by Mullen, Jim
“And in a second snow-related incident, Byron Zmults of Hendersonville plowed his ’83 Dodge into a bridge abutment on Alabaster Road. Police say he was on his way to buy a few more cases of beer and some more marijuana so he wouldn’t have to leave his house during tomorrow’s storm. His blood-alcohol level was three times the legal limit, but Zmults said he never would have been driving on a suspended license if it hadn’t been a snow-related emergency.
“Later tonight, right after When Cousins Marry, we’ll be talking to Dr. D. Byron Latchkey, who says there are things called ‘coats’ and ‘hats’ that can actually be worn outside during a snowstorm. With all we know about snow nowadays, it’s hard to believe, but he says that once people used to go out in the snow and play in it and enjoy it.
“But that was back in the simple days before modern newscasting. We didn’t know then what we know now about killer snow. Did you know, for example, that no two flakes are alike? If that doesn’t say ‘Danger’ I don’t know what does. Actually, the government is now spending billions on a program to clone snowflakes so for the first time in history, we can have two snowflakes that are exactly alike, which may lead to ‘stackable snow,’ but right now that is just a theory.
“Stay tuned to our non-stop coverage of ‘The Killer Storm of the Millennium’ and you may be one of the lucky few to make it out alive.”
One Man’s Trash Is Another Man’s Garbage
“Do you have any idea what this ten-dollar bill is worth?”
“I have no idea. We never had it appraised. My dad gave it to me, like, a year ago. But it says 1973 on it so it must be worth something. That’s why we brought it to Antiques Sideshow.”
“Well, I have some good news and some bad news for you. The good news is, that at a well-advertised auction, it would bring ten dollars. Does that shock you?”
“Totally. Unbelievable! It’s amazing to think that something that old could be worth anything. My wife was going to throw it out but I said, ‘Whoa, that might still be worth two or three bucks.’”
“Now the bad news—it’s only worth 6.25 Euros. Or to put it another way, if you had bought ten Euros with this in 2002, it would now be worth $16. Does that surprise you?”
“Well, I guess it does. What is a Yuro? Some kind of car?”
“Thank you for coming. Now let’s go to Skip and Chad, the Furniture Twins, to see what they’ve discovered.”
“We’re here with Mavis Bucktooth and a Colonial highboy she’s brought in. Do you know anything about this piece, Mavis?”
“Not much. I think my grandmother bought it from some antique mall or something when they went out of business. All I know is that she wouldn’t let any of us kids play with it or kick it or put our cigarettes out on it. What a control freak. When she died, my brothers got all the good stuff, the liquor and the TV tables. All I got was this old piece of junk.”
“Let’s take a look at it. Skip, this secondary wood on the bottom of the drawers tells me that this was made in Boston, on Blueblood Street, I’m guessing here, but I would say in the 300 block.”
“I couldn’t agree more, Chad. As you can see from this delicate carving, it was made in either August or September 1763, probably on a Tuesday.”
“I couldn’t agree more, Skip. It does have some condition issues, though. Were you the one who painted it, Mavis? You did? Painting it high-gloss pink and adding sequins has lessened the value quite a bit. In its original condition, if it had all its original hardware, it would have been worth $120,000. As you have chain-sawed the legs off and replaced the original pulls with red Lego pieces, I would say, for insurance purposes, this is worth—are you ready? Minus forty dollars. Because if you leave it here, that’s what we’ll have to charge you to take it to the dump. Does that surprise you?”
“No, I knew Grandma wouldn’t leave me anything that was worth anything. She was a crazy old lady; her house was full of junk like this. We chopped it up and burned most of it.”
“Your host Charles St. John here. Could someone please revive the Furniture Twins and get them off the floor? Now we’ll hop to the Experts’ Table for some more quick appraisals.”
“Thank you, Charles. What we have here is a Ming Dynasty vase, certainly made for the Chinese royal family. I would say its value is somewhere in the 12 to 14 thousand dollar range.”
