Chapter 7. Nutrition

Why You Should Watch What You Eat

   In your great-great-grandfather’s day, nobody had to worry about proper nutrition, because people lived on farms and ate wholesome, natural foods. Whenever they needed meat, they just went out and whacked off a sector of the family cow. When they needed bread, they just cut down some wheat, then they threshed it, then they took the grain and started grinding it up, then they said, “Nah, the hell with it; let’s just eat sector of cow tonight.”
   Today, unfortunately, most cows are grown by giant multinational corporations, who feed them harmful preservatives day and night for the express purpose of killing innocent consumers. Many cows are so full of toxic chemicals that they explode right in the pasture, leaving behind only billowing clouds of greenish fumes, which cause acid rain. You have the same kind of problems with white bread and refined sugar, both of which, if eaten, cause death within hours. This is why it’s so important in today’s world that you watch what you eat, at least until you get it inside your mouth. After that, it gets pretty disgusting.

How Your Digestive System Works

   Your digestive system’s job is to turn food into useful body parts. To save itself a lot of aggravation, your digestive system has a policy whereby it turns a given food into the body part most similar to it. Thus hard-boiled eggs become eyeballs, cauliflower becomes brains, mixed vegetables become the pancreas, Polish sausages become male sexual organs, candy canes become bone, little yellow-covered marshmallow Easter chickens become pus, beer becomes urine, and so on. If you eat a kind of food that does not resemble any known body part, such as a pink Good ‘n’ Plenty, your body turns it into fat.

Eating a “Balanced Diet”

   To make sure your digestive system gets the “raw materials” it needs, at every meal you should eat at least 1 food from each of the 15 Basic Food Families: Fruits, Vegetables, Meats, Fishes, Loaves, Hors d’Oeuvres, Canned Goods, Jellies, Snacks, Shakes, Additives, Eels, Those Little Wax Bottles Filled with Colorful Sugar Water, Pez, and Spam.

What You Can Learn from Reading the Labels on Foods

   Virtually nothing. I mean, if the product contains some dangerous chemical, you don’t think the label writer, who has a mortgage and kids with braces just the same as you do, is going to risk his job by saying so, do you? Of course not. This is why all labels are written in label jargon, such as “This product contains not less than 0.02 percent of rehydroxylated glutonium or abstract of debentured soybean genitalia, whichever comes first.” The more of this kind of jargon you see, the more likely it is that the label writer has something to hide.
   So what I recommend is, instead of trying to understand the words on the label, you simply figure out the average number of syllables per word. If the average is two or below, the product is probably safe to eat in small quantities. If the average is three or four, you’re probably dealing with a product that causes grave concern in laboratory rats. If the average is five or more, you should set the container down very carefully and flee the vicinity on foot.

About Vitamins

   Vitamins are little pills named A, B, C, D, E, and K that the government recommends you have certain amounts of. These recommendations are based on the requirements of the Minimum Daily Adult, a truly pathetic individual that the government keeps in this special facility in Washington, D.C., where he is fed things with names like “riboflavin.”
   Physicians generally pooh-pooh the value of vitamins, but this is because you can get vitamins into your body without the aid of physicians. If the only way it could be done was for a team of eight surgeons to implant a special $263,000 trapdoor in your head, physicians would say vitamins were the best thing since luxury German automobiles.
   The truth is that vitamins are very good for you, and each morning you should take a vitamin A pill, followed by a vitamin D, followed by an E, until you have spelled the healthful mnemonic phrase “A DEAD CAD BAKED A BAD CAKE, ACE.” This will probably be plenty of vitamins for you, but be alert for the Four Major Warning Signs of Vitamin Deficiency, which are:
   Nosebleeds
   A sudden fondness for Wayne Newton
   Unusually thick coats on woolly caterpillars
   Death
   If you notice any of these signs, you should add the phrase “A BEAKED DAD BEDDED A BEAD-BEDECKED BABE.”

Vitamins in Food

   Foods contain vitamins. Your mother told you this. She also told you that the vitamins are always in the most repulsive part of the food. If you were eating a potato, for example, she’d say, “Be sure to eat the skin, that’s where the vitamins are.” They learn this in Mother School. So with any given food, you should always eat the skin or, if it doesn’t have a skin, the rind, the core, or the pit. If it doesn’t have any of these, you should eat the wrapper.

Minerals in Food

   Foods also contain minerals such as zinc, iron, magnesium, steel, and aluminum. At least, that’s what I’m supposed to tell you. I personally think the whole idea that there is metal in food, especially blatantly soft food such as Twinkies, is absurd. The only idea more absurd is the deranged notion that eating metal is somehow good for you. If God had wanted us to eat metal, He would have given us much better teeth. Thank you.

What about Fiber?

   Fiber is definitely the number one hot trend in the world of natural health, threatening to break all the old records set by “pH balance.” Remember, back in the 70s, when every product you bought—food, shampoo, tires—was advertised as being pH balanced, even though nobody ever knew what the hell it meant? Well, it’s like that with fiber today, and so naturally I recommend you eat all the fiber-rich foods you can shove down your throat. These would be mainly your cotton candy and your Slim Jims.

A Thoughtful Philosophical Discussion of Vegetarianism

   This is a touchy subject for me to discuss without having the vaguest idea of what I’m talking about, but here goes. Many people feel it is wrong to eat animals, on the grounds that animals have souls. I would have to say, although I certainly have nothing but the deepest respect for this position, that this is pretty stupid. I mean, I don’t want to offend any religious group, especially if it is armed, but I frankly don’t see how anyone can say that all animals have souls. Obviously, some animals do: Lassie clearly did, and probably so did Trigger. If anybody ever tries to eat Lassie, I’ll be the first one to attempt a citizen’s arrest.
   But nobody’s going to look me square in the eye and claim that, for example, toads have souls. I am not saying that it’s okay to eat toads, of course, unless the alternative is starvation, or what they serve you under the heading of “snack” on commercial airliners. I’m just saying we have to draw the line somewhere.
   I, personally, follow what I call a “modified vegetarianism” system, under which it is okay to eat meat provided that it has been disguised so you can’t tell what kind of creature it came from. A perfect example is hamburger. There is no way to tell, just by looking at a hamburger, where it originated.
   We believe it is from cows, because we are told this by burly cleaver-wielding men in Chicago with bloodstained garments, but we would not have come to this conclusion independently. So under my system, hamburger is fine.
   Lobster, on the other hand, is out. There is no way you could not know you were eating a lobster. When you walk into a restaurant, often the first thing you see is a large tank containing lobsters wearing handcuffs and trying to scuttle behind each other so you won’t pick them. If you order a lobster, you don’t get to use the kind of euphemisms you use with cows, such as “beef” or “steak”: you say, “I’ll have a lobster,” and when they bring it to you, you just get this naked lobster, and you’re supposed to eat it. I think this is wrong, and I imagine it goes without saying that I also feel very strongly about blatant organs, such as tongue.

