Live Right and Find Happiness (Although Beer is Much Faster)

by Dave Barry

  Holding the container with the open side down, slowly approach the lizard in a non-threatening manner.

  “I certainly am not any kind of threat!” is something you might remark aloud at this point.

  When you are within arm’s length of the lizard, swiftly bang the Tupperware container down over the spot where the lizard was.

  I say “was,” because by then the lizard—which did not get where it is today by having pathetic reflexes like yours—has already skittered off and is now hiding under a heavy piece of furniture, laughing and exchanging high fives (or, depending on how many digits a lizard has, high fours) with other lizards, followed by sex.

  Declare something like “Gotcha!” or “Well, I certainly captured THAT lizard!” while holding your hand over the opening of the container and striding swiftly yet manfully toward the front door.

  Open the door and make a dramatic flinging motion with the container. Then close the door loudly, but not before anywhere from six to fourteen new lizards have skittered into the house.

  Using this procedure, I have successfully pretended to get rid of literally hundreds of household lizards, as well as several household frogs and one household snake. Yes, it’s a lot of work, but it’s my job. If I don’t pretend to do it, nobody will.

  The Pretend Method is also effective for dealing with certain other household problems. Let’s say that late one night your wife wakes you up and tells you she heard a noise. This is of course your responsibility, because lizards might be involved. Here’s what you do: Get out of bed, get a baseball bat (if you don’t have one, use a Tupperware container) and stride manfully out of the bedroom. Walk loudly around the house at random for several minutes, then return to the bedroom and tell your wife you didn’t see anything. You should tell her this even if you saw a man in the living room wearing a hockey mask and trying to start a chainsaw. There’s probably a perfectly innocent explanation. “Don’t go looking for trouble” should be your homeowner motto.

  Unfortunately, the Pretend Method does not work when something in the house is actually, physically broken. When my wife reports this kind of problem to me, I can’t fake fixing it. I have no choice, as a man, but to take meaningful action in the form of picking up the phone and trying to get another, manlier, man, with a truck, to come to our house and fix it.

  This is the part of home ownership I hate most. Because here’s what happens every single time:

  The guy with the truck shows up and spends maybe ten minutes poking around. Then he comes looking for me in my office, where I’m sitting in front of a computer, working on a professional writing project. The problem here is that to the untrained eye, professional writing can be easily mistaken for farting around randomly on the Internet.

  For example, in writing this essay on home ownership, I needed, for obvious reasons, to find the name of a rock band that was popular with Goths. So I Googled “Goth band names,” studied the results for a while and finally decided to go with “The Cure.” That was the only band I’d actually heard of, although there were some other good ones, such as “Alien Sex Fiend,” “Throbbing Gristle” and “Virgin Prunes.”

  In the course of this research I found out that there are several sub-genres of Goth music, including one called—I swear—“Gothabilly,” which was pioneered by a band called “The Cramps,” whose lead singer went by the name “Lux Interior.” According to Wikipedia, “Interior was known for a frenetic and provocative stage show that included high heels, near-nudity and sexually suggestive movements. His specialty was the microphone blow job, where he could get the entire head of an SM-58 microphone into his mouth.” I did a Google image search and found a photo of Mr. Interior performing this maneuver, and I have to say it’s pretty impressive.

  The point is, I spent a solid forty-five minutes researching the Goth band question for legitimate professional writer purposes. But if you were to walk up behind me while I was doing this research and look at my computer screen, your reaction would be to think, quote: “He’s not working! He’s looking at a photo of a man who is wearing only a thong and has inserted an entire microphone into his mouth!”

  This is the problem I face every time a guy with a truck comes to fix something. He sees my computer screen and right away I can tell he thinks I’m some kind of pervert who, instead of doing real work requiring a truck, sits around looking at perverted things on the Internet. So we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot, and it only gets worse, because the reason he has come looking for me, always, is to ask me a question about my house that I cannot answer. The conversation goes like this:

  TRUCK GUY (glancing at my screen, which is showing, for legitimate research reasons, a video of a waterskiing pig): Excuse me.

