Dave Barry Is Not Taking This Sitting Down (14 page)
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Authors: Dave Barry
NEWS ANNOUNCER:
Good evening. Our top story tonight is Tropical Depression Vinny, which is shaping up to be the most deadly potential natural disaster ever to strike this nation since last week when Tropical Depression Ursula came within just 1,745 miles of American soil before veering off and inflicting an estimated $143 worth of damage on the Azores. For more on Vinny, let’s go straight to the FearPlex WeatherCenter, where meteorologist Dirk Doppler, in anticipation of a long night of escalating tension, has already applied 75 cubic feet of Rave Extra Hold hair spray.
METEOROLOGIST:
Thank you, Bill. As we can see from this satellite photograph taken from space, right now Vinny is located at a latitude of 36.8 degrees centigrade and is projected to follow a path that, according to our computer model, could potentially take it directly to any of the 13 original colonies as well as Florida, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Canada, and western Europe. We are urging everybody within the potentially affected area to become extremely nervous, because this thing potentially has the potential to become a Category Seven storm, which means a storm capable of yanking the udder right off a standing cow.
ANNOUNCER:
What is your best guess at this point, Dirk?
METEOROLOGIST:
Without creating undue alarm, Bill, I would say there is no hope for human survival on this planet.
ANNOUNCER:
Thank you, Dirk. We go now to reporter Crystal Baroque, who has been standing by at the Homeowner Hell megastore. Crystal?
REPORTER:
Bill, as usual with storms of this potential, there are long lines of people waiting to buy plywood. Sir, how long have you been here?
CUSTOMER:
I’ve been waiting 17 hours, but it’s worth it, to get plywood. Whenever there’s a storm, I hear these voices telling me, “Irving! Go get plywood!” And I don’t even have a home! I just have a big pile of plywood.
REPORTER:
I see.
CUSTOMER:
Also, my name isn’t “Irving.”
REPORTER:
Back to you, Bill.
ANNOUNCER:
In another important tradition, the supermarkets are jammed with panicked consumers buying bottled water, as you see in this videotape that we have shown during every potential storm since 1973. Now let’s go back to the FearPlex WeatherCenter for an update from meteorologist Dirk Doppler.
METEOROLOGIST:
Bill, as you can see from this satellite photograph, Tropical Depression Vinny has not moved at all, which means we are now expanding the potential disaster area to include mainland China. The satellite is also reporting the entire planet Earth is surrounded by a cold, airless void extending for trillions of miles in all directions. It looks very bad, Bill.
ANNOUNCER:
We now go to the National Hurricane Center, where we’ll be speaking with the director, Harmon Wankel, who has been sitting in the same chair for 68 straight hours without food or sleep, staring into bright lights while being relentlessly interviewed by TV news people about this potential storm. Harmon, what’s the latest word?
HURRICANE CENTER DIRECTOR:
I hope you all die.
ANNOUNCER:
Thank you. Now we’re going to go to the White House, where we understand President Clinton is about to make an emergency statement.
THE PRESIDENT:
As you can tell by my big, sad moony face, my heart goes out to all of those who have the potential of being devastated by this potentially devastating storm. I have ordered the mandatory evacuation of North and South America, to be enforced by strafing, and I have personally instructed Vice President Gore to get into a helicopter and fly around until everybody in his entourage is airsick. I am also hereby offering clemency to every convicted felon in New York State. Let us all bite our lips and pray that this terrible potential disaster proceeds directly to the home of Kenneth Starr.
ANNOUNCER:
Let’s go back to the FearPlex WeatherCenter, where Dirk Doppler has an Urgent News Bulletin on Tropical Depression Vinny.
METEOROLOGIST:
Bill, according to our latest satellite images, Vinny is
gone!
It was right here, and now, pffft, there’s no sign of it!
ANNOUNCER:
Does this mean we can stop panicking?
METEOROLOGIST:
Of course not. Vinny could be
anywhere
. It could be
in your house
. Everybody should get under the bed NOW. Also we need to start worrying about potentially lethal Tropical Breeze Xera, which is forming over here. See it?
ANNOUNCER:
No.
METEOROLOGIST:
YES YOU DO! IT’S RIGHT THERE! YOU’VE GOT TO BELIEVE ME!
ANNOUNCER:
We go now to Dan Rather, courageously standing on a beach, wearing a slicker.
