet straw wrapper at someone’s kid in a restaurant in Santa Fe, then denying it; doing my funny cowboy dance at a party in Silver City until people make me stop—but these cannot be confirmed.
For all intents and purposes, I have been eliminated from my former range, the Rio Grande Valley. I used to be found from El Paso and Juárez in the south all the way up to Taos and sometimes beyond (if I missed the turnoff to Taos).
Once, I filled a vital role in the ecosystem. I would prey primarily on the weak and the old, who were usually the only ones who would hire me. Then, when their businesses went under, they were removed from the system, as nature intended.
My world was in harmony. But, as often happens, man intervened. Ranchers would drive me from their lands when they caught me throwing a keg-party barbecue, maybe using one of their cows. Divorce and job dismissals took their toll. I found I could not coexist with my creditors. At one point, public sentiment against me was so strong that I was considered “vermin” and a “pest.”
But now, I think, attitudes are changing. People don’t automatically want to shoot me, like they used to. This is mainly because of my reeducation efforts and because they haven’t seen me for a long time.
The truth about me is finally starting to emerge. For instance, there is no record of me ever attacking a human, unless he was much, much smaller than me. The old myths are starting to die off, such as the one that if you leave your campsite unattended, I will sneak in and steal beer and food from your cooler and maybe knock down your tent.
The time to act is now. I am not getting any younger, and my rent here in New York could go up at any time. Also, I could be wiped out by the stock market.
I have been conducting a captive-breeding program with my wife, but so far it has yielded no offspring. (The reason, I found out, is that my wife uses contraceptives, which I guess I knew.)
All of these factors make it imperative that you write the government and tell them to reintroduce me, via first-class airfare, to my old habitat. With a generous per diem and a late-model car, I think I could once again fill my old niche. I would probably try to mate with females of my species, unless my wife found out. And I would be willing to keep a journal of what I eat and what TV shows I watch, so that more may be learned about my ways.
I will, if necessary, wear a radio collar.
I am willing to do these things because I believe that until people can sit around a desert campfire and go “Shhh, hear that?” and then listen for the plaintive howl of me, we as a society have lost something.
Tattoo
Recently, I got a sex change on a whim. I was out drinking with some friends, got really drunk, and went in for the surgery. The doctors suggested I wait until I was sober, but I said no, give me the sex change.
Well, to make a long story short (so to speak), I woke up with breasts, a vagina, and a splitting headache. Also, I had a tattoo. I don’t remember where I got it, but there it was.
I was a woman for several weeks. The people at work were nice about it, but, to tell you the truth, I didn’t really have time to enjoy being a woman—I was swamped with projects. Finally, I decided to go back to being a man. For one thing, I hadn’t thought about how you need to change your whole wardrobe.
When I went in for the second surgery, I asked the doctor if he could also remove the tattoo while he was at it. He said, “But since you’re going to be a man again, wouldn’t you like to keep the tattoo?” I said no, man or woman, I didn’t want the tattoo.
I woke up from the operation, and I was a man again. But get this: I still had the tattoo! I thought, Am I crazy? I confronted the surgeon, and he said he thought we had left the tattoo part undecided. Now that I was a man, I felt like punching him, but I didn’t. Instead, I just made an appointment to come back and get the tattoo removed.
I should have been suspicious when I went back for the tattoo removal and they put me under full anesthesia, because when I woke up I was a woman again but the tattoo was still there! They said it had been a mistake, and to make up for it they would do my next surgery for free.
I didn’t know what to do. I became depressed. I started getting hounded by my insurance company. They had covered my sex-change operations in full, but they said they didn’t cover tattoo removal. But I didn’t have a tattoo removed, I told them. They said they had already paid my doctor for one by mistake, and now I had to reimburse them. I called my doctor, and he said he hadn’t received any payment for tattoo removal.
I was so mad, I felt like suing someone. But who? My drinking buddies didn’t have any money, and I had no luck tracking down the tattoo parlor.
I gave up. I started hitting the bars and sleeping around. I don’t even remember if I was a man or a woman at that point. I felt a little cheap, so maybe I was a woman.