  ME (hastily closing the browser window, thereby revealing an underlying browser window, which, unfortunately, is showing, again for legitimate research reasons, a video of a Japanese game show in which shouting naked men are sliding down a ramp into a vat of mud): Yes?

  TRUCK GUY: Can you tell me where your demodulation juncture is?

  ME (hastily closing the second browser window, thereby revealing an underlying newspaper website with the headline “Woman Arrested for Engaging in ‘Intimate Act’ with Lawn Chairs”): My what?

  TRUCK GUY: Your demodulation juncture. It’s usually where your main perihelion node connects with your Boolean overpass valve.

  ME (leaning awkwardly sideways in an unsuccessful attempt to block my computer screen): I’m sorry, I don’t know where that is.

  TRUCK GUY: Huh. (Pause.) OK. (Glances at screen again.) Sorry to bother you.

  ME: No problem.

  When I say “No problem,” what I mean is: “HOW THE HELL SHOULD I KNOW WHERE THESE THINGS ARE? YOU’RE THE GUY WITH THE TRUCK! I’M AN ENGLISH MAJOR, FOR GOD’S SAKE!”

  Anyway, what happens next is, the guy goes away for a while. But I know he’s going to come back, and I know exactly why: He’s going to want to show me something.

  “Got a minute?” he’ll say. “I want to show you something.”

  I already know it’s going to be something that I do not care about, and do not understand, and never would be able to understand even if I cared about it, which I do not, because ALL I WANT HIM TO DO IS FIX IT. But Truck Guy always feels the need to make me look at whatever it is, because he wants to make sure I understand that (a) while I’m sitting around looking at naked Japanese men, he’s out there dealing with real problems, and (b) fixing these problems will cost me $862.47, or maybe $513.58, or maybe even $1,534.90, depending on what the Random Bill Generator app on his phone comes up with.

  So I don’t want to go look at whatever Truck Guy wants to show me, but I go anyway, because I don’t want him to think I am even less manly than he clearly already thinks I am. I get up and trudge behind him to some obscure part of the house that I have never been to, where he points to some horrendous snarl of wires or dripping pipe or rusted mechanical thing encrusted with lizard poop.

  “You see this?” says Truck Guy, pointing to the thing.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “This shouldn’t look like this,” says Truck Guy.

  “Huh,” I say.

  “Whoever did this, did it wrong,” says Truck Guy.

  “WELL, I BET WHOEVER DID IT CAME HERE IN A TRUCK AND CHARGED $487.21” is what I want to say, but what I actually say, again, is “Huh.”

  “I’m gonna have to replace this,” says Truck Guy.

  “OK,” I say.

  “And then I’m going to have to install a three-quarters rematriculation grommet to offset the plenary compunction mandible.”

  “OK,” I say.

  “And then I’m going to make you wear a Hello Kitty costume and watch while I have my way with your wife,” says Truck Guy, not in reality but in my mind, because at this point I am feeling like a less masculine version of Richard Simmons.

/>   At this point you’re thinking, “Dave, if you feel so inadequate, why don’t you buy some tools, do some reading and learn a few basic do-it-yourself skills?”

  Good question! By which I mean: You idiot. Because as a veteran homeowner, I have plenty of experience with do-it-yourself projects. When I was younger and stupider, I spent years doing things myself. I owned a wide array of power tools, including a very manly one called a “radial arm saw,” which was capable of dismembering a water buffalo. I read home handyperson magazines and tackled many ambitious do-it-yourself projects. I built shelves; I installed paneling; I screened in a porch; I even made a desk. At first my projects did not work out so well, but over time, as I gained experience, they continued to come out horribly wrong. People never said: “Is this a new desk?” They said: “What the hell HAPPENED here?”

