Dave Barry Is from Mars and Venus (3 page)

W
hat do I mean by “Living Smart”? Let’s look at a simple example:

Suppose that two people—call them Person A and Person B—are late for appointments in New York City and need to cross the street. Person A rushes into the street without looking; he is instantly struck by a taxi going 146 miles per hour (this taxi has engine trouble; otherwise it would be going much faster). But Person B—even though he’s in an equally big hurry—pauses on the sidewalk and looks both ways. While doing this, he is severely beaten by muggers.

So we see that the choices we make affect the quality of our lives, and we must always try to make the smartest choice, which in this case would be the one made by Person C, who decided to skip his appointment and remain in his hotel room watching the movie
Laundromat Lust
.

I’ll give you another example of “living smart,” from my own personal life. On a recent Friday night, my son, Rob, and I were in Miami, playing laser tag, a game wherein you skulk around in a darkened maze, wearing a special electronic
vest attached to a laser gun. The object is to shoot your opponent in his vest or gun, thereby scoring valuable points.

I was standing in the dark, with my back pressed against a wall, a few feet from a corner. I knew Rob was around that corner. Quickly, I ran through my options:

Option One:
Run around the corner with my gun held out in front, thereby exposing it to Rob’s laser fire.

Option Two:
Protect my gun by holding it back and running around the corner with my face out in front.

Looking back on what happened, I realize that I should have gone with Option Three. “Find some activity more appropriate for a 49-year-old, such as backgammon.”

Instead I went with Option Two, running around the corner face-first, which turned out to not be such a great idea, because Rob had gone with Option One, running around the corner gun-first.

The result was that my face, specifically my right eye socket, collided violently with Rob’s gun. But at least he didn’t score any valuable points!

After the collision, I lay on the floor for a while, moaning and writhing, but eventually I was able to get back on my feet, and in just a matter of seconds—the recuperative powers of the human body are amazing—I was back down moaning and writhing on the floor again.

“You need to go to the hospital,” said Rob.

“Gnhnong,” I said. “Gnhime gnhowaagh.”

That was me attempting to say, “No, I’m okay.” In fact, I didn’t feel so hot, but in my experience, if you go to a hospital for any reason whatsoever, including to read the gas meter, they give you a tetanus shot.

So my plan was to tough it out. Leaning on Rob, I staggered
out of the laser-tag place onto the sidewalk, where I had an excellent idea: Why not get down on all fours and throw up for a while? So I did. Nobody paid much attention; in Coconut Grove on a Friday night, it’s unusual to see somebody NOT throwing up.

By this point Rob had gotten somebody to call a cab, and he insisted that we go to a hospital. When we got there I attempted to explain to a nurse what had happened; this was difficult because (a) I wasn’t totally coherent, and (b) the nurse had never played laser tag.

“He shot you in the eye with a
laser?”
she said.

“Gnhnong,” I said.

“Have you had a tetanus shot recently?” she said.

“YES!” I said, demonstrating the brain’s amazing recuperative power to lie in an emergency.

They stuck some kind of needle in me anyway (hey, rules are rules). Then various doctors had a look at me, and, after a fair amount of peeking and probing, they determined that I had been hit in the face. They also told me I’d be okay.

And I’m sure I will, although at the moment part of my face is numb, and my right eyeball could pose for the cover of a Stephen King novel. Also I feel sleepy all the time. This made me a little nervous, so I did what medical experts recommend that you do whenever you have a question concerning your health: I called my friend Gene Weingarten, who is a professional newspaper editor and probably the world’s leading hypochondriac.

Gene spent a day researching my symptoms and called back to tell me that, in his opinion, I have a condition known as “somnolence.” “Somnolence” means, in layperson’s terms, that you feel sleepy Gene recommended that I
get a CAT scan, but of course Gene would also recommend a CAT scan for earwax, so I went back to bed.

But forget about my personal medical problems. The point I’m trying to make is that, by considering your options and making the right decisions—”living smart”—you CAN lead a happy, healthy, and financially successful life. And if you do, please buy a bunch of groceries and have them delivered to me, because I really don’t feel like going out.

