by Dave Barry
Chapter 11. Household Pests: Getting Tough With Toads
In this chapter, we’ll explore various techniques for reducing common household pests to lifeless blobs of tissue. Now before I get a lot of angry letters from ecology nuts, let me assure you that I am all in favor of wildlife, as long as it stays in its place, which is Africa. I believe that if God had wanted us to share our homes with insects, He would not have made them so unattractive.
Although the techniques described in this chapter are designed primarily for the smaller styles of pests, they will also work on larger ones, such as goats or people who want you to become an Amway distributor.
Termites
Termites are unattractive little insects that have developed a highly complex society, very much like American society, except that instead of houses they have nests, and instead of a president they have a queen. The queen can lay up to 46,000 eggs a day, more than eight times the output of the most productive U.S. president, Grover Cleveland (1837-1908). So we can see that termites are indeed amazing creatures.
Beneath the queen in the termite hierarchy are the drones, and beneath them are the workers, who are chosen for their stupidity. Each day, thousands of workers scurry from the nest in search of wood, with the idea that they will chew it up and mix it with spit and bring it back to the queen. The queen doesn’t want it, of course; nothing appeals to her less than chewed wood mixed with termite spit. So the instant they leave the nest, she and a few top aides swarm off to another house, probably yours.
The easiest way to keep termites away is to install a 6,000-volt, one-inch-high electrical fence around your house. This fence will keep out not only termites, but also most snakes. Of course, the snakes that do get past the fence are likely to be extremely angry, so it might be a good idea to wear a sidearm at all times.
Roaches
Roaches are the hardiest form of life on earth. In a recent experiment, scientists detonated a hydrogen bomb directly on top of a female roach, and the only noticeable effect was that several days later she gave birth to 65,000 baby roaches, some of them weighing as much as three pounds.
Many people believe they can get rid of roaches by spraying them with poisonous chemicals, but this is utter nonsense. Roaches love poisonous chemicals. They’ll often gather under the sink late at night and lick the residue off the Black Flag can. The more chemicals you spray, the more roaches you attract. This is how your professional exterminators stay in business.
The only surefire way to get rid of roaches is to remove all the liquor from your house. Roaches can mate only when they’re drunk. Can you blame them? Would you mate with a roach if you were sober? So what roaches do is get really drunk, then have hurried, squalid sex amongst the filth and little rolled-up balls of grease and ketchup in the darkness under the refrigerator. The next morning the female lays 35 billion eggs and vows never to do anything so disgusting again, but by nightfall she and her mate are creeping up the side of the Jim Beam bottle again. Alcohol abuse is a terrible problem among roaches, which is why you see so few of them in positions of responsibility. So you’ll be doing them a big favor if you get rid of your liquor. It might also be a nice idea if you and your family squatted in front of the refrigerator from time to time and had inspirational discussions about the evils of drink.
Children
You cannot simply spray toxic chemicals on children the way you can with roaches, because children represent our Hope for a Brighter Tomorrow. So the best way to deal with pesky children is to read them a few old-fashioned traditional fairy tales in which various deformed creatures ingest children who do not behave. At the end of the story, say: “See, Bobby? If you don’t want the great big ogre with eyes that glow like red-hot coals in the darkness to come into your room tonight and plunge his enormous yellow fanglike teeth repeatedly into your flesh, you must never set fire to Daddy’s legs again.” Or, if this approach doesn’t work, you can simply place your children in the washing machine and set it on Spin Dry.
Mice
The best way to get rid of mice is to set traps. To illustrate why traps are so effective, let’s look at what goes on behind the scenes in a mouse family.
It’s a cold winter’s evening, and Momma and Poppa Mouse are putting little Debbie and Jimmy Mouse to bed. “Oh, Momma,” Debbie cries, sniffing her little pink nose as a tiny tear trickles from her deep, brown eyes to her soft, gray fur. “I’m so hungry I don’t think I can sleep. Couldn’t we have something to eat, please?”
“Now, now,” sighs Momma Mouse. “You know how upset the humans get when we eat their food.”
“That’s right,” chimes in Poppa Mouse. “And frankly, I don’t want to upset the humans any more, because they’ve been acting mighty odd lately. The other day, they were squatting in front of the refrigerator and talking about liver damage.”
“But Daddy,” says little Jimmy Mouse. “If we don’t get something to eat soon, we’ll starve to death, and it’s Christmas Eve. Besides, there’s a stale old piece of cheese just outside the hole, and I’m sure the humans wouldn’t mind if we ate it.”
“You’re right, Jimmy,” says Poppa Mouse pensively. “I’ll just go outside here and pick up this piece of ...”
Toads
The only way I know of to get rid of toads is to clear the children out of the room and strike them (the toads) with hot pokers.
