Boogers Are My Beat

by Dave Barry

  One of our show-stopping songs is “Leader of the Pack,” the story of a teenage romance tragically ended by a motorcycle crash. Amy Tan sings this song, and we do a little routine wherein Amy's husband, Lou DeMattei, dresses up as a motorcycle gang member and simulates the crash by diving onto the stage. Lou prides himself on the realism of his dive, and during one show it was so realistic that he broke his collarbone.

  So with the song still going on, Lou, the “corpse,” was lying on the stage in agony, but the rest of us did not know this. Unfortunately, this was the night when I—Mr. Funny Ha-Ha Humor Man—decided to introduce a new comic element into the act, which was to kick the “corpse” to make sure it was “dead.” So I kicked Lou. This was so hilarious that another band member, Stephen King, decided that HE would also kick Lou.

  Fortunately, Lou was able to stagger off the stage before his wacky bandmates ruptured his spleen. When the show ended, and we found out that Lou had gone to the hospital, we felt AWFUL, and when we saw him again, we apologized profusely. Lou was very gracious about it.

  Although, come to think of it, maybe he was the one who gave our names to the Denver security people.

  Owner's Manual Step No. 1: Bang Head Against the Wall

  The topic of this column is a recent Washington Post story stating that manufacturers of appliances, computers, cars, etc., want to know why Americans don't read their owner's manuals.

  WARNING: THIS COLUMN IS INTENDED FOR READING PURPOSES ONLY. DO NOT USE THIS COLUMN AS A TOURNIQUET.

  One big reason why consumers don't read manuals is that the typical manual starts out with fifteen to twenty-five pages of warnings, informing you of numerous highly unlikely ways in which you could use the product to injure or kill yourself.

  WARNING: DO NOT READ THIS COLUMN WHILE WATERSKIING. DO NOT SET FIRE TO THIS COLUMN IN A ROOM FILLED WITH HYDROGEN.

  The typical consumer's reaction to these warnings is: “What kind of moron would do THAT?”

  The correct answer to this question is: “A wealthy moron.” Because the reason these warnings exist is that somewhere, some time, some consumer with the IQ of a radish actually DID one of these bizarre things, and got a lawyer, and sued, and a jury made up of people whose understanding of economics is based entirely on grocery coupons decided, what the heck, $300 million sounds about right, but let's not tell the judge right away because first we should order a pizza.

  So every year there are more huge product-liability awards, and every year manufacturers have to put more warnings in the owner's manuals, and every year the radish-brains come up with newer, more innovative ways to injure themselves. There will come a day when every product you buy will come with an actual living lawyer inside the box, sealed in plastic; as soon as you break the seal, the lawyer will emerge and start preparing your product-liability lawsuit. (This system is feasible because product-liability lawyers are spore-based organisms who can survive for years without air.)

  Another reason why consumers don't read manuals is that products today have TOO MANY FEATURES. (I know, I know, I've complained about this before. So sue me.) We—and when I say “we,” I am speaking for every human being in the world—do not want a lot of features. In fact, for most products, we really want only two features: the “on” feature, and the “off” feature.

  An example of a feature that we do not want is “picture in picture.” This feature allows you to watch one channel on most of your TV screen, while another channel appears in a little box in the corner. The salesman always makes a big deal out of “picture in picture,” and the manual always devotes pages to how you use it.

  Except you don't use it. I have never seen any actual human consumer use the “picture in picture” feature, because (a) nobody remembers how it works; (b) it's annoying to have two pictures on the screen; and (c) it's hard enough to find ONE thing on TV you want to watch.

  The third reason why consumers don't read manuals is that many consumers are men, and we men would no more read a manual than we would ask directions, because this would be an admission that the person who wrote the manual has a bigger . . . okay, a bigger grasp of technology than we do. We men would rather hook up our new DVD player in such a way that it ignites the DVDs and shoots them across the room—like small flaming UFOs—than admit that the manual-writer possesses a more manly technological manhood than we do.