I
am pleased to report that we finally have a scientific explanation for why everybody in the world is gaining weight. At least I am, and I know it’s not my fault. Granted, I do not have the best dietary habits. Sometimes in a restaurant I will order fried, fatty foods (“Give me a plate of fried, fatty foods, and hurry” are my exact words). But I compensate for this by engaging in a strict exercise regimen of vigorously pounding the bottom of the ketchup bottle for as long as necessary. “No pain, no gain,” that is my motto regarding ketchup.

Nevertheless, I have been gaining weight, and you probably have, too, which is why you’re going to be happy to learn that neither of us is responsible. The universe is responsible. We know this thanks to a scientific insight that was had by alert fourteen-year-old Massachusetts reader Tim Wing. Tim reports that he was browsing through
The Osborne Book of Facts and Lists
when he came across the following fact: Every single day, including federal holidays,
25 tons
of space dust lands on the Earth. This means that every day, the Earth weighs 25 tons more, which means that it contains a larger quantity of gravity, which as you know is the force made up of invisible rays that cause all physical objects in the universe to become more attracted to bathroom scales.

What this means, Tim Wing points out, is that “without gaining an ounce, people all over the world are getting heavier.”

And there is more bad news: At the same time that gravity is increasing, the entire universe is expanding, except for pants. Pants are staying the same size, which means that—and this has been confirmed by extensive scientific tests conducted in my home—a “33-inch waist” pant will barely contain a volume that formerly fit easily into a 31-inch-waist pant. Albert Einstein accurately predicted this phenomenon in 1923 when he formulated his Theory of Pants Relativity, which also states, as a corollary, that as the universe grows older, “It will get harder and harder to find anything good on the radio.”

But our big problem is this gravity buildup, which has already started to pose a grave threat to public safety. I refer here to an incident that occurred recently in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where, according to a September 16
Miami Herald
story that I am not making up, “A loggerhead turtle fell from the sky and hit a man in his white Chevy Nova.”

Seriously, the man was unhurt, and so was the turtle, which, according to the
Herald
story, was apparently dropped by a seagull. But that is exactly my point: Since when do seagulls—one of the most sure-handed species of bird—drop turtles? The obvious answer is:
Since turtles started getting heavier
, along with everything else.

And as space dust continues to land on Earth, the situation will only worsen, with chilling results. According to my calculations, at the current rate of gravity buildup, by the year 2038, an ordinary golf ball will weigh the equivalent, in today’s pounds, of Rush Limbaugh. Even a professional golfer, using graphite clubs, would need dozens of strokes to make such a ball move a single foot. An average round of golf would take four months—nearly
twice
as long as today.

Is that the kind of world we want our children to grow up and develop gum disease in? I think not. This is why we must call upon the scientific community to stop puttering around with global warming and immediately develop a solution to the gravity problem.

(30-second pause)

Well, we see that the scientific community has once again let the human race down, leaving it up to us civilians to deal with the situation. Fortunately, I have come up with a practical answer in the form of a:

Follow my reasoning: The problem is that 25 tons of stuff is landing on the Earth every day, right? So the obvious solution is to put 25 tons worth of stuff into a rocket every day and blast it into space. It couldn’t be simpler!

Perhaps you’re saying: “But, Dave, how are we going to find 25 tons worth of stuff every single day that is so totally useless that we can just send it into space with total confidence that it could never possibly in any way benefit humanity?”

I can answer that question in three simple words: “Fourth Class Mail.” Every day at
least
25 tons of this material is painstakingly mailed all over the United States and thrown away immediately upon receipt. Solid-waste experts estimate that 78 percent of our nation’s landfill capacity is currently occupied by sincere unopened letters from Ed McMahon informing people that they have almost definitely won $14 million. Why not just load this material directly into rockets? And consider this: If we send up MORE than 25 tons a day, the Earth would actually LOSE gravity. I calculate that every human being on the planet would instantly be six ounces lighter if we also sent Ed up there, not that I am necessarily proposing this.