  Because the truth is that no matter what the handyperson magazines say, it takes a certain talent to be a successful do-it-yourselfer, and I do not have that talent. Many people do not. In fact most people do not. My authority for that statement is the late Johnny Carson. Back in the 1980s, when I was getting started in my writing career, I wrote a humor book about do-it-yourself home repair, and by a semi-miraculous stroke of luck I wound up promoting it on the Tonight Show. I was on for seven minutes at the end of the show, and it went pretty well, because I was being interviewed by Johnny Carson, who could make any guest appear spontaneously funny, including Hitler. When we were done and the band was playing, Carson lit a cigarette, then leaned toward me, and this is what he said, in our only off-air communication: “I used to try to do do-it-yourself projects. (Pause.) You can’t do shit yourself.”

  I do not relate this anecdote to let you know that I had a funny personal moment with Johnny Carson and you did not.* I relate this anecdote because Johnny Carson was making an important point, which is that the entire massive do-it-yourself industry is built on a LIE; namely, that you can in fact do it yourself.

  The worst offender is Home Depot. This is the giant store chain that runs TV commercials in which eager, attractive young couples, assisted by helpful smiling Home Depot employees, look excitedly at tile samples or pieces of wood and then—approximately eight seconds later, after a brief scene in which they are wielding paintbrushes or drilling a hole while wearing safety glasses—they’re standing happily in a brand-new modern kitchen that they did entirely themselves.

  Really, Home Depot? That has not been my experience with your store. I do not see attractive couples there, eager to tackle major projects. I see beaten-down people whose houses are broken, glumly pushing huge orange carts down endless aisles and standing in utter bafflement in front of vast, daunting displays of house parts they do not understand, wondering whether they should get the five-and-three-eighths one with the ribbed flange, or the seven-and-nine-sixteenths one with the reverse coupling, or maybe the thirty-seven-millimeter one (whatever a “millimeter” is) or maybe just grab the one that says AS SEEN ON TV, knowing in their hearts that whatever one they pick, it probably won’t work, and even it does, it will eventually break, because it is part of a house.

  You know how drug commercials on TV are required to have disclaimers, so that after they tell you how great the drug is, they tell you it can have negative side effects such as death? I think they should require disclaimers like that on Home Depot commercials. At the end, when they’re showing the happy couple in their new do-it-yourself kitchen, an announcer would say: “These people are actors. They are not capable of operating an espresso machine, let alone building this kitchen. This was done by contractors with trucks.”

  Or maybe just: “Home Depot. You can’t do shit yourself.”

  I’d like to see somebody open a chain of stores called “Reality Hardware.” When homeowners wanted to tackle a home-improvement project, they’d go to Reality Hardware and discuss it with a knowledgeable employee, who would talk them through it.

  HOMEOWNER: I want to install a ceiling fan.

  EMPLOYEE: Really?

  HOMEOWNER: Yes.

  EMPLOYEE: You want to install a machine with long, sharp blades whirling at high speeds directly over the heads of live human beings?

  HOMEOWNER: Well, yes.

  EMPLOYEE: I see. And do you have any particular expertise in this area? Any training in the field of ceiling fan installation?

  HOMEOWNER: Um, no, not in ceiling fan installation per se.

  EMPLOYEE: In what, then?

  HOMEOWNER: I’m a dentist.

  EMPLOYEE: I see. And would you be comfortable having a professional ceiling fan installer give you a root canal?

  HOMEOWNER: Well, no. But that’s a diff—

  EMPLOYEE: I’d like you to take a look at this photograph of a recent “do-it-yourself” ceiling fan installation.

  HOMEOWNER: My God. Is that—

  EMPLOYEE: Yes. His hand. It landed eight feet away.

  HOMEOWNER: I think I’ll hire a professional.

  EMPLOYEE: Yes. With a truck.

  HOMEOWNER: Well, can I at least buy the fan here?

  EMPLOYEE: We don’t sell fans at Reality Hardware. We don’t sell any house parts. Or tools.

  HOMEOWNER: Well, what do you sell?

  EMPLOYEE: Tupperware.

