Fierce Pajamas: An Anthology of Humor Writing from The New Yorker (21 page)

I realized that I had stumbled across the
Social Register
of the information age. We all carry our own select social clubs on our hard drives, and when we send out a mass mailing we can flaunt our splendiferous connections to arouse the envy of friend and foe alike. It’s as if you were walking down the street with your Rolodex taped to your lapel—only better, since having an E-mail friendship with someone suggests that you are trading chatty badinage, not just exchanging stiff missives under a formal letterhead.

So in theory a strategic striver could structure his E-mail address list to reveal the entire trajectory of his career ascent. He could include a few of his early thesis advisers—groton.org, yale.edu, oxford.ac.uk—then a few internship-era mentors—imf.org, whitehouse.gov—and, finally, a few social/professional contacts—say, davosconference.com or trilat.org. When he inflicts this list on his friends’ in-boxes, they will be compelled, like unwilling list archeologists, to retrace his perfect life, triumph by triumph.

My friend with the three-hundred-and-four-name list hadn’t exploited the full potentialities of the genre, so I cast about for other lists and began to analyze them. I learned a lot from these lists. For example, my view of
The Nation
’s columnist Eric Alterman has been transformed by the knowledge that he has just stopped using “Tomseaver” as part of his E-mail address. But, frankly, reading through the address lists of my friends, I found that there were longueurs. Entire passages were filled with names of insignificant people, such as family members I’d never heard of. I came to realize, as Capability Brown must have, that in the making of any beautiful vista pruning is key.

If Aristotle were alive, he would note that there are four types of E-mail lists. There are lists that remind you that the sender went to a better college than you did. There are lists that remind you that he has a better job than you do. There are those that remind you that he has more sex than you do. And, finally, there are those that remind you that he is better than you in every respect: spiritually, professionally, and socially.

I have begun fantasizing about assembling the mother of all E-mail lists, the sort that would be accumulated by a modern Renaissance man. Such a list would be studded with jewels ([email protected], [email protected]). But, more than that, it would suggest a series of high achievements across the full range of human endeavor. It would include whopping hints about mysterious other lives ([email protected], [email protected]). It would reveal intimate connections with the great but socially selective ([email protected], [email protected]). Of course, I wouldn’t want only celebrities on my list; that would be vulgar. I would leave room for talk-show bookers, upper-bracket realtors, Sherpas, airline presidents, night-club publicists, rain-forest tour guides, underprivileged kids, members of the Gotti family, and a rotating contingent of the people I actually know, for whose edification the whole list has been constructed in the first place.

To take advantage of this list, I would need excuses to send out mass mailings as frequently as possible. I would have to change my address a lot (“From now on you can reach me at [email protected] . . .”). I would send out a lot of general queries (“Does anybody know who is handling Ike Berlin’s estate? I’m trying to find a first edition of the complete works of Hérzen . . .”). And I’d send out a few accidental mass mailings by hitting the Reply All button by “mistake” (“Your Holiness, it turns out I can’t make it to Rome Tuesday. Maybe somebody else can bring the beer and soda . . .”).

No longer would I be the ninety-eight-pound cyberweakling that I am now. Alec Baldwin would start sending me dirty jokes in hopes of making it onto my E-mail list. People would actually begin replying to my messages. The fact is, in the new information age, we can now be snobs on a scale never dreamed of by our ancestors. Is this a great time to be alive, or what?

1999

THE
WAR
BETWEEN
MEN
AND
WOMEN

JAMES THURBER

MR. PREBLE GETS RID OF HIS WIFE

M
R.
P
REBLE
was a plump middle-aged lawyer in Scarsdale. He used to kid with his stenographer about running away with him. “Let’s run away together,” he would say, during a pause in dictation. “All righty,” she would say.

One rainy Monday afternoon, Mr. Preble was more serious about it than usual.

“Let’s run away together,” said Mr. Preble.

“All righty,” said his stenographer. Mr. Preble jingled the keys in his pocket and looked out the window.

“My wife would be glad to get rid of me,” he said.

“Would she give you a divorce?” asked the stenographer.

“I don’t suppose so,” he said. The stenographer laughed.