  And then there are some people who simply do not NEED manuals. I refer here to my son, who, like many young people, can immediately grasp how to operate any technological object, no matter how complex. Give my son fifteen minutes in the space shuttle, and he will figure out not only how to launch it into orbit, but also how to make it play really hideous “hip-hop” music loud enough to shatter passing asteroids. (And please do not tell me that sound does not travel through space. “Hip-hop” music travels through everything.)

  So what does all this mean? It means that if manufacturers want us to read their manuals, they need to take a few simple, common-sense steps: (1) Deport all the product-liability lawyers to Iraq; (2) Get rid of “picture in picture”; (3) Include nothing in the manual except simple, clear, minimal directions, printed on photographs of tennis star Anna Kournikova naked. These steps will greatly improve consumer knowledge, and reduce unfortunate mishaps. You may now place this column over the wound.

  (NOTE TO MANUFACTURERS: Make sure it really IS Anna Kournikova, or you will be sued.)

  Cap 'n' Gown? I'll Take the Burger 'n' Fries

  And so we are gathered here today—you, the eager members of the Class of 2002, and we, your family members, who will sit on these hard folding chairs until every last eager one of you has picked up a diploma, at which point we will feel as though the entire Riverdance troupe has been stomping on our buttocks.

  Because, gosh, there sure are a LOT of you in the Class of 2002! We in the audience are wondering if there is anybody in North America besides us who is NOT graduating today. And although we know this is very exciting for you, the Class of 2002, we are fighting to stay awake.

  We have already engaged in the traditional time-passing activities of commencement audiences, such as trying to remember the names of all Seven Dwarfs, and looking through the commencement program for comical graduate names. We have nudged the person sitting next to us and pointed to names like “Konrad A. Klamsucker Jr.” and “Vorbanna Freepitude,” and that has given us brief moments of happiness.

  But we can only do that for so long, Class of 2002, and now we are feeling the despair that comes over members of a commencement audience when they realize that forty minutes have passed, and the dean is just now starting to hand out diplomas to people whose last names start with “D,” and the last name of the lone graduate we actually came to see starts with “W.”

  We've decided that, if we ever have another child threatening to graduate from college, we're going to have that child's name legally changed to “Aaron A. Aardvark.” Yes, the other families in the audience will make fun of it. But their laughter will turn to bitter envy when our child gets his diploma first, and we get up off these folding chairs and head for a restaurant! Ha ha!

  We also think it would be nice if commencement programs had interesting articles for the audience to read, or even short works of fiction with appropriate educational themes. (“As Vorbanna walked across the stage, her tassel swaying seductively, Konrad watched her, his sweating hands caressing the smooth hardness of his embossed leatherette diploma cover, and he thought about that unforgettable night when the two of them, for the first time, matriculated.”)

  Another option would be to show movies during the commencement ceremonies. Wouldn't that be great? While we were waiting for specific graduates to get their diplomas, we could enjoy such classic education-related cinema moments as the scene in Animal House where John Belushi imitates a giant pimple by squeezing his cheeks and spewing chewed food out of his mouth. That would surely get a roar of delight and approval from the audience, and whichever graduate happened to be on the
stage at that moment would think, “Gosh, they certainly are excited about my bachelor's degree in Business Transportation with a minor in Tire Management!” So everybody would benefit.

  Sadly, Class of 2002, we are not yet ready, as a society, for this kind of progressive commencement concept. Because the world is not a perfect place. It is a world filled with malice and evil, a world where, today, none of us is truly safe, even in our homes, from the very real danger that a total stranger will call us up and demand that we change our phone company. It will be up to you, the Class of 2002, to tackle these problems—not only to build a better society for tomorrow, but also to take bold action to correct the injustices of the past, starting by promising to pay your parents back for your college tuition.

