Dave Barry Is from Mars and Venus (17 page)

Yes, it would. But right now you have other important medical things to worry about, such as:

We have here a news item from the
Denver Post
, written by Jim Kirksey and sent in by many alert readers, concerning a man who arrived at a hospital “with a device in his sinus cavity that potentially had the explosive force of five powerful M-80 firecrackers.” The device was a trigger used to deploy automobile air bags; the man worked at a factory that manufactures the triggers, and an explosion had caused one of them to become—in the words of a surgeon—“lodged into his nose.”

Fortunately, the device was safely removed, but the doctors were very nervous that it might go off during the surgery. Here at the Bureau of Medical Alarm we are wondering: Why doesn’t the federal government require auto manufacturers to warn us that air bags contain devices that could be deadly if we get them up our noses? This is especially critical if we have very young children, who can get ANYTHING up their noses. Very young children can get things up their noses that are larger than their BODIES. We think the government should require that the following statement be printed on automobile steering wheels:

On a related medical note, we received a letter from Gail White, who works at a large hospital that shall remain nameless, and who relates the following incident:

“A man appeared at the emergency room with his hands over his face, demanding to see a MALE doctor, and to see him ALONE. A doctor (dreading to see some horrible disfigurement) complied with his wishes. When the man removed his hands, he was revealed to have a brassiere caught in his nose by the hooks.”

No, we do not know how the brassiere got caught there. Nor do we know how many men are, right now, suffering from Brassiere Nose, but are too embarrassed to seek medical treatment. Our best guess is: thousands. If you are one of these unfortunate people, we urge you to seek medical help; your doctor can tell you about a revolutionary new procedure to correct this condition. Tell him you definitely want the moth.

P
eople often ask me how America became the world’s greatest economic power, as measured in Remote Control Units Per Household (RCUPH).

My answer is: “Inventions.”

Americans have always been great inventors. To cite one historic example: Back in 1879, a young man named Thomas Alva Edison was trying to develop a new light source. One day he was messing around in his laboratory with some filaments when suddenly a thought struck him: The letters in “Thomas Alva Edison” could be rearranged to spell “Do Have Salami Snot.” This made him so depressed that he invented the phonograph, so he could listen to B.B. King records.

A more recent example of American inventiveness is “Buffalo-style” chicken wings. For many years, nobody ate chicken wings, and for a good reason: They are inedible. They are essentially meat-free bones. You might as well chew on a plate of toenails. But one day a shrewd restaurant owner came up with the idea of serving the wings “Buffalo-style,” which means “to people who have been drinking beer.” It is a known fact that beer-drinkers will eat pretty much anything: Exhibit A is “Slim Jims.” You could put a
dish of salted mothballs in front of beer-drinkers, and they would snork them up. So chicken wings were an instant hit.

Today, “Buffalo-style” chicken wings are served in restaurants all over the nation: The waitperson brings out a plate of bones, the customers gnaw on them for a while, and then the waitperson takes them back to the kitchen, where they’re run through the dishwasher and placed on a plate for the next set of customers to gnaw on. A restaurant can sell the same set of “Buffalo-style” wings hundreds of times; this provides a big boost to the economy, and it is easier on the chickens.

And speaking of modern inventions, let’s talk about the incredible convenience of cellular phones, especially for motorists. Years ago, when you were driving, you wasted your time on such nonproductive activities as listening to the radio, steering, etc. But now, using your cellular phone, you can engage in productive conversations (“Hello, Ted? Can you hear me? Hello? Ted? Can you… Hello? Ted? Can … Hello?”). As a safety bonus, you can also use your cellular phone to call for an ambulance after you rear-end somebody (“Hello? 911? Can you hear … Hello?”).

The exciting thing is, at this very moment, Americans are thinking up inventions that could improve our lifestyles
even more
. For example, a while back I received a letter from a research scientist (unfortunately, I lost the letter, so I can’t give you his name) who told me that he and some other research scientists were working on developing a system for—I believe this is how he worded it—”transmitting frozen margaritas over ordinary telephone lines.” I speak for Americans everywhere when I say: Let’s track these scientists down and give them a large federal grant.