Chapter 8. Dieting And Weight Control

Do You Weigh the Proper Amount?

   To answer that question, locate yourself on the medical chart provided here. Chances are the chart shows that you’re above your proper weight. The reason is that you eat too many foods that are high in “calories,” which are little units that measure how good a particular food tastes. Fudge, for example, has a great many calories, whereas celery, which is not really a food at all but a member of the plywood family, provided by Mother Nature so that mankind would have a way to get onion dip into his mouth at parties, has none.
   AGE FEMALE SMALL AVERAGE BIG MALE SMALL AVERAGE BIG 18-25 E F A B C D 26-31 F A B C D E 32-39 A B C D E F 40-50 B C D E F A Over 50 C D E F A B Dead D E F A B C
   A—You could definitely stand to lose weight. B—No question about it, you have a weight problem. C—Based on your weight, you should get on a diet. D—It would certainly not hurt you to lose some weight. E—You are carrying too much weight for your body type. F—You must make more of an effort to control your weight.

The Simple, Basic, Obvious Truth about Losing Weight

   Obviously, the only sane way to lose weight, and to keep it off, is to ... Hey! Who are you guys?!! Wait a minute!! You can’t just barge in here and ...
   So as I was saying, the only sane way to lose weight is to get yourself on, and then stick to, a regular, planned, conscientious program of purchasing newly published diet books. Here are some that I especially recommend:

The Handsome Sincere Random Doctor Medical Diet Poop Yourself Thin The Elvis Presley Memorial Diet The Total Tapeworm Diet How to Lose Weight in the Coming Depression Shed Unwanted Ounces the Orson Welles Way The Dead Preppy Cat Microcomputer Diet Book The All-Goat-Products Diet The Frequent Casual Motel Sex Diet The Amazing Mother Theresa Weight Loss Plan

   All of these books are very excellent, and there are thousands more that are just as good, many of them offering such proven and time-tested features as consecutively numbered pages.
   Perhaps the best diet book is Dessert Makes You Fat, by Ernst Viewfinder, who has several credits toward his Associate’s Degree in Motel Food Administration from Southwest Buford County Community College (“Where the Leaders of Tomorrow Are Frowning at Blackboards Today, Visa and MasterCard Accepted”). His theory is that people get fat because they eat too many desserts, so he has developed a diet designed to encourage you to skip the dessert. Here is a typical day’s menu:
   BREAKFAST
   Froot Loops Eclairs with side orders of bacon
   DESSERT: One slice whole wheat toast
   LUNCH
   Snickers Fries Any number of cheeseburgers
   DESSERT: Cottage cheese
   DINNER
   Dixie cup filled with sugar Melted Turkish taffy soup Big lumps of chocolate with fudge sauce
   DESSERT: That really pathetic lettuce that looks like lichen, festooned with clearly visible insect eggs (no dressing)
   I personally tried this diet for several weeks, and I found that not only was I able to skip many desserts, but I didn’t need to sleep at all, although near the end they tried to make me.

Common Questions Often Asked about Losing Weight

   Q. Do I actually have to read my diet books?
   A. No. There is no medical evidence that reading leads to weight loss. Simply keep the books in a prominent location in your home, and occasionally press them against your thighs and buttocks.
   Q. Is there any kind of operation I can have that will help me lose weight?
   A. There are quite a few such operations, but probably the most effective one, with the fewest negative side effects, is to have an airline pet transporter bonded to your skull with fast-drying epoxy cement. This encourages you to eat only those foods which will pass through the mesh door, such as fettuccine and licorice.
   Q. What about absurd mechanical weight loss devices, such as those motorized belts that were always shown jiggling the massive hips of pasty middle-aged female character actresses in comedy movies and television shows up through the 1950s?
   A. These devices are extremely effective. The fat just melts away. Two of those character actresses, in fact, went on to become Bo Derek and Victoria Principal. This is why you never see those machines in health clubs any more: the clubs took them out because their members were leaving at an alarming rate to accept lucrative film contracts. This is a shame, really, because it leaves the weight-conscious person without any kind of guaranteed, surefire, safe, proven weight loss device. If only somebody would make such a device available to the general public!

Announcing the Dave Barry Guaranteed, Surefire, Safe, Proven, Medically Unusual Weight Loss Device For Human Beings Belonging to the General Public

   The concept for this truly revolutionary device, which came to me one evening while I was throwing up on my shoes, is amazingly simple: If you go around with an object that weighs approximately 350 pounds strapped to your body, you can’t help but lose weight! Assuming you don’t have a serious accident! So I designed this device with You, the Consumer, in mind, such that you can wear it virtually undetected to work, around the home, on the tennis court ... even to executions, if these are permitted in your state!

What the Experts Say about the Dave Barry Weight Loss Device

   “Yes! Okay! It is very good! People should buy it! Now please, let us go!”—A team of leading physicians speaking in unison from inside a concrete structure
   “The water used in Tokyo, Yokohama, Kawasaki, and other parts of the metropolitan area is supplied by aqueduct systems!”—The Encyclopaedia BritannicaVolume 18 (Taylor-Utah)

Chapter 9. Women’s Beauty And Grooming

   Thus far in this book, we’ve concentrated on improving your body. But let’s face it: having a great body does you no good whatsoever if you have the kind of face where people are always saying you have a Nice Personality, meaning you can cause crops to fail just by looking at them.
   So in this chapter, we’re going to take a look at some of the things you can do to your face and hair to give yourself that feeling of inner confidence that says, in the words of the song Maria sang in West Side Story just before her lover stabbed her brother to death, “I Feel Pretty.” You’ll see that you don’t have to have been born with great genes to look beautiful; there are lots of simple little “beauty secrets” that can turn even a real woofer into an extremely presentable person, although in your case I would not necessarily rule out plastic surgery.

