DAVE BARRY IS NOT TAKING THIS SITTING DOWN

by Dave Barry

  The Capital story, which I swear I am not making up, is headlined: “Huge Camel Fleeing Live Nativity Scene Killed on Route 50.” It states that on the night of Sunday, December 21, a church was preparing to stage a Nativity show featuring live animals, when a six-foot-tall, 600-pound camel named Ernie escaped, ran onto a highway, was struck by a car, and went to That Big Zoo in the Sky. The article quotes the driver of the car that hit Ernie as saying: “How in the hell is a camel on Route 50 in the United States of America?”

  These are words that we would all be wise to remember. But let us not let the threat of colliding with escaped camels dampen the joy we feel during this special time of year, as expressed in the traditional carol “Deck the Halls”:

  Deck the halls with boughs of holly!

  Fa la la la la, la la la (crash)

  Don’t Eat the Muskrats or the Poinsettia au Gratin

  We have some important news for those of you who have been harboring an urge to eat poinsettias. This news comes from an article in the December 5, 1999, edition of the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Patriot-News, sent in by alert reader Karen Durkin. The article makes this fascinating statement:

  Despite persistent rumors, poinsettias are NOT poisonous. Ohio State University testing has found that a 50-pound child could eat more than 500 poinsettia bracts with no ill effects other than possibly a sick stomach from eating that much foliage.

  The two questions that immediately come to mind are:

  What is a “bract”?

  Would “Bill and the Bracts” be a good name for a rock band?

  (Answers: 1. Part of a plant; 2. No, but “The Foliage Eaters” would.)

  Another question is: How did Ohio State University conduct this research? Did researchers actually feed 500 poinsettia bracts to a 50-pound child? How? (“Eat your bracts, Jason, or NO MORE POKÉMON CARDS FOR YOU!”) And does this experiment really prove that poinsettias are safe? We personally have seen 50-pound children eat a LOT of things that would probably kill an adult, such as “Fruit Roll-Ups,” which we do not believe are fruit at all. We believe they are the offspring of a biological mating experiment involving Kool-Aid and flypaper.

  So our feeling is that you consumers should resist the temptation to rush out and start wolfing down poinsettias. Instead, you should take the wise scientific precaution of serving them to dinner guests (“Marge, try some of this delicious brie-on-a-bract!”) and then watching the guests closely for common symptoms of death, such as not moving for several days, or purchasing an Oldsmobile.

  But here’s what really gets our goat: While so-called “researchers” at Ohio State University were busily stuffing poinsettias down the throat of an innocent 50-pound child, a potentially MUCH greater menace to humanity was running loose in the very same state (Ohio). We know this because we have received, from an anonymous source who shall remain nameless, a newspaper article from the October 29, 1999, edition of the Youngstown, Ohio, Vindicator, which bills itself—and not without reason—as the premier newspaper in the Mahoning Valley. This article, which we are not making up, begins with the following statement:

  WARREN—The possibility that radioactive muskrats are lurking in the city bothers Pierson “Butch” Butcher Jr.

  The article states that Butcher, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for the Warren City Council, had said it was possible that local muskrats were eating radioactive materials they found on the grounds of a recently demolished power plant. By way of rebuttal, the story quotes the mayor, Democrat Hank Angelo, as stating: “There are no green, glowing-eyed rats running the streets of Warren.”

  In professional journalism, the first thing we do when we need to check out this type of story is try to find out what a muskrat is. The sum total of our knowledge on this subject is the song “Muskrat Love,” performed by The Captain and Tennille, both of whom are, incredibly, still at large. So we checked the encyclopedia, which states that muskrats are “closely related to voles.” We have never heard of “voles,” and suspect that the encyclopedia is just kidding around.

  Armed with this information, we called Warren, Ohio, and spoke with Pierson “Butch” Butcher Jr., who, it turns out, is not a shy person. During a lengthy and wide-ranging interview, he stated that although there are muskrats running around Warren, and SOMEBODY at a public meeting expressed concern that they (the muskrats) might be radioactive, that person was not Pierson “Butch” Butcher Jr. Mr. Butcher further stated that he had read an article somewhere regarding reports of radioactive deer in Pennsylvania.

