I'm Back for More Cash

by Tony Kornheiser

  After I read about the cow, I went around the newsroom asking people what college pranks they wanted to confess to. And there’s actually another local cow heist to report:

  Two guys at the University of Maryland got the idea of “borrowing” a cow from the veterinary barn and depositing her in a women’s dorm. An accomplice I’ll call Elsie helped by opening the door to the dorm.

  “They led her to the elevator, and the floors were linoleum tile,” she recalled. “So the poor cow kept sliding. The sliding made her nervous. The more nervous she got, the more cow pies she deposited along the way. Anyway, they put her in the elevator, and pressed 8.”

  And then what happened?

  “The door opened. She got off.”

  And then?

  “She enrolled, didn’t she?” my friend Liz asked. “Didn’t they give her a football scholarship?”

  Liz went to Yale, so everything about Maryland sounds funny. Liz couldn’t recall any pranks at Yale. The students were probably too busy reading Sir Isaiah Berlin and voting stock proxies.

  “The only thing they had when I went there was streaking,” Liz said. “That’s why I went to Yale. It was idyllic. I saw naked men all over campus. I said, ‘That’s for me!’ ”

  Actually, there was a famous prank at Yale in the mid-’70s. Some Yalies persuaded a grad student in chemistry to brew them up a chemical that smelled just like human vomit. They poured it down a ventilator shaft in the dining hall, and the smell was so gross that the dining hall had to be closed for months. The ringleader ended up, years later, being a speech writer for George Bush—who later famously blew lunch in Japan, but we won’t get into that.

  Many people at The Washington Post—too many—went to Harvard and Yale. Their livestock pranks typically involve cyclotrons, cloning, and transplanting the head of a cow onto the secretary of state. I prefer the good old days of panty raids. Now, with coed dorms and political correctness, boys are going on panty raids to find something clean to wear. (Hey, here’s a campus prank: How about slipping some Pergonal into the dean’s wife’s punch and waiting for her to give birth to septuplets!)

  Okay, my turn. Thirty years ago at Harpur College (the Harvard of Route 17) there was this party off campus. And at this party there was a bowl of mints. And people were really hungry, they would eat anything, because they had what was commonly referred to at the time as the “blind munchies.” (I won’t go into why, because I’m up for an ambassadorship.) And a friend of mine had the bright idea to stir the mints with his … well, not with his hand.

  And I know who ate the mints. But I’m not talking until they make me president of Nasdaq.

  The Boxer Rebellion

  I was listening to the radio the other day when I heard a couple of guys talking about how they could tell it was getting closer to winter. They felt chilled in the morning when they went outside to pick up the newspaper in their underpants.

  That’s how guys walk outside to get the paper.

  Mostly naked. (“If the paper is right on the step, I’ll lean out fully naked,” the stylish Michael Wilbon reports.)

  And why not? Who do you think you’re going to run into at six in the morning on your front lawn, Greta Van Susteren?

  To get my paper I have to walk about twenty feet into the yard. It’s my yard, right? So what’s it to you what I wear? I’m out there in the pair of ratty boxers that I sleep in, with my fat stomach lapping over the elastic waistband like the beginning of an avalanche.

  Shoes?

  Are you kidding me?

  No real guy puts on shoes to get the paper. Even in snow or sleet you just go out in your bare feet—and hop around gingerly in the cold like you’re stepping on Legos. Most guys can hit the first patch of snow, pounce on the paper, and scuttle back to the porch before all of their toes turn blue.

  I know what you’re thinking: What if somebody sees you? Won’t you be embarrassed?

  Absolutely not.

  Regularly, I’ll be out there in my underpants, and I’ll spot a neighbor in his drawers collecting his paper. It’s such a common thing for guys to be outside in their underpants that we might even have a conversation—albeit a brief one. (Brief, get it? Hahaha.)

  Of course, every once in a while some stranger will saunter by and stare at me, like I’m some sort of suburban performance artist. And I’ll say, “Hey, pal, what are you looking at?”

  You’re lucky I don’t go out there buck-naked.