The First Step toward a More Beautiful You

   The most important step, of course, is to recognize that whatever you’re currently doing is totally wrong. What you need is a New Look, as you know if you read any of the major women’s beauty magazines. Month after month, year after year, they publish the same article, which is “Several Dozen New Ways to Put Makeup on Your Face and Style Your Hair in a Lifelong Futile Effort to Look Like the Model on the Cover.”
   The reason the beauty experts keep coming up with new looks is that the old ones are all repulsive. You look back at your high school yearbook or, heaven help you, your mother’s yearbook, and you see the Looks that were popular years ago, and you wonder how the human race managed to reproduce. You wonder why men and women didn’t take one look at each other and sprint in opposite directions until they dropped from exhaustion. Someday your children will say the same thing about the way you look today, which is why we here in the beauty industry are always pushing back the frontiers of knowledge, coming up with New Looks, with no real hope of personal financial benefit beyond the sale of beauty products that cost more per ounce than all but the finest narcotics.
   Sometimes, out of the goodness of our hearts, we beauty experts make guest appearances on those morning television shows devoted to a wide range of topics that the folks who run television feel are of interest to women, namely these:
   Sex problems Fashion and beauty tips Problems that involve sex Tips on beauty and fashion Various sexually involved problems Discussions of how you can become more sexually fashionable and beautiful by means of certain tips Pasta
   What the beauty experts generally do on these shows is select a woman from the audience and point out how she has committed several dozen common major beauty blunders due to the fact that she is not a knowledgeable beauty expert. Their technique is to pick somebody who looks perfectly normal—perhaps even attractive—to the unprofessional eye, then harp away at her until the audience begins to marvel that she managed to get past the studio guards without being mistaken for an escaped boar and shot.
   Then they take this pathetic woman, and they give her a completely New Look, offering all kinds of professional beauty tips as they go along:
   “Now the most unfortunate facial characteristic of Rhonda here,” they say, “is that she has a nose you could hang a garment bag on, so we are going to begin by applying about five-eighths of an inch of base coat to the rest of her head in an effort to make it appear larger. We’ll top that off with two coats of sealant, then we’ll remove all of Rhonda’s current eyebrows and start applying the first few coats of skin dye while we try to think up something we can do about her mouth.”
   And so on, until Rhonda’s face is encased in congealed cosmetic substances to the point where her own dog wouldn’t recognize her. As the studio audience applauds her New Look enthusiastically, Robert Redford walks onstage and asks her to marry him, and they walk off together, living proof of the advantages of knowledgeably applied beauty products, at least until Rhonda’s sealant weakens and her base coat starts falling off in slabs the size of French toast.

What You, Personally, Need to Do about Your Appearance

   Unfortunately, we are dealing with the print medium here, so I am unable to consult individually with you in regard to your specific beauty needs, except to say that from this particular angle it appears you ought to give a bit more thought to booger removal. However, I can offer these helpful beauty guidelines for you to bear in mind as you try to achieve your New Look:

GUIDELINE 1: YOUR FACE IS MUCH TOO FAT.

   It looks like a weather balloon, for God’s sake. Try some puce blush on your cheekbones, if you can locate them, and accentuate those little lines coming out of the sides of your mouth by filling them in lightly with an Accountant’s Fine Point Bic pen.

GUIDELINE 2: I CAN’T BELIEVE WHAT HAS BEEN DONE TO YOUR HAIR.

   I am assuming that you didn’t pay for that cut. I am assuming that a deranged, near-blind, palsied person wielding pruning shears burst into your room in the dead of night and cut your hair after beating you unconscious. The only thing I can suggest until it grows back out is that you join some sort of religious order that has a mandatory head covering. And when it does grow back, you want to decide which of the three common head shapes, you have and choose a hairstyle that compliments it.

GUIDELINE 3: I WOULD SAY YOUR EYES ARE YOUR BEST FEATURE.

   This is assuming I have to pick something. You want to draw attention to your eyes through subtle use of your lipstick. Note that when I say your eyes are your best feature, I am speaking of them as independent organs. Taken as a set, they are maybe three-quarters of an inch too close together.

Personal Hygiene

   After going to all that trouble with your face and hair, the last thing you want to do is go around smelling like a billy goat with a flatulence problem. This is why good personal hygiene habits are so important. Let’s review them briefly.

TEETH

   You should brush them immediately before having conversations, using a tube of toothpaste with these words printed on the side: “The American Dental Association has found this to be an effective tube of toothpaste when squeezed from the bottom in conjunction with a program of regular payments to a member of the American Dental Association.”

GUMS AND ARMPITS

   Floss them regularly. If you use the same floss, do your gums first.

HAIR

   Shampoo regularly with a shampoo bearing the name of a reputable beauty snot, such as Vidal Sassoon. Also, be alert for dandruff, an incurable disease where little pieces of your head keep falling off until eventually all you have left is two eyeballs on stalks protruding from your neck and you look like a gigantic lobster walking around wearing clothes. Scratching only makes it worse.

FEET

   There’s an old saying about feet that goes: “I had no shoes, and I pitied myself. Then I met a man who had no feet; so I took his shoes.” Better than anything I could think of, this saying illustrates the importance of proper foot care. Each day, you should spend a minimum of an hour examining your feet closely under a 200-watt light bulb and picking at your toenails with various foot care implements available at Woolworth’s. This is something the whole family can do together. Stress to your children that they should not mention it to the authorities.

FEMININE HYGIENE

   At one time, this important subject would have been considered “too delicate” for a book like this, but all that has changed, thanks to the efforts of the fine people who sell vaginal deodorants via television commercials featuring two Good Friends having a Frank Discussion:
   DEBBIE (hesitantly): Sue, may I ask you something?
   SUE: Sure, Debbie. What is it?
   DEBBIE: Sue, are you aware that for the past seven years, including at formal affairs such as funerals, you’ve been emitting an aroma that would fell a buffalo at 90 feet?
   SUE (frowning slightly): Why no, Debbie, I didn’t know! Perhaps that is why I have remained a housewife, rather than winning the Nobel Prize for Physics!
   DEBBIE: Why not try this?
   SUE (examining the label thoughtfully): Hmmm. New Improved Crotch Bouquet. By golly, I’ll try it!
   DEBBIE: Not here, for God’s sake!