“You’d have to get rid of your wife,” she said.

MR. PREBLE was unusually silent at dinner that night. About half an hour after coffee, he spoke without looking up from his paper.

“Let’s go down in the cellar,” Mr. Preble said to his wife.

“What for?” she said, not looking up from her book.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “We never go down in the cellar any more. The way we used to.”

“We never did go down in the cellar that I remember,” said Mrs. Preble. “I could rest easy the balance of my life if I never went down in the cellar.” Mr. Preble was silent for several minutes.

“Supposing I said it meant a whole lot to me,” began Mr. Preble.

“What’s come over you?” his wife demanded. “It’s cold down there and there is absolutely nothing to do.”

“We could pick up pieces of coal,” said Mr. Preble. “We might get up some kind of a game with pieces of coal.”

“I don’t want to,” said his wife. “Anyway, I’m reading.”

“Listen,” said Mr. Preble, rising and walking up and down. “Why won’t you come down in the cellar? You can read down there, as far as that goes.”

“There isn’t a good enough light down there,” she said, “and anyway, I’m not going to go down in the cellar. You may as well make up your mind to that.”

“Gee whiz!” said Mr. Preble, kicking at the edge of a rug. “Other people’s wives go down in the cellar. Why is it you never want to do anything? I come home worn out from the office and you won’t even go down in the cellar with me. God knows it isn’t very far—it isn’t as if I was asking you to go to the movies or some place.”

“I don’t want to
go
!
” shouted Mrs. Preble. Mr. Preble sat down on the edge of a davenport.

“All right, all
right,
” he said. He picked up the newspaper again. “I wish you’d let me tell you more about it. It’s—kind of a surprise.”

“Will you quit harping on that subject?” asked Mrs. Preble.

“LISTEN,” said Mr. Preble, leaping to his feet. “I might as well tell you the truth instead of beating around the bush. I want to get rid of you so I can marry my stenographer. Is there anything especially wrong about that? People do it every day. Love is something you can’t control—”

“We’ve been all over that,” said Mrs. Preble. “I’m not going to go all over that again.”

“I just wanted you to know how things are,” said Mr. Preble. “But you have to take everything so literally. Good Lord, do you suppose I really wanted to go down in the cellar and make up some silly game with pieces of coal?”

“I never believed that for a minute,” said Mrs. Preble. “I knew all along you wanted to get me down there and bury me.”

“You can say that now—after I told you,” said Mr. Preble. “But it would never have occurred to you if I hadn’t.”

“You didn’t tell me; I got it out of you,” said Mrs. Preble. “Anyway, I’m always two steps ahead of what you’re thinking.”

“You’re never within a mile of what I’m thinking,” said Mr. Preble.

“Is that so? I knew you wanted to bury me the minute you set foot in this house tonight.” Mrs. Preble held him with a glare.

“Now that’s just plain damn exaggeration,” said Mr. Preble, considerably annoyed. “You knew nothing of the sort. As a matter of fact, I never thought of it till just a few minutes ago.”

“It was in the back of your mind,” said Mrs. Preble. “I suppose this filing woman put you up to it.”

“You needn’t get sarcastic,” said Mr. Preble. “I have plenty of people to file without having her file. She doesn’t know anything about this. She isn’t in on it. I was going to tell her you had gone to visit some friends and fell over a cliff. She wants me to get a divorce.”

“That’s a laugh,” said Mrs. Preble. “
That’s
a laugh. You may bury me, but you’ll never get a divorce.”

“She knows that; I told her that,” said Mr. Preble. “I mean—I told her I’d never get a divorce.”

“Oh, you probably told her about burying me, too,” said Mrs. Preble.

“That’s not true,” said Mr. Preble, with dignity. “That’s between you and me. I was never going to tell a soul.”

“You’d blab it to the whole world; don’t tell me,” said Mrs. Preble. “I know you.” Mr. Preble puffed at his cigar.

“I wish you were buried now and it was all over with,” he said.

“Don’t you suppose you would get caught, you crazy thing?” she said. “They always get caught. Why don’t you go to bed? You’re just getting yourself all worked up over nothing.”