Then one night, after some meaningless sex, I noticed a photo on my wall. It was Godzilla. And I thought, That was a pretty good movie, I should watch that again sometime. Then I saw another photo. It was me, without the tattoo. I looked so, so incomplete. Something clicked in my head, and in my gut or maybe my uterus. I hadn’t realized it, but I liked the tattoo. I was a tattoo person!
I called my doctor and told him the news: I wanted to get another sex-change operation, but I was going to keep the tattoo. He said I was crazy. “Yeah,” I said with a smirk, “crazy like Godzilla.”
The Corrector
My dream job would be professional corrector. I would go around correcting people and things. For instance, if I saw you skiing down a mountain and I
didn’t think you were skiing very well, I would yell out a correction, like, “Hey, man, ski better!” Or, if you were fishing, I might call out, “Hey, don’t just stand there, catch a fish!”
For yelling out a correction to someone, I would get five hundred dollars. For just shaking my head derisively and rolling my eyes, that would be only a hundred dollars. (So whoever’s paying me for this dream job, you’re getting a bargain right there.) I would also offer more detailed corrections, although I wouldn’t actually do those myself. I would farm them out to a subcorrector. I would be only a general contractor.
But I wouldn’t be in it for the money. In fact, I would do this job for free.* My main joy would be in helping people. Let’s say you’re at the beach and you call out to a surfer: “Next time, try standing up the whole way, instead of falling over, like you just did.” Imagine the satisfaction of seeing the guy do just that. Or imagine the pride you would feel when the winner of the Tour de France publicly thanked you for his victory, because you told him to “Pedal faster!”
I know I said earlier that I would not only correct people, but also “things.” But I’m not sure how you could do that. How could you move a mountain a little more to the left, or make flowers redder, or frogs hop-pier? Talk to God? Good luck with that. In my experience, that guy is always trying to correct you.
How I Want to Be Remembered
We are gathered here, way far in the future, for the funeral of Jack Handey, the world’s oldest man. He died suddenly in bed, according to his wife, Miss France.
No one is really sure how old Jack was, but some think he may have been born as long ago as the twentieth century. He passed away after a long and courageous battle with honky-tonkin’ and alley cattin’.
Even though Jack was incredibly old, he was amazingly healthy right up to the end. He attributed this to performing his funny cowboy dance for friends, relatives, and people waiting for buses. All agreed it was the most hilarious thing they had ever seen, and not at all stupid or annoying.
Jack’s death has thrown the whole world into mourning, and not in a fakey, sarcastic way. He was admired by people of all ages and stripes, and by all animals, including zebras. Even monsters liked him. He had had his playful side and his serious side, but 99 percent of the time he had his “normal” side.
He started out life as a baby but worked his way up to an adult. But even when he was a full-grown adult, he never forgot that he was a baby.
His philosophy of life was a simple one. “I’m-a no looka for trouble, because-a trouble, she’s-a no good,” he would often say in his beloved fake Italian accent. He was quick with a laugh, but just as quick to point at what he was laughing at. Children loved him, but not in the way his teenage niece claimed. He was always thinking of ways of helping people, and was wondering how he might do some of those things when he died.
Jack was an expert in so many fields, it’s hard to say what he was best at: the arts, the sciences, or the businesses. If you talked to him at a party, you couldn’t tell; he seemed to know it all. He has been compared to Captain James Cook, and not just because he was severely beaten by some Hawaiians, and to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, and not just because he liked to be driven around in a jeep.
As hard as it is to believe, he never sold a single painting during his lifetime, or even painted one. Some of the greatest advances in architecture, medicine, and theater were not opposed by him, and he did little to sabotage them.
Although he lived in Paris, in a mansion famous for its many trap doors, he was always proud to be an American. However, he was ashamed to be an Earthling.
He was fabulously wealthy, but he would pretend to be broke, and would often try to borrow cigarettes and money from people. Little did they know that those who gave him stuff would later be rewarded in his will, with jewels and anti-gravity helmets. Women who refused to have sex with him are probably wishing that they could turn back the clock and say yes.
Generous even with his organs, he has asked that his eyes be donated to a blind person. Also his glasses. His skeleton, equipped with a spring that will suddenly propel it to full height, will be used to educate kindergartners.
He has asked that no shrines be built to him. But he pointed out that this did not mean he didn’t like Shriners.