I received another letter, which I managed not to lose,
from alert reader Dick Demers, who told me about some inventions that he and his friends had conceived of. For example, his friend James Cathey thought up the long-overdue idea of a “briefcase aquarium.” I assume this would be an aquarium that had a handle so you could carry it around with you; thus, if you were stuck in, for example, a company meeting wherein your boss was droning away about improving product quality, you could pass the time productively by watching your fish swim around and poop.

Another one of Demers’s friends, Richard Jeanne, had a fine idea for improving the quality of motoring experience. You know those irritating drivers who leave their turn signals blinking, sometimes all the way from New York to Cleveland, slowly driving you insane? This irritation would be eliminated by Jeanne’s idea for a new, improved turn signal: “After 15 seconds, the car will automatically turn in the direction indicated by the signal.” Wouldn’t that be great? It would remove at least 200,000 drivers from the road in Miami alone. Speaking of irritations: Have you noticed that more people seem to be paying for everything—EVERYTHING—with credit cards? Last winter I waited in a long ticket line outside a movie theater near Detroit on a bitterly cold night for what seemed like hours because many people were charging their $3.50 movie tickets. Each of these purchases had to be approved by a central computer; meanwhile, the movie was starting, and people in the ticket line were keeling over from frostbite and being dragged off into the parking lot by wolves. I have invented a way to prevent this kind of thing: For credit-card purchases under $20, the central computer would add an Annoyance Charge, which would be based on the number of people waiting in
line, air temperature, and other factors. (“Okay, that’s two tickets to
Flipper;
with your senior-citizen discount and your Annoyance Charge, it comes to $237,000.”)

I’ll bet you have some good invention ideas, too, and I’d love to hear what they are. But please mail them in; we cannot accept phone calls. We’re keeping the line open for margaritas.

I
don’t know about you, but I’ve always taken comfort in the idea that insects are stupid. For example, if I’m outdoors and a bee lands on me and starts walking around on my head—causing me to turn rigid with fear, terrified that, if I move, the bee will become angry and sting me in the eyeball—I’ve always reassured myself by thinking: “This bee does not wish to harm me! Its tiny brain is confused! It thinks I am a flower!”

But now I have received, from alert reader Greg Stevens, a news item by the Reuters (pronounced “Associated Press”) news service concerning an experiment, conducted by bee scientists at the Free University of Berlin, suggesting that bees are not so dumb after all.

The article states that these scientists, whose names are “Lars” and “Karl,” set up various landmarks between a beehive and a bee feeder. After the bees had located the feeder, Lars and Karl started changing the locations of the feeder and landmarks. The surprising result: Lars and Karl were both killed by eyeball stings.

No, seriously, they discovered that the bees were locating the feeder by
counting the landmarks
. Yes! Bees can count! This means that bees, in terms of math skills, are ahead of most American high school graduates. It also means that, contrary to my earlier belief, when a bee is walking around on my head, it knows exactly where it is and what it’s doing. It’s thinking: “Ha ha! He thinks I’m looking for a flower, when in fact I am here for the express written purpose of watching him turn rigid with terror while I poop in his hair! I can’t wait to get back to the hive and tell everybody the landmark coordinates for THIS bozo!”

The German discovery makes you wonder what ELSE bees have been hiding from us. For example: I have always wondered how they
really
obtain honey. I do not believe that they make it themselves. What would they use for utensils? I’ve never made honey, but I have made fudge, which belongs to the same chemical family (technically, the “Family of Things You Can Put on Ice Cream”), and I know for a fact that you need, at minimum, a stove and a candy thermometer. My guess is, if you were to poke around in the bushes near a beehive, you’d find piles of empty plastic squeeze bottles shaped like little bears.

But here’s what really concerns me: If bees can count, the logical assumption is that they can also read. Therefore, I wish to make a sincere announcement to any bees walking around on this newspaper: I DID NOT BLOW UP THE HIVE NEAR EVAN THOMPSON’S HOUSE IN ARMONK, NEW YORK, IN 1961. I WAS PRESENT, BUT IT WAS EVAN WHO LIT THE CHERRY BOMB. PLEASE DO NOT HURT ME. IT IS VERY FUNNY WHEN YOU POOP IN MY HAIR. HA HA! I BELIEVE EVAN STILL LIVES IN THE NEW YORK METROPOLITAN AREA. THANK YOU.