Chapter 12. The Lawn And Garden: Why All The Plants In Your Garden Hate You, And How To Win Their Respect
You should take care of your yard, because it tells people a lot about you. For example, if you have a lot of yard statues, it tells people you’re a jerk.
The most important part of your yard is the lawn. In America, having a nice lawn is considered a major cultural achievement, like owning a hardcover book or watching “Meet the Press.” Americans would rather live next to a pervert heroin addict Communist pornographer than a person with an unkempt lawn.
Drugs And Your Lawn
The first step toward a nice lawn is to determine the chemical content of your soil. To do this, dig up a handful of soil and examine it carefully under a harsh light: It should be composed of dirt, unless you live in New England, in which case it will be composed of enormous rocks; if you live in the South, your soil may also contain used tires.
Once you’ve determined the chemical content, you should add some random chemicals to your soil. Many lawn experts recommend that you add nitrogen, which is stupid, because nitrogen is a gas, and there is no way in the world you can add it to your lawn. It will simply drift off into the atmosphere the instant you open the bag. So your best bet is to just go up to the medicine cabinet and root around for some chemicals in the form of old prescription pills and dump them on your lawn.
I use old tranquilizers on my lawn, and not only have I saved a lot of money on chemicals, but I’ve also found that I have an extremely relaxed lawn. Take the earthworms. Instead of sliming around underground in a nervous, twitching manner, as so many worms do, my worms loll about on the lawn surface, laughing the laugh of the truly carefree. Oh, sure, sometimes they get underfoot, but it’s a lot better than the time I gave them amphetamines and they were up all night shrieking about how nobody loved them.
Dandelions And Crabgrass
Dandelions are easy to get rid of: You just jab them with red-hot knitting needles. Some people even eat them in soups and salads. Most of these people die within hours.
Crabgrass, the squat, ugly, tattooed plant that makes up 85 percent of your lawn, is tougher. Crabgrass can grow on bowling balls in airless rooms, and there is no known way to kill it that does not involve nuclear weapons. Oh, I know you’ve seen advertisements for lawn products that are supposed to kill crabgrass, but don’t believe them. Crabgrass thrives on these products. In fact, my crabgrass often tries to dupe me into buying them. When I’m getting into my car, my crabgrass will yell, in mock horror, “Oh, please, don’t go to the garden supply store and buy one of those deadly anticrabgrass lawn products
!”
The only way to deal with crabgrass is to sneak up on it in the dead of night, pound it repeatedly with a ball-peen hammer, and flee on foot before it can snare you by the ankles. You won’t kill the crabgrass, of course, but it may become irritated enough to move to a neighbor’s lawn.
How To Grow All Of Your Food
Your first job is to prepare the soil. The best tool for this is your neighbor’s motorized garden tiller. If your neighbor does not own a garden tiller, suggest that he buy one. Then select a section of your lawn or driveway that looks as though it might have soil underneath it, and rip it up with the tiller. As the sharp steel blades slice violently into the ground, you may be able to hear the tiny screams of the various worms and furry little woodland creatures hibernating in the soil. Pay no attention.
Now you should buy some vegetable seeds, which are sold in little packets with attractive photographs on the covers to illustrate what your vegetables will not look like. The backs of the packets will give you specific planting instructions, depending on what area of the country you live in. For example, if you live in Florida, you should plant your seeds in the ground, whereas if you live in Maine, you should plant your seeds in Florida.
Once you have planted your garden, you have to deal with insects. The trick is to prevent them from eating all the seeds within minutes after you plant them, so they’ll have something to eat later on. The best way to do this is to scatter sandwiches and pastries around the garden to distract the insects until the seeds have had a chance to form vegetables.
Larger animals, such as rabbits and elk, are tougher to keep away. You may have to fire a few bazooka rounds over their heads. This will also keep your neighbor at bay if he’s trying to get his motorized garden tiller back.
Your only remaining task is to rotate your crops. About every two weeks, dig everything up and put it where something else was. This may seem like a lot of work, but your major farmers do it all the time. For that matter, some of your major farmers manage to get out of growing crops altogether, and the government pays them for this valuable service. You might want to try setting up the same arrangement. Instead of starting a vegetable garden, write the government a letter like this:
“Dear Sirs: I didn’t grow anything this year. Please send me $126,000.”
I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know how the government responds, especially if it sends you money. If, on the other hand, armed federal agents arrive at your door, I’d prefer that you didn’t mention my name.
Tips On Growing Popular Vegetables
Tomatoes
Tomatoes are the most popular garden vegetables, because you can do so much with them. For example, you can eat them. The trick to growing tomatoes successfully is to stagger the planting. Plant one-fourth of your tomatoes, then wait two weeks and plant another fourth, and so on, until you have planted them all. This insures that all your tomatoes will ripen within a five-minute period late in August, usually when you are away on vacation, so you will return home to find 700 pounds of tomatoes rotting on the ground in a sodden, insect-covered mass.