Chapter 10. Men’s Beauty And Grooming

   As recently as 20 years ago, a man was considered well-groomed if he remembered to remove the little pieces of toilet paper he stuck on his face where he cut himself shaving. But today we live in a liberated era, an era in which men are not afraid to make themselves more attractive by means of beauty aids formerly limited to women—hair coloring, makeup, totally alien plastic substances inserted into the body so as to form bulges, designer dresses, etc.
   This is basically a healthy social development. For, as the saying goes, “A man who cares about his personal appearance is a man who is always checking his reflection in store windows.” So in this section, men, we’re going to suggest some grooming “tips” to help you look more like the lean and cruelly handsome male models in the “Fall Fashion Supplement,” and less like the people in your immediate gene pool.

Hair

   I will assume that you already shampoo your hair at frequent intervals, that you are not one of those repulsive males who, apparently feeling that there is some sort of grave threat to the world’s grease supply, let their hair go for weeks at a time without washing it, such that if one of their pillows ever caught fire, it would burn for days. But men, even if you do use shampoo regularly, it’s probably the wrong kind, by which I mean it probably consists mainly of shampoo, with perhaps a dash of pH.
   This is not good enough. Women discovered years ago that if you want true hair beauty, your shampoo must contain foodstuffs. Some women prefer fruits and vegetables, such as apricot and avocado; others prefer poultry products, such as egg; others prefer liquor, such as beer. Some even prefer—this is the absolute truth coming up here—human placentas, which makes for a very expensive shampoo because, believe me, the shampoo factory has to pay the workers a lot of money to stuff those suckers into the bottles.
   (For a more complete discussion of placentas, see my Babies and Other Hazards of Sex, which many experts consider to be, of all the many books available about birth and child rearing, the one that took the least time to write.)
   And why is it so important to have foodstuffs in shampoo? I can answer that science question in three syllables: follicles. Follicles are little organs that live in your skull, thousands of them, and produce your hair. To produce hair, they need protein, and to get protein, they need to eat, just as you do. Women are constantly shoving egg and beer down their tiny throats, which is why, as you have no doubt noticed, women generally have gobs of hair. Men, on the other hand, practically starve them to death—you can eat only so much pH, and then you just don’t want to see another bite—which is why so many men go bald.

A Sincere Discussion of Baldness

   Too often in our insensitive society, baldness is treated as a joke, so let me begin this sincere discussion by stating that, although I am fortunate enough to be blessed with a very full and attractive head of hair, I am very much aware of the anguish and inner torment experienced on a daily basis by you chrome domes out there. I mean, it’s not your fault you’re bald, is it? Well, okay, it is your fault because you let your tiny helpless innocent follicles, which had never so much as said a mean word to anybody in their whole lives, suffer a horrible death by starvation while you were out laughing and eating pizza with friends, but there’s no point in dwelling on that now. The question is: What can you do about your unfortunate condition?
   One approach, of course, is to get a wig. The advantage of wearing a wig is that you don’t look quite as stupid as you would if you went around with a giant red clown nose on. The main disadvantage is that a wig costs a lot more than a large, hand-lettered sign around your neck that says “WIG,” which is equally effective.
   Another approach is to get a hair transplant. This is a procedure whereby a person who has completed all three weeks of Hair Transplant School, which he enrolled in because he flunked Whack-a-Mole-Game-Machine Maintenance School, takes hair from somewhere else on your body and puts it on top of your head. The advantage of this approach is that you do, in fact, end up with hair growing on your head. The disadvantage, of course, is that it has to come from somewhere else on your body, which means either (a) you have hair growing up there that originated in your armpit or some other locale so disgusting I don’t even want to talk about it, or (b) they have to take the hair off the side of your head, which is not necessarily a great stride forward for you in the looks department.
   Finally, there are ads for all kinds of alleged “miracle” hair-growing pills, creams, lotions, and potions in the backs of sleazeball publications such as Penthouse and American Beet Farmer, which make all kinds of outrageous claims such as they can “stop the spread of baldness” and “restore lost hair” and even “grow hair on a billiard ball.” These claims, of course, are totally false, except the one about the billiard ball, which government researchers recently discovered is true, the drawback being that many of the balls also developed tumors.
   So unfortunately, balding men, there is little to offer you in the way of hope at this time. If only somebody would develop a proven scientific guaranteed effective totally safe miracle hair-growth substance!
   (News item)
   SCIENTISTS LAUD DAVE BARRY PROVEN SCIENTIFIC GUARANTEED EFFECTIVE TOTALLY SAFE MIRACLE HAIR-GROWTH SUBSTANCE
   BUFFALO OR ST. LOUIS—Scientists wearing white smocks here have announced that in proven scientific tests, the Dave Barry Miracle Hair-Growth Substance did, in fact, bring new life to dead hair follicles belonging to volunteer bald persons who were scientifically monitored as they slept on street grates.
   “As this enlarged photograph shows,” explained Chief of Research Dr. Ernst Viewfinder, “most of the follicles of the untreated volunteers are small and dead—not unlike, I might add by way of a humorous aside, some of the untreated volunteers themselves, ha ha. But in these photographs of the treated volunteers, we can see that the Dave Barry Miracle Hair-Growth Substance has brought their scalps back to life, with sleek and happy follicles the size of adult mice, in some cases completely crowding out the brain! This could well be what happened to Vidal Sassoon.”

Skin

   What do women find attractive when they look at a man’s skin? Bumps. Yes, bumps. Why do you think women fall all over Robert Redford while virtually ignoring you and me? Go watch Redford in a movie sometime, and you’ll see that he has a number of facial bumps, which look during the extreme close-ups to be big enough to play polo on, and which, as far as I can tell, are the only major physical characteristic in which Robert Redford and I differ.
   So what I am recommending, men, is that as part of your daily grooming ritual, you apply small globulets of Silly Putty to your face, as shown in the illustration, so as to render yourself irresistible to the opposing sex. I regret to point out, however, that Silly Putty comes in only the Caucasian skin hue, which is blatant discrimination against those members of minority groups who also wish to install facial bumps, and I think those of us who are still liberals ought to sit right down and write hostile letters about this to our Congresspersons.