I
’m wondering if any of you readers out there have noticed any suspicious behavior on the part of frogs. I ask because the ones at my house are definitely up to something.
I live in South Florida, which has a hot, moist, armpit-like climate that is very favorable for life in general. Everything down here is either already alive, or about to be. You could leave your toaster out on your lawn overnight, and by morning it would have developed legs, a tail, a mouth, tentacles, etc., and it would be prowling around looking for slower, weaker appliances to prey on.
So I am used to wildlife. I am used to the fact that, as I walk from my car to the front door—striding briskly to prevent fungus from growing on my body—I will routinely pass lizards, snakes, spiders, snails, and mutant prehistoric grasshoppers large enough for the Lone Ranger to saddle up and ride into the sunset on (“Hi-yo, Silver, AWAYYYEEEIIKES!”).
My yard has also always had plenty of frogs. Until recently, these were plump, nonaggressive frogs who just sat there, looking pensively off into the distance, thinking frog thoughts. (“How am I supposed to reproduce? I appear to lack organs!”)
But lately my yard has become infested with a whole new brand of frogs—smaller, quicker, junior-welterweight frogs that are extremely jittery, as though they spent their tadpole phase swimming around in
really strong espresso. And for some reason these frogs desperately want to
get inside my house
. They hide in crannies on my front stoop, waiting, and when I open the front door, suddenly HOP HOP HOP HOP HOP, the stoop turns into the Oklahoma Land Rush, except that instead of hardy pioneers racing to claim homesteads, there are hordes of small, caffeine-crazed frogs bounding into my living room, moving far too fast for the human foot to stomp on.
The eerie thing is, within seconds, the invading frogs have
all disappeared
. Some go under the sofa, but many seem to simply vanish. I think maybe they’ve developed some kind of camouflage, so they can blend into the living-room environment by taking on the appearance of a carpet stain or (if they are really organized) a piano.
All I know is, the frogs go into my house, and they do not come out, which means that there are now, by conservative estimate, thousands of frogs hiding somewhere in my living room. This makes me nervous. I’m wondering if maybe it could be a plague.
I say this because my wife is Jewish, and each year her family comes to our house to celebrate Passover with a traditional Seder feast. I am not Jewish, but I always join in, on the theory that you should embrace as many religions as possible, because you never know. You could die and find yourself in an afterlife facing the eternal judgment of, for example, L. Ron Hubbard. So I participate in the Seder; in fact, at our house I always make the traditional matzoh balls, using an ancient Presbyterian recipe. (The matzoh balls symbolize the Old Testament story about how the Israelites, after following Moses all over the desert, finally came to a place where there was chicken soup.)
Anyway, there’s this one point in the Seder ceremony when we all dip our fingers into our glasses of ancient, traditional Manischewitz wine, and then we drop 10 wine droplets onto our plates while we say, out loud, the names of the Ten Plagues of Egypt, which are: blood, darkness, blight, slaying of the firstborn, wild beasts, lice, boils, locusts, hail, and—you guessed it—Leonardo DiCaprio.
No, seriously, one of the plagues is frogs. So I’m thinking that
maybe, during the most recent Seder, when we were saying the plague names, we failed to make adequate wine droplets for the frogs. My concern is that this might have violated some clause in the Old Testament, such as the Book of Effusions, Chapter Four, Verse Seven, Line Six, which states: “And yea thou shalt BE sureth to maketh a GOOD frog droplet, for if thou shalt NOT, forsooth thou SHALT getteth a BIG plague of frogs, and they SHALT be of the JUNIOR-welterweight division, and they WILL hideth UNDER thine sofa.”
Or maybe there’s some other cause. Maybe it’s a Y2K issue, and these are noncompliant frogs. Whatever it is, I don’t like it. I don’t like sitting in my living room at night, watching the TV, knowing that all around me, hidden in the dark, thousands of beady little eyes are also watching the TV … and maybe waiting for some secret signal. Perhaps you think I am crazy. Fine. Then perhaps you can explain to me why, when the frogs croak in the Budweiser commercial, my piano croaks back.
I
finally finished the script for the sequel to the movie
Titanic
. I am calling it—and let the legal record show that I thought of this first—
Titanic II: The Sequel
.
I am darned proud of this script. I have been working on it, without sleeping or eating, except for two grilled-cheese sandwiches, for the better part of the last 35 minutes. I realize that sounds like a lot of work, but bear in mind that writer/director James Cameron spent nearly twice that long on the script for the original movie, which was entitled
Titanic I, the Original Movie
.