Zucchini
The zucchini is a dense, flavorless vegetable that is useful primarily as ballast. You can also eat zucchini, but only in very small quantities: One zucchini is enough to satisfy the zucchini needs of a family of six for a year. The trouble is, you cannot grow just one zucchini. Minutes after you plant a single seed, hundreds of zucchinis will barge out of the ground and sprawl around the garden, menacing the other vegetables. At night, you will be able to hear the ground quake as more and more zucchinis erupt. To prevent your property from becoming one big, pulsating zucchini herd, you will be forced to sneak over to your neighbors’ houses in the dead of night and hurl excess zucchinis onto their lawns.
Cashews
Plant your cashew seeds about six inches apart, and be sure to salt them every four days.
Rhubarb
This hardy vegetable was a favorite of my mother’s. Every year, she would produce an elaborate rhubarb pie, which was second only to Brussels sprouts in the category of things we kids would rather die than eat. Rhubarb is ideal for canning. You just put it in cans, stick the cans in your pantry, then move.
Corn
Your corn should be knee-high by the Fourth of July. If it isn’t, you could be fined or jailed.
Chapter 13. Car Repair
The three keys to trouble-free motoring: animal traps, a wading pool, and this fact-crammed chapter
Most common car problems are caused by pets. The best way to avoid these problems is preventive maintenance, by which I mean always checking your car for pets before you start it. You should also change your oil all the time. This is what your top race car drivers recommend. Of course, your top race car drivers also routinely drive into walls at speeds upwards of 180 miles an hour, so I don’t know that we should accept their opinions as gospel.
Handy Car Maintenance Checklist
ENGINE. The engine is the large, filthy object under your hood, unless you live in a really bad neighborhood. To understand the importance of proper maintenance, let’s take a look at what goes on inside your engine when you turn the ignition key. This will require you to cut the engine open with a blowtorch, but I think you’ll be glad you did.
When you turn the key, gasoline comes rushing out of the gas tank and electricity comes rushing out of the battery, and they meet in the engine, where they explode with a force that could easily reduce the engine to hundreds of pieces of red-hot shrapnel traveling at high speeds and capable of destroying every living thing within 50 feet. But this will probably not occur if every one of the 63,000 parts that make up the engine is working perfectly, which is why you should maintain your engine. Every six or seven thousand meters, open up the hood and inspect the engine closely. It should have many random tubes and wires running off toward other areas of the car. Newer engines should also have oriental writing.
How To Change Your Oil
1. Start your car and allow it to warm up.
2. Lie on your back and inch along under the car until you locate a little boltlike object that you cannot remove without a wrench, then inch back out and locate a wrench.
3. Inch back under and rotate the boltlike object counterclockwise until oil starts gushing out, just like in those old movies where John Wayne and his sidekick discover oil and dance around, except whereas they are dancing vertically in glee, you will be dancing horizontally in pain, inasmuch as the oil has been heated to roughly 6,000 degrees by the engine.
4. Speaking of the engine, I forgot to tell you to turn it off. That should have been Step 2. I’ll try to remember to correct that before this book goes to the printer, so as to avoid a lot of unnecessary engine damage and death.
5. Get some oil and pour it into an orifice in the engine until you see little rivulets of oil running across the driveway because you forgot to put the little bolt back in the engine, which I suppose I should have told you to do back in Step 3, which will be Step 4 once I move the current Step 4 to Step 2, where it belongs, but frankly, I’m tired of having to think of every tiny little detail for you.
TRANSMISSION. The truth is, there is nothing you can do about your transmission. Nobody knows how transmissions work, or even where they come from. They just arrive at car factories in unmarked crates, and the workers put them into the cars. Many people believe transmissions are created by beings from other solar systems. There is evidence to support this theory, namely transmission manuals, which contain bizarre diagrams and deranged alien commands such as: “Using a 6.57 reductionended canister wrench, rotate the debenture nut 6 degrees centigrade, taking care not to disenfranchise the gesticulation valve.” So if something goes wrong with your transmission, your best bet is to just give your car to the poor and claim a tax deduction.
TIRES. Tires are extremely important, for without them the tire industry, as we now know it, would cease to exist. You should inspect your tires frequently for signs of tread and obscure little l
etters and numbers on the sides, which represent significant events in the lives of the tire factory employees. For example, A78-13 means “All 78 of us tire factory employees went out and got really drunk last night, so maybe 13 of the tires we make today will be any good.”
EXTERIOR. Your car’s exterior takes a real beating, especially during the summer. Hour after hour, day after day, month after month, the sun beats down on your car with harmful rays that can fade the paint and kill you if you spend any time outside trying to do anything about it. So the hell with the exterior.
EXHAUST SYSTEM. This is located under the car, smeared with road kills. From time to time you should hose it down or drive briskly through a wading pool.