The Green Red Green (8 page)

Be aware that drivers are turned off by little things, such as if your hair is one amorphous blob rather than individual strands, if you’re carrying automatic weapons, if you have steam or liquid coming out of your backpack, if your ankles are shackled, if your chainsaw is running, if your pants are in a nearby tree, if a nearby tree is now in your pants. Again, trust me on this: you’ll wait days for a ride.

You need the sympathy rather than the contempt of drivers, so try to look like you’re temporarily out of luck, rather than permanently out of alternatives. Carrying an empty gas can is good because it implies you have a car somewhere. A shirt and tie suggests that hitchhiking was an unplanned exercise. When drivers approach, shrug your shoulders like “Can you believe this?” They just might.

It’s good to carry a sign that clearly defines your destination. And it should be somewhere on earth. Your sign should be neat, and not written in blood or lipstick. It shouldn’t say “I’m going out west, where I belong,” unless you’re Wilbert Harrison. If you’re going to Las Vegas, have the sign say “Las Vegas,” rather than “Someplace where prostitution is legal.” Otherwise, drivers won’t pick you up because they’ll assume you’re a politician.

Hold your arm straight out like you’re proud of it. And have your thumb pointing up. That’s important. A thumb pointing down can be taken as a comment on a person’s car. If the roadside is narrow, don’t be too proud to pull your arm in as cars go by. Very few thumbs can stand even a low-speed automotive collision.

Generally, hitchhikers who expect people to give them a ride really should stop beating, robbing, and killing those people. I’m sure it’s a case where the few are spoiling it for the many, but until hitchhikers have a formal organization with a clear code of conduct and a meaningful lobbyist in the seat of government, it will continue to be one of the least reliable forms of transportation, just ahead of the Ford Pinto.

I
heard a warning the other day about those Waterpik things people use to blast water between their teeth. The message was not to use the device on my eyes. I had several reactions to that statement. The first one was “Okay, don’t squirt a needle of pressurized water into my eye area. That makes sense.” My second reaction was “Holy cow, they think I’m a moron. They think that if they don’t warn me, I’m going to fire this thing up and try to hose down my retinas.” That insulted me. My third and final reaction was acceptance. Acceptance of the idea that protecting people from themselves is never a bad thing, and usually not unnecessary. Seat belts and airbags and warning buzzers and smoke detectors and railings and padded rooms are all there for a reason. Besides, having someone assume you’re a moron is not a new experience for most married men.

I
’m not exactly sure when I first found out about the bell curve. It was high school, in either physics or math class. It had to do with averaging exam results so that a small number of people at the bottom failed, a small number of people at the top got really high marks, and the bulk of us fell in between, in the big bulge part of the bell curve. In the naiveté of my youth, I thought that was pretty much it for the bell curve. But I’ve aged a lot since then. I’ve been able to apply the bell curve to almost every aspect of my life.

In my job, I’ve learned not to be so bad that I’m at the bottom and get fired, or to be so good that I’m at the top and get blamed. In my personal appearance, I’ve learned to strive for a midpoint between Regis Philbin and Charlie Sheen. The same with my
weight, fitness level, and general behavioural patterns—never good enough for the Nobel Prize, but never bad enough for long-term incarceration.

I believe that true happiness lies at the centre of the bell curve. If you look around your social circle and decide that you’re at the bottom end of the bell curve, then you’d better start bringing in people who are actually worse than you, to improve your own position. That’s what they do in most of the major corporations and political parties.

W
ith luck, we all get old. But you need to be doing things now—while you still have your faculties—that will make your old age as enjoyable as possible. I’m sure you’ll be able to come up with ideas yourselves, but here are a few to get you started:

I
went shopping for some new pants last week. I hadn’t measured my waist in a while, but I knew there’d been growth in that area, because more parts of the chair rub against my sides and back. So I grabbed a few pairs to try on, ranging in size from 40 to 44. Well, holy cow, they were all too big. And I mean way too big. I ended up with a size 34. Size 34! I wore a size 34 when I was in high school. I’m doing fine. I’m in shape.

It just so happens I still have a pair of pants from high school up in the attic, so I went up to try them on. It didn’t go well. I’m not sure if I could have done up the waist or not, since I couldn’t get the pants past the mid-thigh region. Could these pants—these tuxedo pants that haven’t been washed ever and haven’t been to the cleaners since I spilled that Baby Duck at the prom—have shrunk in the attic? No.

I think we all know the horrible truth: they’ve changed the sizes. I don’t have to take a size 42 because a size 34 is a size 42. But not for all pants. Not for young pants like the ones your kids wear. No, these pants I just bought are old-guy-big-butt pants. They size them liberally because guys don’t need another reason not to buy clothes. Especially old guys. With big butts.

I
have personally experienced a long line of British cars. The Morris Minor. The Austin 7. The Vauxhall. The Standard Vanguard. And who can forget the Hillman Minx, no matter how hard they try? These cars have all been various levels of disaster. Although Rolls-Royce and Bentley make arguably the best cars in the world, the rest of the British automotive lineup is
pretty pathetic. If you were grading British cars, there’d be a few A students with rich parents and a lot of dropouts, drop-offs, and drop-aparts.

Most British cars won’t start in North America. It’s too cold or too hot or too dry or too windy or too stressful or too provincial. The British just don’t build cars for our climate. The battery is about the size of a pound of butter, so you have only a few chances to get it going. Most people can’t start their British cars and so don’t show up for work. In Britain, unions are powerful. Is this a coincidence?

