The Green Red Green (15 page)

I
t’s really difficult to reduce gravity. Even in the deepest valley, there is still enough gravity to get a person down and keep him there. So you’re better off getting gravity to work for you.

When you’re climbing a hill, you’re fighting gravity, so don’t try to go fast. Why waste the gas? Just go ten or fifteen miles over the speed limit. But when you come over the crest of the hill and start heading down, that, my friend, is a different story. Lay the coals to her. Put both feet on the accelerator and wind her right out. As long as you can focus with either eye, you’re not going the maximum.

Einstein said that as you approach the speed of light, time will slow down. So if you’re running late, you’ll make up time this way. Einstein also said that when you get moving fast enough, distances shrink. So you can squeeze your car in between two trucks. Unfortunately, Einstein proved that there are problems as you reach the speed of light as well, because you will have infinite mass. Which can cut into the mileage. You’ll probably notice that when you reach around the twelve-hundred-pound mark, you have no neck and your gut starts honking the horn. That’s a good time to ease off on the gas pedal.

And don’t worry about the cops. Radar guns can’t register the speeds you’ll be hitting, and most policemen are hesitant to flag down any vehicle coming toward them at over five hundred miles per hour. Especially if you’ve just dropped the cigarette lighter.

The most important element is common sense. There’s no point in going really, really fast if there are other cars or pedestrians or farm animals in the vicinity. Driving fast can be fun and safe, but not if you do it. Driving fast is for normal people. The fact that you’re reading this book disqualifies you.

I
find that a lot of guys my age have trouble with their stomachs.

What was once a low-priority and relatively maintenance-free part of their anatomy is now looming large, both physically and medically. I think the main problem is that most of us have no knowledge of or respect for how the stomach works. Here’s my take on it: the stomach is where the food is mixed with chemicals that will break it down so the body can burn it. In other words, the stomach is the carburetor of the body. It’s not the fuel injector. It can’t handle high-quantity intake, no matter how big a supercharger your mouth is. And then there’s the quality issue. You can’t run a high-performance engine—that is, the human body—on chili dogs and draft beer.

Once in a while you need to fill up on high test (i.e., roughage), something that will get you up and moving, at least during the halftime show. But the biggest problem with the stomach is that it’s connected to the brain. If your mind is upset, your stomach will be too. To calm it, you must deal with whatever is troubling your mind, rather than assaulting your stomach with deep-fried jalapenos hoping that will do the trick.

I
had an unsettling revelation as I was getting dressed the other day. There was some new underwear in my drawer, still in the package. My wife had bought it for me. It’s something she does once in a while. And I don’t know why, but I tried to think back to the last time I bought my own underwear. It was definitely before I got married. And in the period between high school and my wedding, I just made do with what I had. I didn’t buy any in
high school either. Or in elementary school. And I didn’t buy any before kindergarten, when I was a rookie in the underwear department. And before that, I was in diapers. So the horrible truth hit me: I HAVE NEVER IN MY WHOLE LIFE BOUGHT MY OWN UNDERWEAR!

I don’t know what that means, but I suspect it is somehow at the root of so many other problems in my life. If there is anybody out there in the same situation, perhaps we should get together and form a support group. Of course, if we could provide our own support, none of this would be necessary.

I
’ve spent most of my life at first acknowledging and then foolishly trying to identify the differences between men and women. And I think a big one is in their attitude toward toys.

While both sexes may agree that toys are childish with no redeeming social value, women somehow see that as a bad thing. Or maybe it’s the manufacturers’ fault. They don’t make toys for girls who are past puberty. With men, the process accelerates and the toys get bigger—speedboats, monster trucks, ATVs, radio-controlled cars and planes, bulldozers, nuclear missiles, etc.

Look around at the stores in your city. How many of them carry toys for women? I’m guessing there aren’t any, except maybe Chippendales. That’s just not fair. In fact, it’s sexism at its worst. I say the time has come to give women equal opportunity to be convinced of the value of toys. Then maybe my wife will let me buy that big screen.

W
ith the increasing amount of leisure time available to middle-aged couples over the past few years, we’ve all started to expand our interests and hobbies. Women are quilting and doing needlepoint and painting in acrylics and making dried floral arrangements. Men are doing woodwork and building model airplanes and renovating unused bedrooms and making lawn ornaments. And all this work is creating a real problem.

Unfortunately, very few of us are any good at this stuff. What we end up with is some butt-ugly thing that they make better with a machine in Taiwan for about ninety-nine cents. But if it
was made by your spouse, you can’t throw it in the garbage without starting the Third World War.