“Oh, thank you, that’s great. I can’t wait to tell . . . Ahhhhhh!”
“I was just about to tell him not to trip over Chad’s body. I don’t think that can be put back together. Maybe he can use the pieces to make a nice mosaic table for the patio, estimated value, eighty dollars.”
“This is a very nice Georgian silver service. Do you know its provenance?”
“Its what?”
“Its provenance, its story, its history. Where did it come from?”
“Oh, yeah, its provenance. It, ah, fell off a truck and Joey Stink Eye give it to me to pay off a loan.”
“I’d have it insured for . . .”
“Insured? I’m, how do you say, self-insured. How much would a fen . . . a third party give me for it, no questions asked?”
“Four thousand.”
“Joey, if you’re watching this, you still owe me two grand!”
Psssst! Don’t Tell Anyone! It’s the Secret
Shhhh! Promise not to tell anyone, it’s a secret! I heard about it on Oprah Winfrey’s show, so practically nobody knows about it, but I’m passing it along to you because, well, I’m one of those people who just can’t keep a secret.
When my old neighbor Bob told me he was having an affair with the school lunch lady, I only told five or six people, tops, and before you know it, it was all over town. Who could have guessed? Bob now lives in a cardboard box down on Main Street; his wife moved to San Diego.
When I told the congregation that I ran into Mrs. Townsend at the liquor store, I had no idea that her ex-husband would use it as an excuse to try to take away her kids. Funny thing, it turns out she wasn’t buying liquor, she was asking the owner to donate money to the Community Chest. The good news? She’s almost paid off all the lawyer’s fees.
Pete and Andre haven’t spoken to me since I introduced them as “my good gay friends” at the Rotary. Sorry, guys, I thought everyone knew.
In short, if you want to keep a secret, don’t mention it to me. Which is why I was so surprised to hear Oprah talking so openly about The Secret. If she keeps talking about it, it’ll be on all the morning shows, it’ll be on the national news, it’ll be on the Internet, it might sell two million copies of the book. Then it’s not a secret! So shssssh!
The Secret says you can get anything you want just by thinking positive thoughts about it. You want a million dollars? All you have to do is think positively that you need a million dollars and poof! You’ll get it. You want to lose weight? You want to find Mr. Right? You want a better job? You think positively about it, and you’ll get it. That’s the secret of The Secret.
Oh, there’s a lot of New Age, mumbo-jumbo, EST, “we are stardust, we are golden,” happy-hippy talk that goes along with it—energy is thought and since the entire Universe is made of energy by thinking thoughts you can just tap into the power of the cosmos and . . . oh, who cares as long as it works? Right now I’m thinking how positive it would be to have one million dollars in the bank instead of the eleven dollars that was in there yesterday. I’m not thinking about all the taxes I’d have to pay on a million dollars; I’m not thinking about how many begging relatives would start knocking on my door once I have it.
I wonder if I should tell Bob about The Secret? I don’t think he gets TV in his box and I still feel bad about the whole lunch lady thing. He should think positive thoughts about getting his old life back. Or at least he could think about getting a new box. The one he has now is pretty rank.
Memo to self: Stop by the bank this afternoon and see if that million’s been added to my account yet.
Some people might ask, “Exactly what’s the difference be
tween ‘wishing’ and ‘daydreaming’ and The Secret?” I would answer them by saying, “You are bringing me down, man. You’re full of negative thoughts and I hope you die in a fiery car crash. But in a positive way. You don’t think they’d let Oprah put this on TV if it was just a bunch of hooey, do you?”
When I think of all the years I’ve wasted thinking that my lack of education and my police record were holding me back, I could just spit. Whoops! A negative thought. It’s that kind of thinking that will lose me my million dollars. Whoops! That was another negative thought.