  Ha ha! That was commencement humor, Class of 2002. Your parents do not expect you to pay them back. All that they expect is that you will go out and find your place in the world. Notice that we say, “the world,” as opposed to, “your parents' house.” Your parents love you very, very much, Class of 2002, but at this stage in their lives, if they could choose between living with you and living with a Labrador retriever, they quite frankly would go with the Labrador retriever. For one thing, it will not expect them to do its laundry.

  In closing, Class of 2002, we would like to leave you with some words of wisdom—words that may mean little to you now, but words that, trust us, you will some day want very much to remember. Those words are: Sleepy, Grumpy, Sneezy, Happy, Dopey, and two other ones. Thank you, good luck, and we'll meet you at the restaurant.

  Fitting Into That Bikini Is Easy As (Eating) Pie

  Ladies: It's time to get in shape for swimsuit season! If you start a program of diet and exercise NOW, in just a few weeks you can shed that extra ten pounds, so when it's time to “hit the beach,” you can put on that new bikini with the confidence that comes from knowing that you will immediately take off that new bikini, put on a bathrobe, and spend the rest of the weekend in your bedroom, weeping and eating Häagen-Dazs straight from the container.

  Because let's face it, ten pounds is not going to get the job done. Not these days, when the strict bodily standards set by supermodels and top Hollywood stars dictate that no woman is supposed to weigh more than her lipstick.

  How do these celebrities stay so impossibly thin? Simple: They have full-time personal trainers, who advise them on nutrition, give them pep talks, and shoot them with tranquilizer darts whenever they try to crawl, on hunger-weakened limbs, toward the packet of rice cakes that constitutes the entire food supply in their 37,000-square-foot mansions. For most celebrities, the biggest meal of the day is toothpaste (they use reduced-fat Crest).

  But you don't have a personal trainer, which means you have to rely on willpower. And of course you don't HAVE any willpower. If you did, you'd be doing stomach crunches right now, instead of reading this worthless column. But there you sit, lumplike, while the millions of fat cells in your thighs mate furiously and give birth to gigantic litters.

  Perhaps you are thinking: “But the super-thin look is out! The fashion industry recently declared that larger sizes were fashionable! Even Vogue magazine ran a photo spread wherein some of the models were normal human females!”

  No offense, but: You moron. This is a TRICK, a prank that the fashion industry plays every few years. It causes millions of normal-sized women to go to the chic clothing stores, looking to buy the clothes they see in Vogue, only to discover that the fashion industry makes these clothes only for mutant women who wear size zero or lower.

  “I'm sorry, but we don't have that in your size,” you will be told by the snotty seventy-eight-pound salesperson, who enters and leaves the store via the mail slot. “You might try across the street, at Big Betty's Duds for Whales.”

  So what CAN you ladies do to prepare for swimsuit season? You can do what we men have been doing, with great success, for so many years: nothing. Most of us men have no problem parading around the beach in a bathing suit, even if it reveals that we have enough spare belly tissue to create a whole new person. What is our secret? Why are we so secure about our bodies? Simple: We have no idea what our bodies look like.

  This is because of the way we use mirrors. Most women check out their body from all angles, in this order: (1) front, (2) side, (3) back. Naturally, the last two views are the ones they remember best, and over time they come to see themselves as consisting almost entirely of a stomach and a butt.

  Most men, on the other hand, never look at anything but the front view, which is the most flattering. I'm a perfect example. For decades, having looked at myself only head-on, I thought I had a normal nose. It wasn't until I reached my forties that I realized, after seeing explicit photographs of my profile, that my face is dominated by a glob of nasal flesh the size and shape of a mature Bartlett pear.

  So now I make a conscious effort to keep my head pointed directly toward people, so they can't see my profile. If I have a passenger in my car, I drive using peripheral vision, which means I may run over the occasional person on the sidewalk, or even inside a building. But at least my passenger thinks I have a normal nose.