Makeup

   Makeup is definitely the coming thing in male grooming. Oh, I know what you’re saying. You’re saying, “No way. No way am I going to put on makeup!” But of course that’s exactly what you said about bikini underwear, and hair spray, and blow-dryers, which, if you had used them in a locker room 15 years ago, would have resulted in a situation where if you entered the shower, the other men would have fled from you in very much the way the residents of Tokyo fled from Godzilla, but which are common grooming articles today.
   Yes, men, you might as well face it: it won’t be long before we’re all wearing makeup. And the last thing you want to do is get left behind on this trend and end up looking ludicrously out of date, like the unfortunate individuals you occasionally see who still wear white patent leather shoes and matching belts and always look like assistant deputy sewage commissioners from small towns where the highest form of cultural activity is reading the drive-thru menu at Burger King. So what I recommend you do is gradually start introducing makeup into your grooming routine—a little blusher, a little eye liner, a touch of lipstick—and see if you don’t start making a big impression at your office, maybe even start attracting the attention of people as high up as vice president, people who once seemed unaware you even existed, but who suddenly start looking at you for 20 and 30 seconds at a time on the elevator and trying to discreetly read your security badge.

Chapter 11. When You Get Sick

   Even the healthiest person, if he follows the fitness program described in this book, will eventually need medical care. Fortunately, we Americans live in a nation where the medical-care system is second to none in the world, unless you count maybe 25 or 30 little scuzzball countries like Scotland that we could vaporize in seconds if we felt like it.
   What we’re going to talk about in this chapter is how you can become more aware of the various problems that your body can develop, so that you’ll be better able to worry about them. We’ll also talk about how, if you actually do become sick, you can explain your problems to the medical-care establishment in such a way that it does not immediately yank out a useful organ.

How You Can Tell When There Is Something Wrong with You

   Trained medical personnel detect illness or other bodily problems by looking for “symptoms,” the major ones being these:
   Aches Pains A total absence of aches or pains Bullet holes A feeling of not keeping up with inflation A leg bone sticking out through the skin Never having the correct change A stoppage of heart or brain activity Irritability
   Get in the habit of checking yourself every 20 minutes or so for these symptoms. When you notice one, you should immediately follow this emergency procedure:
   1. Take two pills containing a Scientifically Proven Painkilling Formula that has been advertised on television by a reliable avuncular spokesperson such as Robert Young.
   2. Phone your office to tell them that you won’t be in for several days and could somebody please remember to discard any interoffice memoranda aimed at you. If you have no office, you should phone your mother and have her confirm that there is definitely Something Going Around.
   This course of treatment will cure you most of the time. If it doesn’t, you probably have a serious illness, which means you should call your physician’s answering service and make an appointment to go into his office the following month and sit in the waiting room for an hour and 45 minutes reading National Geographic. If that doesn’t work, you should go to a hospital emergency ward and inflict a gunshot wound on yourself, thus increasing the odds that you will see an actual doctor to nearly 40 percent.

Dealing with Doctors

   To get the most out of a doctor, you have to understand how he perceives the world, which is best summed up by the last sentence of the Hippocratic Oath:
   “AND ABOVE ALL, REMEMBER THAT THE PATIENT HAS NABISCO BRAND SHREDDED WHEAT FOR BRAINS.”
   Yes, doctors tend to feel just a tad superior to the general public, but this is understandable. Doctors are generally smart people, the kind who were attending meetings of the National Honor Society while you were leaning out the study hall window seeing if you could spit on passing nuns. In college and medical school, doctors spend years associating with other smart people and learning complicated things like the location of the pituitary gland. When they get out, the last thing they feel like doing is consorting with a bunch of cretin patients, who not only have no idea where the pituitary gland is, but also are often sick besides.
   So the important rule to remember when you’re dealing with a doctor is this: never tell him what you think the problem is, even if you’re absolutely certain. If you tell him what you think, he’ll become irritated and go out of his way to prove you’re wrong:
   YOU: Doctor, I think I have suffered a knife wound to the stomach.
   DOCTOR (sneering): Oh you do, do you? And what makes you think that?
   YOU: Well, several hostile urban youths accosted me on the street and stuck a knife in my stomach. See? Here’s the knife handle, sticking out of my stomach.
   DOCTOR (examining your foot): That could be caused by any number of conditions, such as an amalgamation of the pyloric valve or an interdiction of the right epistolary oracle. I’m going to send you to the hospital for some tests next week.
   The phrase “send you to the hospital for some tests” is medical code for “drain all the blood out of your body.” Blood removal is the primary form of health care in the United States, and it has been ever since April 4, 1906, when the founder of the Mayo Clinic, Dr. Ted Clinic, happened to be cutting open diseased woodland creatures, as was his wont, and made an amazing discovery: all of the creatures contained blood. He concluded that blood must be a leading cause of disease, which is why today when you go into the hospital, various personnel are always lunging at you with needles. They are very conscientious about this because they don’t want to get a nasty note from the doctor (“3 P.M.—Patient still contains traces of blood! Let’s not let this happen again”).
   If blood removal doesn’t work, they start taking out your organs. Usually they start with organs you have two of, such as kidneys, then move up to the really vital ones, so it’s very important that you convince the doctor you’re getting better while you still have a chance to survive:
   DOCTOR: So! How are we feeling today?
   YOU (hastily): Fine! Great! Never felt better!
   DOCTOR (frowning at your chart): Really? Are you sure? Because I see by your chart here that you still have several organs left, and we could ...
   YOU (staggering out of bed, trailing intravenous tubes): No! No! Look! I feel terrific! (You attempt a deep knee bend, then collapse in agony.)
   DOCTOR: Okay, but I’ll be back to check on you in an hour.

