The Taming Of The Screw

by Dave Barry

  Q: How does insulation work?

  A: To understand how insulation works, conduct this simple home experiment.

  1. Mix yourself a stiff gin and tonic in a tall glass, then drink it. Notice how cold the glass feels? Repeat this procedure several times, until you have a really good idea how cold the glass feels.

  2. Now wrap a piece of insulation around the glass and pour yourself several more gin and tonics and drink them. Notice how much warmer the glass feels? Even your stomach feels warmer, doesn’t it?

  3. Repeat the procedure several times, and you’ll start having all kinds of major insights about insulation. It also works fairly well on the Middle East crisis.

  Q: Do I actually have to install the insulation in my house to qualify for the federal tax credit?

  A: No. You can leave it in your garage, or, if you prefer, simply toss it out of your car window on the way home from the insulation store.

  Q: What is “R-value”?

  A: I don’t know. It was one of those things that were in vogue back during the 1970s, like disco and the metric system, but you hardly ever hear anybody talk about it any more, so I wouldn’t worry about it. I don’t think it’s suspected of causing cancer or anything.

  Q: What about dirt?

  A: Dirt is a superb natural insulator. It is not mere coincidence that the Amazon jungle, which is filthy, is one of the warmest places on Earth. During the great energy crises of the 1970s, many smart, energy-conscious, patriotic homeowners stopped cleaning their houses or bathing or even wiping off the slime that grows around the base of the toilet, and today their heating bills are extremely low, although I should point out that they spend an average of $65,000 a year on antibiotics.

  Caulking Doors And Windows

  Energy experts tell us that caulking doors and windows is one of the easiest ways to get caulking all over yourself. Here’s how you do it:

  1. Take a good, close look around the edges of your front door. See all those tiny cracks? Ignore them. I mean, why waste your time on tiny cracks? It’s the door hole (the hole that appears in your house when you open the door) that you should be worrying about. Old Man Winter isn’t going to mess around with cracks when he can just waltz through the door hole.

  2. Go to your home center or hardware store and get a caulking gun and enough caulking to plug your door and window holes. A typical door hole will require 750 tubes of caulking, but you’ll save so much energy that the caulking job will easily pay for itself by the time the Earth establishes permanent colonies on the planet Jupiter.

  3. Apply the caulking in such a manner that Old Man Winter will be unable to waltz through the door hole.

  Chapter 8. Masonry: At Last, A Practical Use For Maine

  “Masonry” is a term used in the building profession to describe any kind of building material that can fall on you and kill you. The big advantage of masonry structures is that they last thousands of years; the only real drawback is that they eventually become haunted. The two most popular projects for do-it-yourselfers are walls and pyramids.

  How To Build A Wall

  1. Drive two stakes into the ground and stretch a string between them to serve as a guide for where your wall will be.*

  2. Attach a row of bricks or other masonry units to your string. Always start from the top, so your wall will have a nice, even appearance.

  3. Using cement or masking tape, attach a second layer of masonry units under the first, and so on, forming tasteful and traditional masonry patterns. Do not remove the string until your wall reaches all the way to the ground.

  *Despite what many so-called professionals will tell you, your string should not be level with respect to the horizon. You probably can’t even see the horizon from where you live, so the hell with it. Your string should be level with respect to the ground. This principle was discovered thousands of years ago by the ancient Chinese when they built the Great Wall of China to keep out the marauding barbarian hordes. If the ancient Chinese had been so stupid as to build the Great Wall parallel to the horizon, the barbarians would have been able to barge right into China. So the Chinese wisely built the wall parallel to the ground, which stopped the barbarians. Of course, the ancient Chinese were fortunate that the barbarians weren’t bright enough to simply throw a few ladders together and climb over the wall, but that’s why they were called barbarians. All they knew how to do was maraud around in hordes, and as often as not they got that wrong. The bottom line is that there is a right way and a wrong way to stretch your string, and you should stretch it the right way.

  An Easy Home Pyramid In Three Steps

  Some do-it-yourselfers hesitate to build pyramids because they have been led to believe it is extremely difficult. The blame for this widespread misconception has to rest squarely on the shoulders of archeologists, who are always announcing in loud voices that they don’t have the vaguest notion how the Great Pyramids of Egypt were built. Well, of course they don’t. They’re archeologists, for God’s sake. When the rest of us were learning useful skills, they were out squatting on some wretched desert somewhere digging up little snippets of ancient pottery and trying to glue them together so as to form ancient pots. They wouldn’t know how to seal a Tupperware container, let alone build a pyramid.

  I have personally conducted a very thorough study of a photograph of a pyramid in the Encyclopedia Britannica, and I have concluded that the ancient Egyptians built them by piling up a lot of great big stones in the shape of a pyramid. I see nothing particularly difficult about this, and I encourage all of you to rush right out and build a pyramid according to the instructions below.

  MATERIALS

  50,000 hewing tools A source of rocks, such as the coast of Maine

  150,000 college students. College students are perfect for pyramid building, because they’re strong and they’re used to engaging in elaborate, pointless mass activities, such as attending college.