  You ladies can use a similar technique for swimwear. Your role model should be the football defensive back. When the receiver goes out for a pass, the defensive back stays right with him, but runs backward and sideways, so he is always facing the receiver. It looks as though the defensive back is extremely self-conscious about the size of his booty. Study this technique, ladies, and use it at the beach! If your footwork is solid, nobody will ever see anything but a flattering, head-on view. If you suffer a knee injury, try to fall so that your back is on the sand. If you need surgery, demand sugar-free anesthetic. And above all: Have a great summer!

  Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing

  You don't think of swingers as being the type of people who hold conventions. By “swingers,” I mean couples who swing with other couples. By “swing,” I mean, “you know exactly what I mean.”

  But my point is that you (and by “you,” I mean “I”) don't think of swingers as being big conventiongoers. You think of them as hanging out at private parties, or exclusive swinger nightclubs, or secluded motels, or the Clinton White House. You don't picture swingers walking around large convention hotels wearing name badges and attending seminars, like executives in the forklift industry.

  But it turns out that swingers do hold conventions. I know this because I went to one recently, at the Radisson Deauville Hotel in Miami Beach. I was accompanied by my wife and a guy named Wally, who's in the insurance business.

  This was not as kinky as it sounds. Wally had been the highest bidder in a charity auction for a lunch with me. He assumed we would be going to a normal restaurant where everybody would be wearing clothes. But when I suggested to him that we could use the lunch as an opportunity to investigate—for journalism purposes—the swingers' convention, he readily agreed, despite the very real risk that we might see people, including women, wearing skimpy or nonexistent outfits. That is the kind of sacrifice some guys are willing to make for charity.

  I also invited my wife to go along, so that I would not be walking into a swingers' convention accompanied only by an insurance executive named Wally. When I invited her, I made a hilarious joke, strictly kidding around in a humorous vein, about how maybe we would find a couple we'd want to swap with.

  NOTE TO HUSBANDS: Never attempt to make this type of joke with your wife. This type of joke should be attempted only by trained humor professionals.

  NOTE TO TRAINED HUMOR PROFESSIONALS: Even then, it turns out to be a bad idea.

  When Wally, my wife, and I got to the swingers' hotel, we stopped off at the registration desk and picked up a copy of the illustrated convention guide, which I personally would have killed for when I was in ninth grade. It listed the various seminars, including “Introduction to Tantra,” “The Myth of Monogamy,” “Meeting New Friends on the Internet,” “The Benefits and Mechanics of Long-Term Polyamory,” and “B
asic Forklift Maintenance.”

  I am of course kidding about that last one, but I am not kidding when I say that this entire hotel had been taken over by swingers, hundreds of them. You could tell they were swingers because they were all wearing convention wristbands. In some cases, the wristband was the largest garment they were wearing. These were people of all ages and bodily types: Some had obviously spent a lot of time at the fitness club; whereas others appeared to have recently eaten a fitness club.

  We had lunch at a table looking out on the pool area. Our conversation consisted almost entirely of us taking turns saying, “Ohmigod, look at THAT.” We tried to be cool about it, but it is not easy to look cool when you're sticking a spoonful of soup in your ear because your head has just whirled sideways so your eyeballs could keep track of a passing thong.

  The thong appears to be a major weapon in the swinger's fashion arsenal. This is not necessarily a good thing. Your taut-bodied individual may be able to pull it off (Har!), but when you see a portly middle-aged man who has more body hair than a musk ox AND (I swear) a tattoo of Elvis on his right butt cheek stroll past wearing essentially a No. 8 rubber band, you begin to think that maybe it's time Congress enacted strict Federal Thong Control.

  Attire aside, most of the swingers seemed to be regular people. In fact, according to a story about the convention in the Herald, the two most-common professions for swingers are police officer and teacher. This stunned me, especially the teachers. I mean, remember when you were a kid, and you were shocked whenever you saw a teacher at say, the supermarket, because you didn't think of teachers as having any existence outside of school, or even necessarily as being food-eating life forms? Well, imagine if you encountered your trigonometry teacher wearing a garment that left absolutely nothing to the imagination regarding the cosine OR the hypotenuse.