As you know,
Titanic I
garnered a record 56 Academy Awards, including Best Major Motion Picture Lasting Longer Than Both O.J. Trials Combined; Most Total Water; Most Realistic Scene of Bodies Falling Off The End of a Sinking Ship and Landing on Big Ship Parts With a Dull Clonking Sound; and Most Academy Awards Garnered. The movie has made a huge star out of Leonardo DiCaprio, who has shown the world that he is not just a pretty face; he is a pretty face who, if he had been in my high school, would have spent a lot of time being held upside down over the toilet by larger boys.
The phenomenal success of
Titanic I
has also served as an elegant rebuttal to the critics of writer/director Cameron, although this has not prevented him from going around Hollywood physically hitting these critics on the head with his Oscar statuette. Cameron was
especially angry at
Los Angeles Times
film critic Kenneth Turan, who said Cameron’s writing was trite and devoid of subtlety; this prompted Cameron to take out a full-page newspaper ad saying, quote, “Bite me.”
I certainly don’t want to take sides in this issue, other than to say that James Cameron is easily the most talented human being in world history including Michelangelo and Shakespeare and all four Beatles combined. I say this out of a sincere desire to have Mr. Cameron pay a hefty sum for my script for
Titanic II: The Sequel
. Here it is:
(The movie opens with the Titanic II, getting ready to sail. As the ship’s horn blasts a mighty departure toot, up runs spunky young Jack Dawson, played by Leonardo DiCaprio. There is seaweed on him.)
JACK:
Whew! I just made it!
ROSE:
Jack! I thought you had drowned! To death!
JACK:
No! Fortunately, the bitter North Atlantic cold was unable to penetrate my protective layer of hair gel! Who are you?
ROSE:
I’m Rose! Remember? You gave your life for me in
Titanic I
.
JACK:
But Rose was played by Kate Winslet!
ROSE:
She didn’t want to be in another movie with you, because your cheekbones are so much higher! So the part went to me, Demi Moore!
JACK:
Whatever.
(The scene shifts to the ship’s bridge.)
CAPTAIN:
Ahoy First Mate! Commence starboard computer animation! Full speed ahead!
FIRST MATE:
Sir! We’re getting reports of gigantic icebergs directly ahead! Shouldn’t we go slow?
CAPTAIN:
Don’t be silly! What are the chances that we’re going to hit
another …
(There is a loud crunching sound. Big pieces of ice come through the window, along with several penguins.)
CAPTAIN:
Dang!
FIRST MATE:
Sir! The computerized sinking animation has commenced!
(The scene shifts to the Poop Deck, where the water is rising fast. Jack and Rose are helping women and children into a lifeboat, when an evil villain appears with a gun.)
VILLAIN:
Out of the way! I’m taking this lifeboat all for myself!
JACK:
It’s Kenneth Turan, film critic for the
Los Angeles Times
!
TURAN:
That’s right, and I shall stop at nothing to get off this ship, because the dialogue is terrible!
JACK:
Is not!
TURAN:
Is too!
(They commence fighting.)
THE LATE BURGESS MEREDITH:
You can do it, Rock! Watch out for the jab!
JACK:
Hey! You’re in the wrong sequel!
MEREDITH:
Sorry!
(This distraction enables Turan, by cheating, to gain the upper hand.)
TURAN:
I have gained the upper hand! Whatever that expression means! And now, pretty boy, I’m going to … OHMIGOD! NOOO!
(Turan is torn into raisin-sized pieces by an irate horde of young female Leonardo DiCaprio fans.)
JACK:
Whew! That was close! Uh-oh! The ship is almost done sinking!
ROSE:
This is it! I hope I don’t end up as an old bag in this movie!
(As the two lovers start to slip beneath the icy cold computerized waves, they embrace. There is a cracking sound.)
JACK:
You broke my ribs!
ROSE:
Sorry! I have tremendous upper-body strength since starring in
G.I. Jane!
JACK:
Don’t worry! As long as my cheekbones are OK!
(The water slowly closes over them. In the distance, we hear two crew members on a lifeboat, looking for survivors.)
FIRST CREW MEMBER:
What’s that sound coming from over there?
SECOND CREW MEMBER:
It sounds like … Oh my God! It’s Celine Dion!
FIRST CREW MEMBER:
Let’s get out of here!
(THE END)