  DIRECTIONS

  1. Line up your students and have them count off by threes to form three teams, the Hewers, the Haulers, and the Hefters. Encourage the teams to make up team cheers and play pranks on each other and stick their fingers in the air and yell “We’re Number One!” so as to build a sense of college-style fun that will make them work without food or water until they drop.

  2. Position your Hewers on the coast of Maine and have them hew it into large blocks of stone, each about the size of a bungalow, which your Haulers should haul to your pyramid site. NOTE: Maine probably has a Department of Environmental Activities or some other ecology-nut organization that will come up with all kinds of picky reasons why it’s illegal to remove the coast, so the police may try to stop one of your blocks as the Haulers inch it toward the state line. Under no circumstances should your Haulers try to outrun the police, because once you get a gigantic stone block going three or four miles an hour it becomes very difficult to control, which could lead to major damage in the form of hernias. A much better approach is to disguise the stone blocks as Rose Bowl parade-style floats, which are perfectly logical objects for college students to be hauling around, and thus unlikely to make the police suspicious.

  3. Have your Hefters form the blocks into a pyramid full of hidden passageways and vaults containing ancient dead Egyptians and invaluable art objects. It might help if you provided the Hefters with a pyramid-shaped string stretched between two stakes but don’t feel that you have to. You’ve done enough already.

  Chapter 9. Easy Projects: Getting Off To A Slow Start

  Here are a few beginner’s projects for do-it-yourselfers, or even craftsmen who have become heavily dependent upon narcotic substances. The first weds two boards together in a way that is not only attractive, but also highly practical around the home.

  Project #1: Two Boards Attached Together

  MATERIALS

  1 board, preferably wooden, 11’ 13/18” x 45/32” x 7’4 15/15” or some other size 1 drop of the glue that is advertised on television as being capable of lifting a dom
estic automobile

  TOOLS

  Various saws or axes such as you might use to divide a board into 2 separate boards so you can attach them together again in the form of a project. A stubby, craftsmanlike pencil

  DIRECTIONS

  1. Look down one edge of the board in a highly critical manner, as you have seen professional carpenters do. If you see anything in the least bit suspicious, report it to the police immediately.

  2. Using a copy of Newsweek magazine as a guide, draw a line across the board with your pencil.

  3. Carefully whack the board on or near the line with an ax or saw until it is actually 2 boards.

  4. Use your glue to assemble your project. Be very careful in handling the glue, so as not to permit your project to become permanently bonded to your head.

  OPTIONAL SAFETY DEVICE

  To prevent injury from the jagged board edges, install a rubber glove on each end.

  Project #2: A Highly Modular And Portable Total Home Storage System Made From Industrial Refuse

  Probably the single biggest problem in the entire world today is lack of storage space. Look at Asia. From what I read in the newspapers, I gather Asia has all these huddled masses of people teeming around with no place to store anything, and everybody is wretched. I bet your own home is no different; you can never find anything, and you’re always tripping over things. This is mainly because you drink too much, but it wouldn’t hurt to have more storage space.

  Well, here’s a total home storage system that will easily hold every object and domestic animal you own, yet can be easily moved or disassembled should you want to burn it. The secret is that it has a modern modular design, which means that it is actually packing crates piled on top of each other.

  MATERIALS

  A great many packing crates, which you can obtain at any large factory merely by demanding them at gunpoint. Also pick up a forklift.

  TOOLS

  A cattle prod

  DIRECTIONS

  Stack your crates in a modular fashion, then place your possessions in them, using your cattle prod to keep your domestic animals in place and ward off law enforcement agents should they attempt to reclaim your forklift.

  Project #3: Cutting Board/ Platform Bed

  Homeowners constantly complain, “I have room for a cutting board or a platform bed, but not both.” If that sounds like you, then this project is just what the doctor ordered. By day, it’s a cutting board that’s spacious enough for all your cutting needs, including whole roast oxen. By night, it’s a modern, hippie-style platform bed that combines the advantages of simple design with the advantages of sleeping on the floor.

  MATERIALS

  A sheet of plywood

  TOOLS

  An industrial-grade spatula

  DIRECTIONS

  1. Assemble the plywood.

  2. To use the project as a cutting board, simply place it in an attractive kitchen location and cut things on it.

  3. To convert it to a platform bed, simply flip it over and place it on the floor.

  4. To convert it back to a cutting board, use the spatula to pry it off the floor, which it will be attached to by congealed oxen blood.

  Chapter 10. Impossible Projects: How To Build A Hot Tub And A Hotter Computer

  Now that you’ve built the simple and utterly useless starter projects in Chapter 9, why not tackle these two advanced projects? One reason that springs to mind is that nobody has ever been able to get either of them to work. Another is the likelihood of serious injury or death. If you need any more reasons, drop me a note, because I’m sure I can come up with dozens.

  Project #1: Easy-To-Build Hot Tub

  Have you ever wondered what makes Californians so calm? Besides drugs, I mean. The answer is hot tubs. A hot tub is a redwood container filled with water that you sit in naked with members of the opposite sex who are not necessarily your spouse. After a few hours in their hot tubs, Californians don’t give a damn about earthquakes or mass murderers. They don’t give a damn about anything, which is why they are able to produce “Laverne and Shirley” week after week.