Paying for Your Hospital Treatment

   Always examine your hospital bill closely. It should look like this:
   Aspirin tablet.
   $11.05
   Little Dixie cup for water to wash aspirin tablet down with
   6.80
   Water
   31.80
   Removal of childproof cap from aspirin bottle (Dr. Viewfinder)
   460.00
   Removal of little tuft of cotton from aspirin bottle (Dr. Beaner)
   385.00
   CAT scan from when Dr. Spinnaker thought he might have heard a little whistling noise in the patient’s chest that was probably nothing but You Always Want to Be Sure about These Things
   87,354.50
   Consultation among Dr. Spinnaker, Dr. Viewfinder, Dr. Beaner, Dr. Whelk, Dr. Pilsner, and Dr. Frackmeyer while they were peeing (per doctor)
   275.00
   Also Dr. Whelk mentioned it to Dr. Hogworth at the polo match
   340.00
   Gratuity
   85.00
   If, after examining the bill carefully, you feel satisfied that all the dollar amounts are lined up neatly on the right-hand side, you should submit it to your insurance company, which will, without even looking at it, send it back to you with a testy note telling you that you filled out the forms all wrong. This will give you time to sell your house and children to raise the cash you’ll need for when you finally get everything filled out right and the insurance company notifies you that the only thing you’re actually covered for is 60 percent of the Dixie cup.
   Home Emergency First-Aid Chart to Be Kept Posted on the Bulletin Board underneath the Coupons That, If You Save Up Ten of Them, Get You a Free Medium Pizza
   HOME EMERGENCY TREATMENT Decapitation. Elevate head; shriek for assistance. Victim has swallowed fabric softener. Induce vomiting by showing the victim a videotape of that speech Richard Nixon gave about his mother after he resigned. Victim has swallowed a can of chicken gumbo soup. So? What’s so bad about that? Victim has swallowed the actual can. Oh. Is this by any chance the same victim that swallowed the fabric softener? Boy, that victim has a real problem.

Chapter 12. Fitness Q And A

Fitness and the Expectant Mother

   Q. I am currently pregnant to a considerable degree. Instead of trying to keep fit, may I just lounge around watching “Days of Our Lives” and reading Glamour Magazine?
   A. No! These are the 80s, for God’s sake, and nobody is excused from being fit! Especially you expectant women! If you just let your body go during pregnancy, after the baby comes, you’re going to look as though a team of plastic surgeons have implanted a 35-pound mass of Wonder bread dough under the skin around your hips and thighs. But if you continue to care for your body, if you exercise regularly and maintain your muscle tone, the mass will have a much firmer consistency, like congealed rubber cement.
   Of course, a pregnant woman can’t do the same exercises as a normal person. Most gynecologists, for example, frown on the pole vault after about the seventh month. But there are still some exercises that work very well for the mother-to-be, such as:
   1. TRY TO TOUCH THE WALL. Stand in a relaxed fashion with your arms over your head and your abdominal area forming a large tissue mass directly between you and the wall. Now gradually lean forward until your arms touch the wall, if such a thing is possible, and then return to the full standing position.
   2. TRY TO GET OUT OF A CAR. Have several burly friends somehow place you behind the wheel of a 1979 Chevrolet Chevette, or some equally absurd little car, then have them time you as you attempt to get out of it in such a way that your undergarments are not clearly visible from other planets. Eight minutes is the world’s record.
   3. KNEE CLENCH. Go to a nice restaurant with friends and attempt to get all the way to the appetizers without going to the bathroom more than twice.
   Q. What about fitness for the fetus?
   A. You should indeed embark upon a rigorous program of fetal fitness, for otherwise the fetus will be born pasty and flabby and lacking in muscle definition, and in later life it may have trouble getting accepted by the better aerobic dancing institutes. Of course, getting the fetus to exercise is not easy, any more than teaching the fetus to read is easy, but if you truly are a Concerned Parent, you will find a way.
   I particularly recommend a new product developed by the fine people who make Nautilus equipment. It’s called the “Fetahis” and it’s specially designed for the fetus to use in the womb. It’s a very effective device and well worth the cost, although to be perfectly frank the insertion process is not everybody’s cup of tea.
   Some Helpful Answers for People Who Smoke
   Q. I’m a smoker, and ...
   A. You’re a what?
   Q. I’m a smoker, and I’d really like to ...
   A. You are slime, you know that? You are raw industrial sewage.
   Q. Yes, I know. I really want to quit. I just hate ...
   A. Why don’t you just suck on the exhaust pipe of a poorly tuned automobile, huh? Why don’t you just go around spraying Agent Orange on your fellow restaurant patrons?
   Q. Of course you are absolutely right. It’s just that it’s so hard to stop, and I’m getting desperate, and I was hoping that maybe you’d have some tips on how ...
   A. I’ll tell you one thing. If you ever try to ignite one of those repulsive toxic objects in a restaurant where I am dining, I shall order a reputable brand of designer carbonated water and forcibly pour it into your nasal passages. Do I make myself clear?
   Q. Yes, and I can certainly understand why you feel that way.
   A. Well, you’d damned well better.
   Q. Thank you.
   A. Get out of my sight before I vomit.

Fitness and the Afterlife

   Q. I am very, very proud of my body. I have calluses on the top of my head formed by bumping into things because I walk around looking down at my various major muscle groupings. My question is: What will happen to my body when I die? Who will take care of it? Will it become soft and shapeless?
   A. You will be pleased to learn that the long-neglected field of postmortem fitness has received a real “shot in the arm” lately with the emergence of the Eterna-Body chain of fitness centers, each equipped with the patented Cryo-Physique Room, which is very much like a sauna, except that instead of exposing living people to heat, it lowers the temperature of dead people to approximately 325 degrees below zero, at which temperature they acquire a firmness of muscle tone that we normally associate only with world-class bodybuilders and certain minerals.

Fitness and Sex

   Q. About a year ago, my husband got on a rigorous fitness program, and he definitely looks much, much better. The problem is, he has taken to viewing our lovemaking as primarily a form of exercise. Like, for example, he wears ankle weights and Heavy Hands, which are no picnic during foreplay. Also, I have a problem with the idea of having my sexual partner, at a very intimate moment, if you get my drift, shout his pulse rate into a tape recorder. Don’t you think he’s carrying this too far?
   A. Absolutely. First of all, the Heavy Hands aren’t doing him nearly as much good as dumbbells would, and second, I see no reason why he can’t simply use a felt-tipped marker to jot his pulse rate down quietly on an exposed patch of your skin.