  GOOGLE GLASS: A REVIEW

  * * *

  I Have Seen the Future, but I Had Trouble Reading It

  * * *

  Before you read this review of Google Glass, I want to stress that I am totally “down” with modern technology. I am not some clueless old fart shouting “HELLO! HELLO!” into a mobile phone he is holding upside down.*

  I love new technology. I am what is known as an “early adopter.” Over the decades I have spent tens of thousands of dollars adopting new technology that I used for periods of time ranging from one week to as long as three weeks, at which time it ceased to be as new as it once was, leaving me with no choice but to buy a newer one. I have boxes and boxes filled with old new technology, and still more boxes containing dense, tangled snarls of cables and power adapters that I would need if I wanted to make the technology work again, which of course I never would because it is old.

  I have been buying GPS units since the days when they had tiny black-and-white screens that said only: YOU ARE PROBABLY IN EITHER NORTH OR SOUTH AMERICA. I have owned “mobile” phones the size of LeBron James. I early-adopted every single version of the Windows operating system, including “Vista,” which summoned hell demons who possessed your computer and played pranks such as changing all your verbs to adjectives, and I continued early-adopting Windows versions after that. If Windows came out with a version called “Windows Stab You in the Eyeball with a Fork,” I would adopt it.

  I currently own seven electric guitars. Seven! Not because I am a good guitar player; I am a bad guitar player. I have seven electric guitars because they are electric. I am a huge fan of anything that uses electricity. I have one guitar that, using electricity, tunes itself. You press a button and it makes a noise like WAAAHOOOOM, and somehow it is in tune. This is something I have not been able to make a guitar do in over fifty years of turning the little pegs by myself. Tragically, I still have to physically play the guitar, so it sounds less like a musical instrument than a device that a sheep rancher would use to repel predators. I hope that someday there will be a newer model of this guitar (which I will buy) that tunes itself and then plays itself, so I won’t even have to be in the room.

  Like many men of the male gender, I believe I have a natural intuitive grasp of how technology works. I am the “tech support” person in my household. Whenever my wife or daughter informs me that some electronic device is not working properly, I utilize my superior knowledge by (a) turning the device off, thereby allowing the bad electricity to drain out of it, then (b) turning the device back on, thereby causing fresh new electricity to flow in and heal it. If this fails to fix the problem, I buy a new one. This alw
ays works.

  The point is, I consider myself to be pro-technology and knowledgeable about gadgets. So when I heard about Google Glass, I wanted it. I wasn’t sure exactly what it did, but I knew it was new, and it apparently involved electricity. It also involved Google, of which I am a huge fan. Google has basically replaced my brain. There was a time when, if somebody asked me a question—say, “Who is Socrates?”—I had to manually think about it. Whereas now I just Google it and, boom, I have the answer. (“An ancient dead person.”) Google makes thinking SO much easier. If Google had existed when I was in college, I could have spent the entire four years getting high and listening to Moby Grape, instead of just 87 percent of the time.

  So anyway, I got Google Glass. It cost $1,500, which sounds like a lot of money until you realize that it’s 100 percent tax-deductible if you write about it in this book.

  What is Google Glass? It’s a lightweight electronic device—sort of like a high-tech-looking eyeglass frame without lenses—that you wear on your head. On the front right side of the device is a tiny camera and a miniature screen that you can theoretically see with your right eye. There’s also a tiny microphone and speaker. It connects wirelessly to the Internet through wifi or a Bluetooth phone. So basically, when you put on Google Glass, you are wearing a tiny “hands-free” computer with direct access to the unimaginably vast information resources of the Internet. Think, for a moment, about what this means.

  It means you look like a douchebag.

  Seriously, you do. There is no getting around it. My daughter, who has been my daughter for her entire life and therefore has developed a very high tolerance for being embarrassed by me, refused to walk into a restaurant with me until I removed my Google Glass.

  If you go to the official Google website for Google Glass, you will see photos of attractive young people wearing Google Glass as they engage in a variety of modern youthful activities—biking, running, golfing, chopping organic vegetables, etc. Google has enough money to buy whatever it wants—Asia, for example—so you know they paid for the absolute best-looking photos of the absolute best-looking Glass-wearing individuals money could buy.