“I’m not going to bed,” said Mr. Preble. “I’m going to bury you in the cellar. I’ve got my mind made up to it. I don’t know how I could make it any plainer.”

“Listen,” cried Mrs. Preble, throwing her book down, “will you be satisfied and shut up if I go down in the cellar? Can I have a little peace if I go down in the cellar? Will you let me alone then?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Preble. “But you spoil it by taking that attitude.”

“Sure, sure, I always spoil everything. I stop reading right in the middle of a chapter. I’ll never know how the story comes out—but that’s nothing to you.”

“Did I make you start reading the book?” asked Mr. Preble. He opened the cellar door. “Here, you go first.”

“BRRR,” said Mrs. Preble, starting down the steps. “It’s
cold
down here! You
would
think of this, at this time of year! Any other husband would have buried his wife in the summer.”

“You can’t arrange those things just whenever you want to,” said Mr. Preble. “I didn’t fall in love with this girl till late fall.”

“Anybody else would have fallen in love with her long before that. She’s been around for years. Why is it you always let other men get in ahead of you? Mercy, but it’s dirty down here! What have you got there?”

“I was going to hit you over the head with this shovel,” said Mr. Preble.

“You were, huh?” said Mrs. Preble. “Well, get that out of your mind. Do you want to leave a great big clue right here in the middle of everything where the first detective that comes snooping around will find it? Go out in the street and find some piece of iron or something—something that doesn’t belong to you.”

“Oh, all right,” said Mr. Preble. “But there won’t be any piece of iron in the street. Women always expect to pick up a piece of iron anywhere.”

“If you look in the right place you’ll find it,” said Mrs. Preble. “And don’t be gone long. Don’t you dare stop in at the cigarstore. I’m not going to stand down here in this cold cellar all night and freeze.”

“All right,” said Mr. Preble. “I’ll hurry.”

“And shut that
door
behind you!” she screamed after him. “Where were you born—in a barn?”

1933

JAMES THURBER

A COUPLE OF HAMBURGERS

I
T
had been raining for a long time, a slow, cold rain falling out of iron-colored clouds. They had been driving since morning and they still had a hundred and thirty miles to go. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon. “I’m getting hungry,” she said. He took his eyes off the wet, winding road for a fraction of a second and said, “We’ll stop at a dog-wagon.” She shifted her position irritably. “I wish you wouldn’t call them
dog-
wagons,” she said. He pressed the klaxon button and went around a slow car. “That’s what they are,” he said. “Dog-wagons.” She waited a few seconds. “
Decent
people call them
diners,
” she told him, and added, “Even if you call them diners, I don’t like them.” He speeded up a hill. “They have better stuff than most restaurants,” he said. “Anyway, I want to get home before dark and it takes too long in a restaurant. We can stay our stomachs with a couple of hamburgers.” She lighted a cigarette and he asked her to light one for him. She lighted one deliberately and handed it to him. “I wish you wouldn’t say ‘stay our stomachs,’ ” she said. “You know I hate that. It’s like ‘sticking to your ribs.’ You say that all the time.” He grinned. “Good old American expressions, both of them,” he said. “Like sow belly. Old pioneer term, sow belly.” She sniffed. “My ancestors were pioneers, too. You don’t have to be vulgar just because you were a pioneer.” “Your ancestors never got as far west as mine did,” he said. “The real pioneers travelled on their sow belly and got somewhere.” He laughed loudly at that. She looked out at the wet trees and signs and telephone poles going by. They drove on for several miles without a word; he kept chortling every now and then.

“What’s that funny sound?” she asked, suddenly. It invariably made him angry when she heard a funny sound. “What funny sound?” he demanded. “You’re always hearing funny sounds.” She laughed briefly. “That’s what you said when the bearing burned out,” she reminded him. “You’d never have noticed it if it hadn’t been for me.” “I noticed it, all right,” he said. “Yes,” she said. “When it was too late.” She enjoyed bringing up the subject of the burned-out bearing whenever he got to chortling. “It was too late when
you
noticed it, as far as that goes,” he said. Then, after a pause, “Well, what does it sound like
this
time? All engines make a noise running, you know.” “I know all about that,” she answered. “It sounds like—it sounds like a lot of safety pins being jiggled around in a tumbler.” He snorted. “That’s your imagination. Nothing gets the matter with a car that sounds like a lot of safety pins. I happen to know that.” She tossed away her cigarette. “Oh, sure,” she said. “You always happen to know everything.” They drove on in silence.