Fitness and the Third World

   Q. I’m a part of a team of CIA operatives currently operating in a fungal, lice-ridden Central American nation that I, of course, cannot reveal the name of because it’s a secret. Our main mission here is to win over the local peasantry to the cause of Freedom and Democracy via a two-pronged program of (a) teaching them how to make sandwiches, and (b) shooting suspected opposition peasants in the head. What I was wondering was, do you think it would help if we also sponsored Dancercise classes?
   A. Sounds like a winner! There’s nothing that backward peoples enjoy quite so much as dancing, to judge from any number of comical old movies I have seen, wherein the natives are always leaping around and putting Bob Hope in a large iron pot. Be sure your peasants wear an approved style of leg warmer, which the Department of Defense will be able to procure for you at a cost of $63,400 per leg.

Postwar Fitness

   Q. What preparations has the government made to insure that our top federal officials will be able to remain fit in the unfortunate event of a total thermonuclear war?
   A. At the first sign of trouble, these officials will be whisked to a giant underground Strategic Fitness Facility guarded by vicious federal dogs. This facility will be staffed by a corps of female personnel who have been chosen for their knowledge of postnuclear aerobic routines as well as their overall body taughtness. Also there will, of course, be a sauna and several lead-lined racquetball courts, although, as one top government planner put it, “It won’t be a picnic in there. Towels will be at a premium.”

Office Fitness

   Q. I am employed by a large corporation, and I work in an office where my primary responsibility is to discuss “General Hospital” with Helen and Louise. As you can imagine, this does not involve a great deal of physical activity, and I have, quite frankly, developed a rear end which could serve as a bulldozer-flotation device. So I was wondering if you can suggest any kind of fitness program that a person can do at her desk.
   A. Certainly. Each morning, during a quiet period, quietly slip off your shoes, push your chair away from your desk, and engage in five minutes of gentle stretching, followed by five minutes each of toe touches, dressage, the luge, and the 400-meter butterfly. Of course, some of these activities may require minor changes in your office routine, to allow for such things as feeding the horse, but I’m sure your employer will have no objection once you threaten to file a gigantic class-action suit alleging you are being discriminated against on the basis of being pear-shaped.

The Taming Of The Screw

Dave Barry

Introduction
Why You Need This Book
How To Use This Book
Chapter 1. Tools: Why They Want To Injure You, And How To Thwart Them
Special Cautionary Procedure for Those of You Who Choose to Disregard My Advice and Use a Power Saw, You Fools
The three major kinds of tools
How to get a complete home tool set for under four dollars
Chapter 2.Wood: If God Had Wanted Us To Use It, He Wouldn’t Have Made Plastic
Dealing With Lumberyards
The Home Center: An Alternative To The Lumberyard? NO.
Chapter 3. Electricity: You Can Safely Do Your Own Wiring, Most Likely
Your Home Electrical System
How To Change A Fuse
Chapter 4. Plumbing: Troubleshooting Your Plumbing With A Loaded Sidearm
Chapter 5. Walls: Paneling, And Other Common Mistakes
How To Paint A Room
Wallpaper
The easy way to wallpaper a room
Paneling
Paneling Tips
Chapter 6. Heating And Cooling
New-age, chic alternatives to tacky fossil fuels
Wood heat: inefficient, but dangerous
What to Do about a Cold, Drafty Room
Heating your home with solar energy
Air conditioners
Heat pumps
Chapter 7. Insulation And Weather Proofing
Kicking the crutches out from under Old Man Winter
Eight common stupid questions about insulation
Caulking Doors And Windows
Chapter 8. Masonry: At Last, A Practical Use For Maine
How To Build A Wall
An Easy Home Pyramid In Three Steps
Chapter 9. Easy Projects: Getting Off To A Slow Start
Project #1: Two Boards Attached Together
Project #2: A Highly Modular And Portable Total Home Storage System Made From Industrial Refuse
Project #3: Cutting Board/ Platform Bed
Chapter 10. Impossible Projects: How To Build A Hot Tub And A Hotter Computer
Project #1: Easy-To-Build Hot Tub
Project #2: Homemade Computer
Chapter 11. Household Pests: Getting Tough With Toads
Termites
Roaches
Children
Mice
Toads
Chapter 12. The Lawn And Garden: Why All The Plants In Your Garden Hate You, And How To Win Their Respect
Drugs And Your Lawn
Dandelions And Crabgrass
How To Grow All Of Your Food
Tips On Growing Popular Vegetables
Tomatoes
Zucchini
Cashews
Rhubarb
Corn
Chapter 13. Car Repair
Handy Car Maintenance Checklist
How To Change Your Oil
Chapter 14. Redecorate Your House In A Day: And Stick “Aesthetics” Back Where It Belongs, In The Dictionary
Redecorating Your Kitchen In Five Easy-For-Me-To-Say Steps
Chapter 15. Build Your Own House: On Second Thought, Don’t

Dave Barry.
The Taming Of The Screw

   Several million homeowners’ problems sidestepped

Introduction

   Sincere statement of thanks from the author
   I sincerely thank you for purchasing this do-it-yourself book, instead of one of the thousands of other, much better ones. I want to assure you that there is not a single project in this book that I would not have considered doing myself if I hadn’t been so busy writing a do-it-yourself book.

Why You Need This Book

   If you’re like most homeowners, you’re afraid that many repairs around your home are too difficult to tackle. So when your furnace explodes, you call in a so-called professional to fix it. The “professional” arrives in a truck with lettering on the sides and deposits two assistants whose combined IQ’s would still be a two-digit number, and they spend the better part of a week in your basement whacking objects at random with heavy wrenches, after which the “professional” returns and gives you a bill for slightly more money than it would cost you to run a successful campaign for the U.S. Senate.
   And that’s why you’ve decided to start doing things yourself. You figure, “If those bozos can fix my furnace, then so can I. How difficult can it be?”
   Very difficult. In fact, most home projects are impossible, which is why you should do them yourself. There is no point in paying other people to screw things up when you can easily screw them up yourself for far less money. This book can help you.