The bank just called. I’m overdrawn, again! By three dollars. Because my copy of The Secret cost thirteen dollars plus tax. That’s when total and complete enlightenment hit me. It’s not knowing “the secret” that makes anyone a millionaire, it’s writing things like The Secret that makes them millionaires. By the way, have you heard about the key? No? It can unlock your potential and change your life. Look for my new book The Key coming to a bookstore near you, soon. Don’t keep it a secret.
Naked Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner
I saw the first sign of summer today: a bare-chested, overweight man on a riding mower. We averted our eyes and kept driving and just when we thought we were safe, we saw another one. You don’t see this much skin in a Calvin Klein ad. I wanted to roll down the car window and yell “For God’s sake, man, think of the children!” but Sue locks the windows when I’m in the car with her. According to her, yelling out the car window at strangers is “antisocial behavior.”
Antisocial? I’m trying to help the poor guy. Maybe if he put on a shirt and bought a push mower he’d drop a few pounds and have six-pack abs by the end of the summer. It’s one thing for Matthew McConaughey to run around half-naked, it’s another for an Orson Welles impersonator. This is just a guess, but I would say the ratio of shirtless, well-proportioned men using riding mowers to big jelly-bellied men is roughly, oh, one to 99. Now, I don’t have a perfect body and I’m not trying to promote silly, unhealthy, unattainable, perfect bodies. All I’m trying to promote is wearing a shirt while you mow the lawn. Is that too much to ask?
It is perfectly natural for men, especially older, bald men who don’t eat right, don’t exercise and don’t wax their backs to have love handles and sagging pecs. That doesn’t mean I want to see them while they mow the lawn. When did suburbia become a half-nudist camp? Did I miss the “we don’t have to wear shirts anymore” memo? Was I out of town the day we voted to start doing yard work naked? And what is the point of having a beautiful lawn if you’re going to spoil it by being on it? Let me put it this way: would you put a statue of yourself mowing the lawn with your shirt off on your front lawn? Unless the answer is yes, keep your shirt on.
Why is it that the people with the worst bodies wear the most revealing clothes? Every New Year’s Day when the local Polar Bear Club goes for their annual dive in the ice-cold water it’s always the biggest, most out-of-shape polar bear who is wearing the tiniest Speedo. At the ball game, the guys who take off their shirts and paint their bodies with team logos and slogans are never the guys with ripped, six-pack, washboard stomachs but the ones with the biggest, largest beer bellies. It looks as if a giant orange Jell-O mold has escaped and will soon start crushing innocent bystanders. Men with spindle legs insist on wearing shorts; women with Frisbee-sized bellybuttons are wearing midriff-baring fashion.
They all suffer from a disease that gets too little attention in the press—Reverse Anorexia. They think they are skinny and beautiful when they are not. They are like the American Idol contestants who think they can sing but cannot. Some may suffer from Amnesiac Bulimia—they binge but they forget to purge—but the results are the same.
Not that we need to starve ourselves like runway models, and God knows, I don’t, but that is exactly why I wear lots of clothes, so you don’t have to see how I’ve let myself go. And I am all for being comfortable. If you want to watch TV at home in your underwear looking like a Nick Nolte mug shot, be my guest. If you want to wear the most tattered and torn things you own while you are out in the back yard gardening, go to it. If you’re planning to make a surprise appearance on Cops, being shirtless makes loads of fashion sense. But if you’re taking the kids to Six Flags or Disney World in an air-conditioned minivan with backseat DVRs, you could wear some decent clothes.
There are some basic fashion rules. Unless your son is playing basketball in the van or is on his way to a basketball game, he shouldn’t be wearing long, baggy, nasty, polyester basketball shorts. Unless your twelve-year-old daughter has a full-time job at Hooters or Victoria’s Secret, she shouldn’t be wearing crotch-high shorts and a Dale Evans vest with no shirt on underneath it. If you never exercise, stop pretending you do by wearing warm-up togs; you’re not fooling anyone. Showing lots of skin is sexy if you’ve got the body of a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model; if not, not. That goes for men, too. Unless you’re competing for a swimming medal in the Olympics, no one wants to see you in a Speedo. Absolutely no one. I’m not kidding, it’s an offense against God and nature. You may be comfortable but you’re making the rest of us sick.