  (Well, at this point I’m lucky, too. People reach an age when they should never be naked, not even in the shower, because it’s just too unsightly. I made the horrifying mistake of glancing at myself in the bathroom mirror one day three years ago, and I have never taken off all my clothing since.)

  Women, though—even lingerie freaks, women who appear in Coolio videos—would never think of picking up the paper in their underwear.

  My friend Liz says, “Women can’t be seen in their undies, because they will be accused of Asking For It. No man in his underpants is ever Asking For It—he’s just pathetic.”

  “I’m afraid to walk around on the ground floor of my house scantily clad,” my friend Helen told me. “I did once, and wouldn’t you know that a neighbor knocked on the door, and I cowered in the corner until he went away.”

  (This conversation led me to the realization that women are not only genetically more modest but also that “scantily clad” is a uniquely female phrase. A man would never call a woman “scantily clad.” A man would say, “So I knock on the door, and I see this babe hiding in the corner, totally hot to trot, right out of the Victoria’s Secret catalog!”)

  When women go out early to pick up the paper, at the very least they’re swaddled in robing. And they are hugging their clothing tightly to their bodies, as if they were refugees from a slave-labor nudist colony. Of course, they appear to be embarrassed when you see them like this. Unlike men, who will wave at you—then grab their crotch.

  More often, though, women don’t go out to get the paper until they are fully dressed, and fully made-up, as if a fresh coat of lipstick will make the news from the Asian markets any better. Women often pick up the paper and take it directly to work with them—defeating the purpose of having it delivered to their home at 6:00 in the morning. In fact, I know one woman who says there are just two reasons for a woman to have a man in her life: One is to take the car to the mechanic. The other is to pick up the paper in the morning.

  The reason that men and women behave so differently about getting the paper is because, as Mr. Henry, America’s best-loved feature writer, points out, “A woman goes out in what she goes out in. A man goes out in what he’s got on.”

  Women have different outfits for everything. A woman will wear one outfit while making out a shopping list and then change into another outfit to go to the supermarket, then put on another outfit to go out to dinner—because she’s too tired to cook dinner after all that shopping.

  What man ever says, “Oh, we’re going to the supermarket? Fine, let me change.”

  A man would happily never change clothes. Never.

  He would wear the same pair of shorts until they shredded and fell off—and then he’d stay naked until his wife went out (in her “shopping for husband” outfit) and bought him a new pair.

  And this is because American men have no shame, in great contrast to what we are seeing in Japan now, where the president of a major securities company wept in shame over the way his firm went straight down the toilet. By this time next week you’ll be able to get a Lexus for eighty-five cents, and they’ll throw in a Mitsubishi big-screen. Look for the ads in this very newspaper, which I’ll be happy to pick up for you at 6:00 in the morning, in my underpants.

  Mir Mortals

  You wanna know what the Right Stuff is? It’s twenty large, pal. You got to hand it to them Russkies. We’re supposed to be the experienced capitalists, but they got this rich American pigeon Dennis Tito to fork over $20 million to hop on one of their rocket ships. I
t was a no-brainer. This starry-eyed dope came walking into the dacha packing a Salomon Smith Barney account with more zeros than a Siberian winter, and two suits from the Russian space program elbowed each other in the ribs and said, “Drop a net on this guy—it’s Miller time!”

  Nobody had ever made a donation of this magnitude to the Russians before; that Anastasia thing wasn’t exactly voluntary. They love Tito. All over Red Square they have signs that say WELCOME TITO. (The signs were left over from 1957. They crossed out “Marshal” and wrote in “Dennis.”)

  But let me ask you something: If you have that kind of money to blow on a rocket ride, why would you jump on something built by the people who gave us Mir?

  The Mir. Now that was a great piece of work. It was the first space station to be covered in aluminum siding. Mir was cobbled together like something in a shantytown. Seriously, Tom Hanks did better work in Cast Away. The American space crew that spent time on Mir consisted of one astronaut and two guys from This Old House. You know how embarrassing it is for an astronaut to walk onto the launchpad wearing a tool belt? The Mir crew greeted them saying, “Are you happy to see us, comrades, or is that a lug wrench in your pocket?”