“I WANT to stop somewhere and get something to
eat
!
” she said loudly. “All right, all right!” he said. “I been watching for a dog-wagon, haven’t I? There hasn’t been any. I can’t make you a dog-wagon.” The wind blew rain in on her and she put up the window on her side all the way. “I won’t stop at just any old diner,” she said. “I won’t stop unless it’s a cute one.” He looked around at her. “Unless it’s a
what
one?” he shouted. “You know what I mean,” she said. “I mean a decent, clean one where they don’t slosh things at you. I hate to have a lot of milky coffee sloshed at me.” “All right,” he said. “We’ll find a cute one, then. You pick it out. I wouldn’t know. I might find one that was cunning but not cute.” That struck him as funny and he began to chortle again. “Oh, shut up,” she said.

FIVE miles farther along they came to a place called Sam’s Diner. “Here’s one,” he said, slowing down. She looked it over. “I don’t want to stop there,” she said. “I don’t like the ones that have nicknames.” He brought the car to a stop at one side of the road. “Just what’s the matter with the ones that have nicknames?” he asked with edgy, mock interest. “They’re always Greek ones,” she told him. “They’re always Greek ones,” he repeated after her. He set his teeth firmly together and started up again. After a time, “Good old Sam, the Greek,” he said, in a singsong. “Good old Connecticut Sam Beardsley, the Greek.” “You didn’t see his name,” she snapped. “Winthrop, then,” he said. “Old Samuel Cabot Winthrop, the Greek dog-wagon man.” He was getting hungry.

On the outskirts of the next town she said, as he slowed down, “It looks like a factory kind of town.” He knew that she meant she wouldn’t stop there. He drove on through the place. She lighted a cigarette as they pulled out into the open again. He slowed down and lighted a cigarette for himself. “Factory kind of town than
I
am!” he snarled. It was ten miles before they came to another town. “Torrington,” he growled. “Happen to know there’s a dog-wagon here because I stopped in it once with Bob Combs. Damn cute place, too, if you ask me.” “I’m not asking you anything,” she said, coldly. “You think you’re
so
funny. I think I know the one you mean,” she said, after a moment. “It’s right in the town and it sits at an angle from the road. They’re never so good, for some reason.” He glared at her and almost ran up against a curb. “What the hell do you mean ‘sits at an angle from the road’?” he cried. He was very hungry now. “Well, it isn’t silly,” she said, calmly. “I’ve noticed the ones that sit at an angle. They’re cheaper, because they fitted them into funny little pieces of ground. The big ones parallel to the road are the best.” He drove right through Torrington, his lips compressed. “Angle from the
road,
for God’s sake!” he snarled, finally. She was looking out her window.

On the outskirts of the next town there was a diner called The Elite Diner. “This looks—” she began. “I see it, I see it!” he said. “It doesn’t happen to look any cuter to me than any goddam—” She cut him off. “Don’t be such a sorehead, for Lord’s sake,” she said. He pulled up and stopped beside the diner, and turned on her. “Listen,” he said, grittingly, “I’m going to put down a couple of hamburgers in this place even if there isn’t one single inch of chintz or cretonne in the whole—” “Oh, be still,” she said. “You’re just hungry and mean like a child. Eat your old hamburgers, what do I care?” Inside the place they sat down on stools and the counterman walked over to them, wiping up the counter top with a cloth as he did so. “What’ll it be, folks?” he said. “Bad day, ain’t it? Except for ducks.” “I’ll have a couple of—” began the husband, but his wife cut in. “I just want a pack of cigarettes,” she said. He turned around slowly on his stool and stared at her as she put a dime and a nickel in the cigarette machine and ejected a package of Lucky Strikes. He turned to the counterman again. “I want a couple of hamburgers,” he said. “With mustard and lots of onion.
Lots
of onion!” She hated onions. “I’ll wait for you in the car,” she said. He didn’t answer and she went out.