How To Use This Book

   The best way to use this book is to place it on a coffee table so that your guests can place their drinks on it. Or, if you’d like to attempt a home repair project, you can look up the appropriate chapter. For example, if you want to fix a plumbing problem, you’d look up Chapter 4, “Plumbing.” Or Chapter 8, “Masonry.” It won’t make much difference.

Chapter 1. Tools: Why They Want To Injure You, And How To Thwart Them

   Basically, a tool is an object that enables you to take advantage of the laws of physics and mechanics in such a way that you can seriously injure yourself. Today, people tend to take tools for granted. If you’re ever walking down the street and you notice some people who look particularly smug, the odds are that they are taking tools for granted. If I were you, I’d walk right up and smack them in the face.
   We ought to be very grateful that we have tools. Millions of years ago people did not have them, and home projects were extremely difficult. For example, when a primitive person wanted to put up paneling, he had to drive the little paneling nails into the cave wall with his bare fist, so generally the paneling wound up getting spattered with primitive blood, which isn’t really all that bad when you consider how ugly paneling is to begin with.

Special Cautionary Procedure for Those of You Who Choose to Disregard My Advice and Use a Power Saw, You Fools

   1. With the saw off and all the power in the house off and the power lines completely detached from the house, place the piece of wood you want to cut near the saw.
   2. Leave the room and have the power turned back on. (WARNING: Never attempt to turn on the power yourself! Have one of your children do it.)
   3. Have the power turned back off and peek into the room, wearing industrial goggles. If you see any signs of movement from the saw, fire a few rounds at it from a small-caliber revolver, such as you might use to unclog a toilet (see Chapter 4, “Plumbing”). If you see no signs of movement, have one of your remaining children retrieve the piece of wood.

The three major kinds of tools

   Tools for hitting things to make them loose or to tighten up or jar their many complex, sophisticated electrical parts in such a manner that theyfunction perfectly. These are your hammers, maces, bludgeons, and truncheons. Tools that, if dropped properly, can penetrate yourfoot. Awls. Tools that nobody should ever use because the potential danger is far greater than the value of any project that could possibly result. Power saws, power drills, power staplers, any kind of tool that uses any kind of power more advanced than flashlight batteries.

How to get a complete home tool set for under four dollars

   Go to one of those really cheap discount stores where they sell plastic furniture in colors visible from the planet Neptune and have a food section specializing in cardboard cartons full of Raisinets and malted milk balls manufactured during the Nixon administration. In either the Hardware or Housewares department, you’ll find an item imported from an obscure oriental country and described as “Nine Tools in One,” consisting of a little handle with interchangeable ends representing inscrutable oriental notions of tools that Americans might use around the home. Buy it. This is the kind of tool set professionals use; not only is it inexpensive, but it also has a great safety feature not found in the so-called quality tool sets: The handle will actually break right off if you accidentally hit yourself or anything else, or expose it to direct sunlight.
   WARNING: Do not be misled by advertisements for so-called tool sets allegedly containing large numbers of tools. These are frauds! Oh, sure, you get a lot of tools, but most of them are the same kind! For example, you’ll get 127 wrenches, and the only difference is that one will be maybe an eighth of an inch bigger than another. Big deal.

Chapter 2.Wood: If God Had Wanted Us To Use It, He Wouldn’t Have Made Plastic

   Wood has been the preferred building material for thousands of years, because it is one of the few materials that will rot as well as burn. Basically, there are two kinds of wood: hardwoods such as oak and walnut, which are used by skilled craftsmen to make furniture that you cannot afford; and softwoods such as fir, spruce, and tripe, which are actually members of the crabgrass family and are more suitable to the kinds of projects that an incompetent such as yourself will be doing.

Dealing With Lumberyards

   Lumberyards are dangerous and hostile places, inhabited by suspicious men who wear bib overalls and spit a lot and duck behind piles of boards as soon as they see a homeowner coming. These men have lived in the lumberyard since childhood. It is the only home they know. At night, they just pull sheets of plywood over themselves and go to sleep. They don’t like intruders, especially homeowners such as yourself who are buying wood for some idiot home project, and they will try any crafty ruse to drive you away. For example, all their wood measurements are lies. A so-called two-by-four is not two anythings by four anythings, and so on. There is no way you can possibly know what size of wood you’re getting.
   Another common trick among the lumbermen is to call things by silly names, such as “soffit.” They dream these names up at night while they’re lying under their sheets of plywood, and they use them to make you feel stupid when you try to order your wood.
   YOU: Hi. I’d like two eight-foot two-by-fours, please.
   LUMBERMAN: What are they for?
   YOU: What?
   LUMBERMAN: Are they for joists? Headers? Beams? Rafters? Footers? Sills? Framing? Tenons? Partitions? Templates? Easements? Debentures? Just what is it you want, mister?
   YOU: Uh, well, ah, maybe I better go home and recheck my measurements.

The Home Center: An Alternative To The Lumberyard? NO.

   Several years ago, some smart businessmen had an idea: Why not build a big store where a do-it-yourselfer could get everything he needed at reasonable prices? Then they decided, nah, the hell with it, let’s build a home center. And before long home centers were springing up, like herpes, all over the United States.
   Home centers are designed for the do-it-yourselfer who’s willing to pay higher prices for the convenience of being able to shop for lumber, hardware, and toasters all in one location. Notice I say “shop for,” as opposed to “obtain.” This is the major drawback of home centers: They are always out of everything except artificial Christmas trees. The home center employees have no time to reorder merchandise, because they are too busy applying little price stickers to every object—every board, washer, nail, and screw—in the entire store. Once they’ve applied a round of stickers, they immediately set out to apply a new set, with slightly higher prices, to the same merchandise. This leaves them no time to learn about the products they sell, so it is utterly futile to ask them for help.
   Let’s say a piece of your toilet breaks, so you remove the broken part, take it to the home center, and ask an employee if they carry replacements. The employee, who has never in his life even seen the inside of a toilet, will peer at the broken part in very much the same way that a member of a primitive Amazon jungle tribe would look at an electronic calculator, then say, “We’re expecting a shipment of these sometime around the middle of next week.”
   So the bottom line is that home centers are even worse than lumberyards as a source for lumber. The only really good place to buy lumber is at a store where the lumber has already been cut and attached together in the form of furniture, finished, and put into boxes.