  MATERIALS

  Footers and headers Many redwood slats Water A couple hundred gallons of Clorox Penicillin

  TOOLS

  Shovel Tub-making implements

  DIRECTIONS

  I suggest you locate your hot tub outside your house, so it won’t do too much damage if it catches fire or explodes. First, you decide which direction your hot tub should face for maximum solar energy. After much trial and error, I have found that the best direction for a hot tub to face is up.

  The next step is to dig the footers. I’m not really sure why hot tubs need footers, but I have yet to read a do-it-yourself article that didn’t order the reader to dig a few footers, and I see no reason why I should be any more lenient than the other writers. Your footers should extend down to the “frost line,” which is a line of frost that you’ll come to if you dig deep enough. If you live in a normal state, such as Ohio, you should find the frost line about 2 feet down. If you live in Florida, you’ll have to dig 40

  or 50 feet to find any frost; if you live in Maine, you’ll find your frost line 10 to 12 feet above the ground, almost any time of year.

  Once you’ve dug your footers, you should build some headers and several joists, taking care not to mortise the soffits. Now all you have to do is get a large quantity of redwood slats and attach them together in such a manner that they form a watertight tub, and you’re all set to go ... except that now you need some way to get water into the tub and heat it.

  Contrary to what a lot of so-called experts will tell you, you don’t need fancy plumbing and a filtering system for your hot tub. All you need to do is fill it up with the garden hose, or used dishwater. This approach is much cheaper and the only drawback is that after a couple of days the water will teem with every known form of deadly mutant disease-causing microorganism. So if you’re a real health fanatic, you might want to test the tub before you use it by tossing in a cat or a neighbor’s child. If neither of these is available, you might want to pour in a couple of hundred gallons of Clorox mixed with penicillin just to be on the safe side.

  The only other question is how you’re going to heat your outdoor hot tub once the cool fall weather rolls around. One method that we have found to be simple, cheap, and dangerous is the wood-burning stove. What we do is perch the stove on a ledge above the hot tub, get it up to about 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit, then tip it over into the tub. In a matter of seconds, the water that was once merely tepid is warm enough to vaporize stainless steel, and many of the deadly mutant disease-causing microorganisms are dead. Of course, the ones that survive are usually very angry, so it’s best to wait a week or two before you actually plunge in.

  Project #2: Homemade Computer

  Despite what you’ve heard from computer salesmen, home computers are actually straightforward devices that can be built in an afternoon by anyone who has a few simple tools and the brains of a spittoon.

  Once you have gained some experience with your computer, you can program it to do the kinds of things that computers owned by major corporations do, such as destroy the credit ratings of people you don’t even know, or answer your telephone automatically and tell your callers that everybody in your house is too busy to talk to them. And besides all these advantages, my easy-to-make personal home computer, which is the result of months of research, experimentation, and heavy drinking, can actually heat your home. Impossible, you say? Why not build it and find out?

  First, head down to your home workshop and gather together the tools and materials you’ll need.

  MATERIALS

  Solder A television set 8 to 10 pounds of assorted electronic parts, which you can buy wherever electronic parts are sold. I find that transistors work best, although you can use diodes, provided they’re fresh.

  TOOLS

  A screwdriver An ice pick A drill A Bowie knife A hacksaw Something to melt solder with, such
as a soldering gun or toaster

  DIRECTIONS

  Now you’re all set. Remove the back from the television cabinet, and, using your ice pick, chip out the insides and throw them away. Next, using your Bowie knife, stab the top of the cabinet to create an eight-inch gash.

  Now arrange your electronic parts on your workbench in an attractive display and melt solder on them until they all stick together, taking care not to drop too much molten solder on your dog. Next, you can either wait for the parts to cool off, or, if you’re in a hurry, simply dump them in a bucket of water. (CAUTION: Never touch the hot parts with your bare hands. Ask a neighbor to do this.)

  Once the soldered-together parts are cool, drill a few holes in them and screw them to the inside of your television set, using your optional hacksaw on either the television set or the parts to insure a good fit. Now all you need to do is reattach the cabinet back and check to make sure your fire insurance is paid up. You’re ready to enter the World of Home Computing.

  First, you’ll need some data to put in, or “input.” Have your children go around the house, inside and out, and gather up, or “upgather,” all your bills, check stubs, candy wrappers, receipts, lawn clippings, tax records, and lint balls. The more data you give your computer, the better it will work. To input your data, simply stuff it into the Bowie-knife gash.

  Next, send your children to another room, or, if possible, another state; then plug your computer in. For a few seconds, nothing will happen, but then you’ll hear the computer start to process, or “process,” the data. Before long, you’ll actually be able to see it working, even smell it; after 20 minutes or so, your computer will be processing data at such a rate that your entire house will be warm as toast. In fact, this easy-to-make personal home computer produces heat so effectively that since I built mine, we haven’t spent a nickel on home heating, primarily because of the medical bills.