  So to summarize the key findings of our investigation:

  There may or may not be radioactive muskrats and/or deer in Ohio and/or Pennsylvania.

  Just in case, both of these states should be evacuated immediately.

  Another good name for a band would be “The Radioactive Muskrats.”

  Speaking of musical groups, if The Captain and Tennille ever decide to try for a comeback, the obvious song for them to do would be “Vole Love.”

  In which case, please pass the poinsettias.

  Everything I Know About Dieting I Learned on Leeza

  One recent Tuesday morning I was flipping through the TV channels at a brisk, business-like, no-nonsense pace, looking for Rocky and Bullwinkle, when I found myself caught up in a fascinating installment of Leeza Gibbons’ talk show, Leeza. The theme of the show was: “Women Who Cannot Correctly Spell Their Own Names.”

  No, seriously, the theme was: “Superstars of the Diet Wars.” This was a debate among top diet experts, who felt so strongly about the correct way to lose weight that at times they came close to whacking each other over the head with their competing diet books.

  Dieting was not always so complicated. Thousands of years ago, there was only one diet book, entitled Don’t Eat Too Much. It consisted of a big stone tablet on which were chiseled the words “DON’T EAT TOO MUCH!” It did not sell well, because nobody could lift it, on top of which everybody back then was busy with other concerns, such as not starving.

  In modern America, however, food is abundant everywhere except aboard commercial airplanes. Dieting has become a huge industry involving many complex theories that can be confusing to the average layperson sitting on the Barcalounger, trying to decide whether to open a second bag of potato chips or simply eat the onion dip right out of the tub. So let’s review the History of Modern Diet Science:

  The first big advance came 1895, when a food researcher named Dr. Wilbur Calorie made the breakthrough discovery, while working late one night, that he could no longer pull his pants up past his thighs. After spending many hours in the laboratory squinting at fudge, Dr. Calorie concluded that people gain weight because certain foods contain tiny invisible scientific units that became known, in honor of their discoverer, as “Wilburs.”

  No, sorry, I mean “calories.” For decades, everybody operated on the Calorie Counter Theory of dieting, which basically states that you should never eat anything that tastes good. Then along came a new theory, the Evil Fat Theory, which states that you CAN have calories, but you should NOT have fat; this resulted in the multibillion-dollar Low-Fat Things Industry, which gave us low-fat brownies, low-fat Milk Duds, low-fat cows, low-fat cologne, the cast of Friends, etc.

  But there is ANOTHER major theory that says you can eat all the fat you want, but you CAN’T have carbohydrates; that you can snork down an entire pig for breakfast, but eat a single Froot Loop and you will bloat out like a military life raft. The Evil Carbohydrate Theory is extremely hot at the moment, as is evidenced by the top-selling diet books, which include Carbohydrate Beaters, Carbohydrate Busters, Carbohydrate Whackers, Let’s Poke Carbohydrates in the Eyeball, Carbohydrates Kidnapped My Wife, and Fight Carbohydrates Through Sorcery the Harry Potter Way.

  So it’s hard for a dieter to know what to think, which is why it was so helpful for the Leeza show to hold a debate among the leading diet experts, including several medical doctors, several people with scientific initials after their names, and of c
ourse Suzanne Somers, who may yet win a Nobel Prize for her work on the ThighMaster, and who is now a top diet authority with a book out. It is only a matter of time before she thinks seriously about running for president.

  So anyway, the diet experts debated their theories, and Leeza walked around frowning with the deep concern that talk-show hosts feel about everything. The audience provided feedback by holding up cards that said YES on one side and NO on the other. (At one point an expert mentioned the first law of thermodynamics, and Leeza asked if anybody knew what that was, and the audience consensus was NO.) In between there were numerous commercials, most of which were for law firms that want to Fight For You, although there was also a thought-provoking one for a toilet cleanser.

  Anyway, I watched the experts debate for an hour, and here’s what I learned:

  The (pick one: low-calorie; low-fat; low-carbohydrate) diet really works!