Years ago we used to have a neighbor who would take off his shirt when he mowed the lawn, but he was a male model working on his tan. Women in the neighborhood would always find time to do yard work when he mowed. They would suddenly have an urge to trim the roses or train the vines or just sweep the walk that didn’t really need sweeping. But few of the guys you see mowing their lawns shirtless are male models—unless they’re the “after” models for nachos and beer.
It wasn’t so long ago that you would see signs that said “No shirt, no shoes, no service.” A few years later it turned into “No shirt, no shoes, no problem.” How long before we start seeing “No shirt, no shoes, bride’s side or groom’s side?” or “No shirt, no shoes, how long did you know the deceased?” or “No shirt, no shoes, let’s transplant this liver!”
If at First Class You Don’t Succeed . . .
Sometimes I wonder what is worse: the airlines or the passengers? On almost every flight I’ve taken the last few holidays, some couple will show up at the very last minute and have to be ushered on board with special airline handlers hustling them through the door, stowing their luggage for them, and getting them settled before rushing out so the crew can shut the cabin door, all under the hateful glare of all the other passengers who had the courtesy to show up an hour early.
Guess whose luggage will come off first? The late passengers’. So why should they bother to show up on time when they get rewarded for their bad behavior? They didn’t have to wait in any lines. They didn’t have to hang around the lounge for an hour sitting in chairs that have been specifically designed to be uncomfortable so homeless people won’t want to live in them. They didn’t have to hear “Would Mr. and Mrs. Liptfitter please report to the main ticket counter?” forty times over a nerve-shredding loudspeaker. They didn’t have to hear it because, of course, they are the Liptfitters.
“Honey, this is so nice, it’s nice to be late,” said Mr. Liptfitter.
“Late? What do you know about being late?” she snapped. “If you had listened to me we would have been two minutes later and they would have given us seats in First Class. Don’t talk to me about being late. I know how to be late.”
The Lipfitters save in other ways by being late. Shops in the airport don’t make any money on them. They depend on customers who must spend hours inside an airport with absolutely nothing to do but cruise the airport newsstands and bookstores. Who but the bored to death would buy magazines like Funeral Home Management, Cubicle Cloth Designer, Pension Fund Skimmer, Meter Reader Monthly and Professional Llama Breeder. What? No Amateur Llama Breeder? What kind of a dump are you running here?
The bookstores are jammed with best-selling self-help books like How to Pick a Self-Help Book, How to Get the Most Out of Self-Help Books, How to Get to the Front of This Store by Yourself, and Running a Billion Dollar Corporation Into the Dirt Made Simple.
I can’t worry about it now. I have accidentally dragged my coat through something wet and smelly on the men’s room floor while trying to juggle my carry-on luggage and use the sink at the same time. On my way to the Baggage Claim, the youngish-looking Liptfitters glide past me on a beeping, chauffeur-driven electric cart normally used to ferry the elderly and infirm around airports. When I finally get to the car rental desk, my reserved car has already been rented because I had to wait an hour to find out I wasn’t going to get my luggage and another hour to fill out the form. My car went to a nice, young couple—the Liptfitters.
“If you had only come here on time,” said the clerk. “There’s nothing we can do until morning.”
Flight of the Bumblebee
These flat escalators at the airport are my favorite thing to play on. My sister Chrissy and me like to run in the wrong direction on them while big people try to get around us. It’s like a Disney ride but you don’t have to wait in line. But lots of times grown-ups don’t even know it’s a ride. Sometimes they don’t even get on the escalators and walk in the boring old aisles even though they can see us having lots of fun on them. Other times they say things like, “This is not a playground, you could get hurt. Where are your parents?”