According to our scientists, with their electronic soul trackers, Jack is in Heaven now. And not just regular Heaven, which any jerk can get in to, but special secret Heaven that even some angels don’t know about.
So let us celebrate his death, and not mourn. However, those who appear to be a little too happy will be asked to leave.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy is that a lot of the things Jack said and did seemed wrong at the time, but now we realize it wasn’t him, it was we who were wrong. Let us hope we don’t make the same mistake with his clones.
In closing, it is unfortunate that Jack’s friend Don could not be here. However, Don died many years ago, from a horrible fungus.
And now, robot Elton John will play “Candle in the Wind.”
Television Sketches
Deer Heads
(A sportsman’s study. A sportsman [Harvey Keitel] chews on a cigar and holds a Tom Collins. He stands next to a deer head mounted on a wall.)
Anne Boleyn
(A cell in the Tower of London. Anne Boleyn [Candice Bergen] looks wistfully out the barred window. Lord Norfolk [Phil Hartman] enters and bows.)
ANNE BOLEYN
Oh, Norfolk! Pray, what news from my beloved husband, the king?
LORD NORFOLK
It bodes ill, Your Majesty. The king…demands your death.
ANNE BOLEYN
(shaken)
I feared as much. What manner of execution is it to be?
LORD NORFOLK
The choosing is yours, my lady.
ANNE BOLEYN
How so, Norfolk?
LORD NORFOLK
If you grant the king a divorce, and renounce any claim to the throne, you shall be beheaded. If you do not, then you shall…be burned at the stake.
(Anne Boleyn weighs this)
ANNE BOLEYN
After I am beheaded, what will happen to my head?
LORD NORFOLK
It will be placed on top of a wall for public display. People will be allowed to throw things at it in attempts to knock it off the wall.
ANNE BOLEYN
How many throws will each person get before another person gets to throw?
LORD NORFOLK
Three.
ANNE BOLEYN
Will they be allowed to throw anything?
LORD NORFOLK
Within reason.
ANNE BOLEYN
Would a rotten potato be considered reasonable?
LORD NORFOLK
I’m afraid it would, Your Majesty.
ANNE BOLEYN
But I mean a really rotten one, all mushy and such.
(Norfolk nods reluctantly)
ANNE BOLEYN
And when my head is knocked off the wall, will the dirt and mud be brushed off my face before it is set back on the wall?
LORD NORFOLK
I am not sure, Your Majesty. I will inquire.
ANNE BOLEYN
Thank you, Norfolk.
LORD NORFOLK
I will leave you now, to weigh your decision.
(Norfolk bows deeply and heads for the door)
ANNE BOLEYN
(after him)
Norfolk.
LORD NORFOLK
Yes, Your Majesty?
ANNE BOLEYN
What if I grant the divorce, renounce the throne, but invoke the blessing of the pope?
LORD NORFOLK
Then you shall be drawn and quartered by four large horses. Then the quarters shall be drawn and quartered by four smaller horses. Then those quarters will be drawn and quartered by four frogs. After that, the quartering would stop and the mincing would begin.
ANNE BOLEYN
I see. And my head?
>
LORD NORFOLK
Your head would be placed on a pike.
ANNE BOLEYN
On a fish, Norfolk?
LORD NORFOLK
No, Your Majesty, a “spike” pike.
ANNE BOLEYN
(alarmed)
Oh, Norfolk! What about the crows? Would they not attack my face?
LORD NORFOLK
We would put a wire cage over your head. It would keep out the crows, but smaller birds would be able to shoulder their way through the bars.
ANNE BOLEYN
And I suppose yellow jackets could get through?
LORD NORFOLK
Yes, Your Majesty.
ANNE BOLEYN
And June bugs?
LORD NORFOLK
Yes. But June bugs wouldn’t really do any harm. They just sort of crawl around on your face…
(Norfolk illustrates)
ANNE BOLEYN
Could a small scarecrow be attached to my forehead?
LORD NORFOLK
Again, I will inquire into the matter, Your Majesty. But now, I will take my leave.
(Norfolk bows and starts to exit)
ANNE BOLEYN
Norfolk?
LORD NORFOLK
(a little wearily)
Yes, Your Majesty.
ANNE BOLEYN