  I wouldn’t go into space on anything built in Russia. Years back, Laika the space dog did, and guess what happened to her. Let’s put it this way: The Soviet economy wasn’t overburdened by Alpo expenses, if you catch my drift.

  So now we’ve got the first Tourist in Space. (Tito’s contract specified that the first thing the Russians have to do after he lands is drive him to a MotoPhoto.) But $20 million seems like an awful lot of money for a six-day vacation—considering how much of your time is taken up by travel. Okay, you’ve got a great view. But it’s not like anybody’s going to bring you a margarita as you sit and leisurely watch the sun set. (Which is probably a good thing, because in orbit the sun is setting every fifteen minutes; you’d be licking the tiles by Madagascar.)

  Let’s face it, you’re living in a coat closet. And you’re crammed in there cheek to jowl. I was in the company of Russian sportswriters at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer. All they did was hoard oranges and smoke. After six days you could get cleaner air by inhaling bus exhaust.

  I couldn’t find much support for going into space. My friend Nancy said the only reason she’d go for six days was to “make it a diet issue.” The stylish Michael Wilbon refused to even consider such a trip: “No outlet stores up there.”)

  Personally, I think Dennis Tito was way overcharged. The Russkies haven’t got a dime. For $20 million he should have held out for the ride and a nuclear warhead.

  Seriously, what’s the upside for Tito? Please don’t tell me the in-flight meals are good. With the Russian economy, Tito will be lucky if he gets potato-leek soup. Or even a leaky potato. And what good is getting frequent-flier miles on Aeroflot? He’s going to cash them in on a free trip to Minsk for the Borscht Festival?

  I’m sure Tito would rather have gone up on one of our spaceships. But noooooo. NASA isn’t “selling tickets” yet. NASA says we’re doing serious scientific research and experimentation in space, and a tourist would just get in the way.

  Oh, please. We’re trying to invent more Teflon?

  What has NASA done for us lately? And by lately I mean in the post-Tang years. How about blowing a few billion bucks on that Mars fiasco? Talk about sticking the landing! As I recall, after a thorough investigation, a blue-ribbon review panel recommended, and I quote, “Take your foot off the gas, stupid.” I don’t know who’s having a worse run, NASA or Dick Ebersol.

  And the restrictions NASA put on Tito are so petty. They actually made Tito agree that if he damaged anything inside the international space station (motto: “If You’re Gonna Puke, Do It on Your Side, Okay?”) he would pay for it. Like that’s a problem for him. Still, it was probably a bit tacky for NASA to put up signs that said, YOU BREAK IT, YOU BOUGHT IT.

  In another classic NASA hissy fit, Tito wasn’t allowed to go into the American section of the station alone. He has to have an escort at all times. Like he’s freakin’ Donald Trump! What’s NASA afraid of? That Tito’s going to give all our secrets to the Russians? Hahaha. Robert Hanssen already did that!

  I can’t believe we’re not selling rides to the public. We waste our time sending mummified politicians like John Glenn and Barfin’ Jake Garn up in space, while the Russians understand that the next frontier is: Cash money! First class or coach?

  Bird in the Wing

  Spanning the globe to bring you … birds in the news!

  I heard the following story the other day. I can’t personally vouch for its authenticity. But, as an experienced journalist, I believe it to be fact because it was told to me by some guy I know who heard it from another guy, somebody’s cousin, maybe.

  Here’s the tale exactly as it was presented to me:

  “There’s a company in Florida that makes cannons for its client, the U.S. Air Force. The cannon fires geese at jets.”

  Geese? Why are they shooting geese at jets? “Because these planes cost fifty million dollars each, and they’re designed to fly low, under the radar. But they don’t work very well when a flock of twelve-pound geese gets sucked into a jet turbine intake. The Air Force needs to find a way to gooseproof the planes.”

  I get it. So these geese are flapping toward the planes, and the Air Force pilots practice taking evasive maneuvers?

  (Silence.)