Some people give their creations to their friends, but there’s a risk of them returning the favour. So I say that the government needs to set up designated hobby centres in abandoned schools or whatever. We can all go there on a Saturday morning and do our hobby thing—build or sew or paint—and then when we’re finished—and this is the important part—the thing we’ve made is NOT ALLOWED TO LEAVE THE BUILDING … EVER.

I
read about some guy on the Internet who has different ways of determining your true age. I think it’s a formula based on your heart rate and blood pressure and weight and whatever. He himself is over fifty chronologically but is actually only 38.6 on this new measurement system. I think if you go to his website, you must already be at least forty. Young people aren’t concerned about their true age unless they get caught in a bar. But I’ve come up with other ways to measure a person’s true age, with some amazing results.

B
y now, you’ve broken all your New Year’s resolutions and are feeling bad about it. Well, don’t. Just think how much worse off you’d be if you hadn’t dieted for that whole week or quit drinking for that day. So don’t beat yourself up for coming back to the same old you. The medical community will tell you when it’s time for you to change.

T
here is nothing more embarrassing than getting your car stuck in a ditch somewhere. Well, there is one thing more embarrassing, but usually you can count on your wife not to blab. Anyway, I’ve decided to show those of you who don’t have paved driveways how you can make your car less vulnerable to sinkholes, mudslides, avalanches, and quicksand.

To go where angels fear to tread, you need one hell of a tread—a tank tread. That’s right, just turn your car into a tank. To do it, you’re going to need a roll of snow fence, a pair of metal snips, and an axe. This idea is so simple you’ll wonder why you didn’t think of it a long time ago.

The first step is to disconnect the emergency brake from the left side of your vehicle. That’s what the snips are for. If you’re not sure which cable it is, cut them all. Who cares about safety? You’re building a tank.

Now the emergency brake will stop only the right-side wheels. To balance that out, disconnect your regular brake lines from the right side of the car so they stop only the left-side wheels. Just take a wrench and disconnect them at the wheel cylinders. If they’re rusted on, keep kicking until something breaks. (Toes don’t need a cast anyway.)

Now, to give our tank treads room to move freely around the wheels, you have to remove the front half of the front fender and the rear half of the rear fender, which you can do easily with a chainsaw. (Don’t use your own chainsaw.) Once that’s done, you’re ready for your tank tread, which you can buy through an army surplus magazine or make yourself from an old escalator. Or if you’re not made of money, just use a piece of snow fence. It’s twice as wide as you need, so just cut her in half and you’ll have a track for each side of your vehicle.

Mount golf clubs on the roof with duct tape. These will work as guides to keep the treads in line with the wheels. Have the handles attached to the roof so the heads are out to the sides. For long trips use your driver; for short runs the putter is appropriate.

Now you’re ready to roll. Driving the tank couldn’t be easier. When you want to turn left, you step on the brake. When you want to turn right, you pull on the emergency brake. You can go anywhere. From now on, you don’t need a map of where you’re going, just the coordinates.

L
ooking back over the years, I notice how the phrase “getting lucky” has changed its meaning. When I was a little boy, “getting Lucky” meant retrieving my dog from the neighbour’s patio party. After puberty, the phrase took on a whole new definition. The teen years are in fact the golden era of getting lucky. From there, “getting lucky” referred to my first successful job application, then my first mortgage application, then surviving that tax audit, and then avoiding the axe during the company downsizing. Nowadays, “getting lucky” means the medical tests came back negative.

A
lot of guys my age have somewhere they can go to be alone and have peace and think and tinker around or whatever. Sometimes it’s a club or a bowling alley or a bar. More often it’s a place in their own home, such as a basement workshop or a
garden shed. But usually, it’s the garage. A guy’ll have an old couch and a TV and a beer fridge in his garage. It’s a place that’s all his. A place where he can do and say whatever he wants, and more important, eat and drink whatever he wants. And if there’s a lawn mower lying there in fifty or sixty pieces with no hope of ever being reassembled … well, that’s nobody’s business.

Compared to the intimidating environment of the house itself, with the designer furniture and the fancy drapes and the expensive carpets, the garage is pure comfort and relaxation. You can sit anywhere in dirty clothes and put your feet up. You are the master of your environment, instead of vice versa. So to the rest of the family: don’t worry about Dad spending time out there in the garage. You know where he is. You know there’s only so much trouble he can get into. He’s there if you need him. And he will eventually come back into the house a much happier man.

I
often hear about guys who worked all their lives to save up for their retirement, and then when they do finally get the golden handshake, they keel over in the first year. The most common theory is that men have a problem adjusting to suddenly having nothing to do, and that the secret to a successful retirement is to keep busy, maintaining an active schedule and having real responsibilities.

I don’t agree. That sounds to me like you’re supposed to solve the problem by making retirement more like work. I prefer to go the other way, making work more like retirement.