  Whereas the (pick one: low-calorie; low-fat; low-carbohydrate) diet will probably kill you.

  Suzanne Somers, in all objectivity, thinks you should buy her book.

  If you are a human being of any kind, you should file a lawsuit, because YOU HAVE MONEY COMING!

  Speaking of TV attorneys, toilet bacteria grow like CRAZY.

  So there are the facts, consumers; it’s now up to you to make an informed decision. Remember: It’s YOUR body. And, as such, it wants a chili dog.

  The Banzai Chef

  Today’s culinary topic is: How to Make Sushi

  I happen to be an expert on this topic because I recently put in a stint as a chef at an actual sushi restaurant. (One of the first things you learn, as a sushi chef, is how to put in a stint.)

  Before I give you the details, I should explain, for the benefit of those of you who live in remote wilderness regions such as Iowa, what sushi is. Basically, it is a type of cuisine developed by the Japanese as part of an ancient tradition of seeing what is the scariest thing they can get you to eat raw.

  The way they do this is, they start out by serving you a nice, non-threatening piece of fish, from which all the identifying fish parts have been removed. This fish is safe to eat and tasty. But the trick is that it’s served with a green condiment called “wasabi,” which is the Japanese word for “nuclear horseradish.” This is an extremely spicy substance, the formula for which must never be allowed to fall into the hands of Saddam Hussein. If you put more than two wasabi molecules on your sushi and eat it, your hair will burst into flames.

  So after consuming some wasabi, you naturally order a cool refreshing Japanese beer to pour on your head and perhaps, since you have the bottle in your hand anyway, wet your whistle with. The result is that your judgment becomes impaired, which is when they start trying to get you to eat prank food, such as sea-urchin eggs. Sea urchins are vicious, golf-ball-shaped, poison-spined sea creatures whose sole ecological purpose is to ruin your tropical vacation by deliberately not getting out of your way when you are wading barefoot. If you eat the eggs of this animal, and fail to chew them thoroughly, you could develop an alarming medical condition that doctors call “baby sea urchins walking around inside your body poking holes in your spleen.”

  Other prank foods that they will try to get you to eat at sushi bars include eels, clam parts, jellyfish, tentacles with flagrant suckers, and shrimps with their eyeballs still waving around on stalks. If you eat those, the waiter will become brazen and start bringing out chunks of coral and live electric eels. My point is that, in a sushi restaurant, you must watch carefully what you eat (this is exactly what “The Star-Spangled Banner” is referring to when it says “o’er the clam parts we watched”).

  Despite this, I happen to be a big fan of non-prank sushi. And so when Bok An, the proprietor of Sakura, my local sushi restaurant in Coral Gables, invited me to be a guest sushi chef, I enthusiastically answered: “No!” I was afraid that I’d have to touch an eel. I am 51 years old, and I did not get this far by touching eels.

  But Bok assured me that we would stick to basic fish species such as tuna, salmon, and cucumber. And thus I found myself one Tuesday night, wearing a samurai-style headband and standing behind the sushi bar, blending in perfectly with the other sushi chefs, except that my headband was actually the belt of my bathrobe.

  Bok stood next to me and prepared various sushi items, and I attempted to imitate him. Here’s the recipe: You start with a little rectangle made of dried seaweed (I asked Bok where the seaweed comes from, thinking he would name some ancient Japanese seaside village, and he said, “a distributor”). Then you pick up a glob of special sticky rice and spread it evenly on the seaweed. At least Bok did. The majority of my rice remained firmly stuck to my hands and started migrating to other parts of my body. I may have to have it removed surgically.

  Next, you cut up your ingredients, using a lethal-looking, extremely sharp sushi knife that causes professional sushi chefs to become very nervous when it is being wielded by a professional humor columnist. Then you put these ingredients on the rice and execute the secret sushi-rolling technique, which is difficult to describe in English words, as we can see by this actual transcript of Bok explaining it to me: “OK, you go like this, Boom! Then you go, Boom! Boom! Boom!”