  “They’re not live geese flying at the plane, you imbecile. They shoot geese carcasses at the plane to simulate a high-velocity goose impact.”

  (Does Björk know about this? This would solve all her wardrobe problems. All she has to do is hang out at MacDill Air Force Base and wait for next year’s Oscar dress to land at her feet.)

  Gee, I’d think it would be tough to hit a plane going 800 miles an hour with a goose.

  (Silence.)

  “The planes are on the ground. If they were in the air and a goose hit them, they’d crash.”

  Oh. Right.

  “Okay, so word of this cannon spreads. And in comes the British Air Force. Because England has a bird problem, too.”

  (Let me interject here to say what England has with birds is an “issue.” What they have with cows is a “problem.” And if they think those cows are mad now, wait until the RAF starts stuffing them into cannons and firing them at airplanes like Bessie the Bovine Cannonball. That would be udderly ridiculous. Sorry. Please, go on.)

  “The Brits call the company in Florida. They acquire the cannon. They set it up. They fire a goose at a RAF jet. Bam! The goose goes right through the windshield and almost decapitates the pilot! It flies in like a freakin’ cruise missile! So the Brits call the Florida company and raise hell. In their best British accents they say, ‘What the ##%&@!!??’

  “The Florida company is dumbstruck. Nothing like this ever happened before. They ask the Brits, ‘Exactly what kind of geese do you people have over there?’ Concerned representatives of the company and the RAF engage in a great technical discussion to get to the heart of the problem.”

  And? And? (Readers are waiting breathlessly for me to finish this lame story so they can go to Starbucks.)

  “And the upshot is, the Florida company tells the Brits, ‘Next time, thaw the goose out first.’ ”

  We interrupt this column for an urgent disclaimer. Just minutes before press time, our source on this charming goose-and-cannon story called to say it’s possible he might have been slightly off on a couple of minor facts. He said, and I quote, “It may have been chickens. And, um, it may have been Sweden. Is that a problem for you?”

  You mean if the facts of this story are completely wrong, would that be troublesome for me? Hey, who died and made me Bob Woodward? I don’t care if it’s gerbils and Uruguay. I’m trying to fill twenty inches here.

  That story, shall we say, dovetails nicely with this one, which was in the news last week: Famed baseball pitcher Randy “The Big Unit” Johnson of the Arizona Diamondba
cks was pitching in the seventh inning of a spring training game against the San Francisco Giants, when he cut loose with a 96-mph fastball. As the ball rocketed from the mound, a dove made the mistake of crowding the plate on Big Unit. About two feet in front of home, the fastball and the dove collided. Needless to say this chance meeting wasn’t beneficial to either Big Unit’s hope of catching the outside corner or the bird’s hope of someday having chicks. Eyewitnesses said the dove exploded into a mass of feathers. (We are checking into a report that Björk was seen in the area with a dustpan and a seamstress.) Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle said he thought the bird’s mistake was that it was guessing curveball.

  What remained of the bird was in fowl territory. Fowl territory! God, I am funny. Oh, and I suppose none of you has thought to say: The umpire called the dove out because of the “infield fly” rule! (Stop, Tony, you’re killing me.)

  “I didn’t think it was all that funny,” Randy Johnson said of the incident.

  Oh, please. That’s because you’ve got no sense of humor. I mean, could the lesson be any more obvious? Next time, thaw the dove. Hahaha.

  Note to animal rights activists: This column was written over the violent protests of Tony Kornheiser. He would never be so unfeeling about the horrible plight of these geese, chickens, or, you know, anything you might find in a sandwich. Also, he wants to assure you that no animals were hurt in the making of his upcoming TV special, “Benji on a Stick.”

  Tough Times for the Fat Cat

  I was standing at the side of my house when—whoosh!—something furry and in a god-awful hurry crashed into my leg. I was terrified. My first thought was that it was Gary Condit running from the media. It turned out to be a large brown-and-white cat darting from under my front porch as if fired from some cat cannon.

  I am a dog person, not a cat person. I don’t want to go into a whole boring song and dance about the differences between cats and dogs. But I can assure you I would never put a dog in a blender, okay?