That cloud of blue smoke you see billowing out of that tiny British exhaust pipe is burnt oil. In North America, the philosophy is to burn gas and lubricate with oil. In Britain, they burn oil and lubricate with beer. And you can tell by the smell of the blue smoke that oil is not a clean-burning fuel. The problem stems from the looseness of the engine parts. The pistons flop around in the cylinders and the valves flop around in the guides and the oil flops all over everything. Maybe the price of gas is so high that the British have simply given up and switched to oil, or maybe it’s the only way to trace a getaway car when your police officers are unarmed and on bicycles and all named Bobby.

The bodies are tiny. But the windows are normal-sized. From a distance they look like a cartoon of a car; Woody Woodpecker would not look out of place behind the steering wheel. British cars
are small because they’re made for short, narrow roads with quaint hamlets every three miles. Our highways are often three thousand miles long, and most of the drivers have never seen
Hamlet
.

A little Morris Minor winding out at a top-end speed of sixty-three miles an hour with a vapour trail of blue smoke is not going to fare well between a couple of tractor-trailers with pup trailers jammed full of livestock. It’s a tiny car with tiny lights whizzing along on tiny tires. Those tires would look oversized on a lawn mower. Imagine how fast they are spinning on the highway. You could have four flat tires and not even know it till you slow down.

British cars are made with thin sheet metal and virtually no safety features except big windows that you can easily fly out of, hopefully landing in a quaint British haystack. So if you’re driving one of the cars, you are out on the highway in a ball of aluminum foil. If you have an accident, your car will be scrunched up and thrown in the ditch like a chip bag. A British chip bag—oil and vinegar.

The fundamental problem with British cars in North America lies in the difference between the geography and culture of the nations. Britain is about the size of a mall. There’s nowhere to go and all the time in the world to get there. Another factor is that the British are extremely class-conscious. It’s only right and proper and traditional that the lower classes have crappy cars while the aristocracy gets peaches and cream. In North America, we are far more equal and democratic—here everyone gets crap.

The British are fine people and really funny to listen to, but their cars don’t have a chance. This is not their finest hour. It’s time for
them to keep a stiff upper lip and announce to the world that they are finally giving up on their automotive industry—and are going to buy Japanese cars like the rest of us.

I
t’s always a good thing for a father to spend time with his child in some activity or sport, or perhaps in a police chase. Many lifelong memories are created during those special times when Dad and the little one head out for a day at the Museum of Natural History and find themselves hopelessly lost in a discount mall. However, there are a few guidelines that can help you spend a day with your offspring without getting totally off-sprung.

First off, pick an activity that you really like to do. Despite their cute protests, all kids secretly love to go fishing. They just don’t know it. They may insist they want to go to a theme park or a gang war of some kind, but they can do that on their own time, and besides, what do they know? Whatever you decide to do, get an early start—4:30 a.m. is a good target. That way, your son or daughter will want to come home before your relationship starts to deteriorate.

Okay, now it’s important that this also be an educational experience for the child, so make sure there are lots of chances to learn as much as possible. Like how to carry stuff, and how to make a comfortable seat for both of you, and how to run and get things that you ask for throughout the duration of the fun. Children learn by doing. And fetching. And lifting.

After you’ve arrived and one of you has made twenty-seven trips back to the car to get something and you have everything set up and have assembled all your fishing gear and set your lines and made yourselves comfortable and there’s nothing left to do
but enjoy the day, PACK EVERYTHING UP AND GO HOME. This is very important. The only enjoyable part of the outing—i.e., the anticipation—is now over and you have entered the dangerous part of the adventure—i.e., the reality.

The reality never matches the anticipation. After all, what child ever anticipated arguing, fighting, insulting, getting cold, catching nothing, finding out the boat leaks, and sinking in ice cold water? If you don’t have the courage to pack up and go home, you will see the following behaviour pattern develop, and it will be difficult for you to handle.

Remember, children can’t sit still. They start asking annoying questions about the sky. They keep fiddling with the fishing rod. They want to try a sip of whatever is in the flask you keep drinking from. They mention their favourite cartoon show, which they’d be watching if they were home right now. Then your child—the same one who can’t remember to shut the screen door or pick up his or her clothes—will describe in intimate detail all 214 levels of some video game, including what you have to do to get past each level and the maximum number of points you can earn and the highest scores that he and every one of his friends have ever got.

To hold the child’s attention, you serve lunch. Even though it’s 8 a.m. He doesn’t like anything except the cookies, which he accidentally drops in the river. He turns his nose up at the huge baloney/ham/roast beef/peanut butter sandwiches you made. He opens a can of pop all over you and then falls on the sandwiches, knocking them down into the oil-filled bottom of the boat, giving them such a horrible taste that you can hardly keep them down. He starts
crying, and other fishermen move away from the area. You envy the other fishermen. Finally your child settles down, quietly and peacefully, and then suddenly he vomits right into the minnow pail.

The child starts to imply that the adventure is over. He has packed up all his stuff. He asks if he can sit in the car and read maps. You tell him that if he wants to go home, he should just say so. He just says so. You say, “Was that a wolf I saw on the shore?” He stares at the shore for about ten minutes before realizing you were lying. He starts whining about going home. You argue for a few minutes. You put your foot down and he pouts. After two minutes, the pouting is driving you nuts and scaring the fish away. You start to wish there
was
a wolf on the shore. You wind in your line, making a lot of noise and acting really disappointed. You get a nibble. You ignore it.