  The thing was, when Bok went boom, he produced this attractive, appetizing cylinder of sushi. Whereas when I went boom, I produced this mutant food unit leaking random seafood parts. I also had a problem with my sizing: Sushi rolls are supposed to be small, bite-size morsels; mine were more along the lines of seaweed-covered hams.

  But I kept trying. Remember the movie Karate Kid, where the mean bully beats up Ralph Macchio, but then Ralph studies karate under Mr. Miyagi, and then finally, in the big tournament, with everybody watching, Ralph stuns the bully by rolling a reasonably tight cucumber roll? Well, that’s what I did. In fact, I may have a knack for it. So if one day you walk into a Japanese restaurant, and you see, standing behind the sushi bar, what appears to be a man-size blob of rice wearing a blue bathrobe belt on its head, feel free to say hi. But keep your distance if I’m holding a knife.

  Turkey Day

  So this year, you agreed to host the big family Thanksgiving dinner. Congratulations! You moron!

  No, seriously, hosting Thanksgiving dinner does NOT have to be traumatic. The key is planning. For example, every year my family spends Thanksgiving at the home of a friend named Arlene Reidy, who prepares dinner for a huge number of people. I can’t give an exact figure, because my eyeballs become fogged with gravy. But I’m pretty sure that Arlene is feeding several branches of the armed forces.

  And Arlene is not slapping just any old food on the table, either. She’s a gourmet cook who can make anything. I bet she has a recipe for cold fusion. She serves moist, tender turkeys the size of Arnold Schwarzenegger, accompanied by a vast array of exotic hors d’oeuvres and 350 kinds of sweet potatoes made from scratch. I’m pretty sure Arlene threshes her own wheat.

  If you were to look into Arlene’s dining room at the end of Thanksgiving dinner, it would at first appear to be empty. Then you’d hear groans and burps coming from under the table, and you’d realize that the guests, no longer able to cope with the food and gravity at the same time, were lying on the floor. Every now and then you’d see a hand snake up over the edge of the table, grab a handful of stuffing, then dart back under the table again, after which you’d hear chewing, then swallowing, then the sound of digestive organs rupturing. Some guests have to be rushed by ambulance to the hospital, receiving pumpkin pie intravenously en route.

  The question is: How is Arlene able to prepare such an amazing feast for so many people? The answer is simple: I have no idea. I’m always watching football when it happens. But my point is that, if you want to provide your Thanksgiving guests with a delicious home-cooked meal, one approach would be to go to Arlene’s house and steal some of her food when she’s busy churning the butter. She’d never notice. She has enough leftovers to make turkey sandwiches for everybody in Belgium.

  If you prefer
to do your own cooking this Thanksgiving, your first step is to calculate how much turkey you need. Home economists tell us that the average 155-pound person consumes 1.5 pounds of turkey, so if you’re planning to have 14 relatives for dinner, you’d simply multiply 14 times 1.5 times 155, which means your turkey should weigh, let’s see, carry the two . . . 3,255 pounds. If you can’t find a turkey that size, you should call up selected relatives and explain to them, in a sensitive and diplomatic manner, that they can’t come because they weigh too much.

  In selecting a turkey, remember that the fresher it is, the better it will taste. That’s why, if you go into the kitchen of top professional homemaker Martha Stewart on Thanksgiving morning, you’ll find her whacking a live turkey with a hatchet. In fact, you’ll find Martha doing this every morning.

  “It just relaxes me,” she reports.

  Your other option is to get a frozen turkey at the supermarket. The Turkey Manufacturers Association recommends that, before you purchase a frozen bird, you check it for firmness by test-dropping it on the supermarket floor—it should bounce three vertical inches per pound—and then take a core sample of the breast by drilling into it with a 3/8-inch masonry bit until you strike the giblets. If supermarket employees attempt to question you, the Turkey Manufacturers Association recommends that you “gesture at them with the drill in a reassuring manner.”

  When you get the turkey home, you should thaw it completely by letting it sit on a standard kitchen counter at room temperature for one half of the turkey’s weight in hours, or roughly 19 weeks. “If you see spiders nesting in your turkey,” states the Turkey Manufacturers Association, “you waited too long.”