Fierce Pajamas: An Anthology of Humor Writing from The New Yorker (57 page)

The truth about me is finally starting to emerge. For instance, there is no record of me ever attacking a human, unless he was much, much smaller than me. The old myths are starting to die off, such as the one that if you leave your campsite unattended, I will sneak in and steal beer and food from your cooler and maybe knock down your tent.

The time to act is now. I am not getting any younger, and my rent here in New York could go up at any time. Also I could be wiped out by the stock market.

I have been conducting a captive-breeding program with my wife, but so far it has yielded no offspring. (The reason, I found out, is that my wife uses contraceptives, which I guess I knew.)

All of these factors make it imperative that you write the government and tell them to reintroduce me, via first-class airfare, to my old habitat. With a generous per diem and a late-model car, I think I could once again fill my old niche. I would probably try to mate with females of my species, unless my wife found out. And I would be willing to keep a journal of what I eat and what TV shows I watch, so that more may be learned about my ways.

I will, if necessary, wear a radio collar.

I am willing to do these things because I believe that until people can sit around a desert campfire and go “Shhh, hear that?” and then listen for the plaintive howl of me, we as a society have lost something.

1999

JACK HANDEY

THANK YOU FOR STOPPING

T
HANK
you for stopping. You have obviously found me unconscious by the side of the road, or at a party, or possibly propped up against a wall someplace, and you have wisely reached into my pocket and found this medical advisory.

If you found other things in my pockets, kindly do not read or keep them. They are none of your business and/or do not belong to you. And remember that, even though I am unconscious now, when I wake up I will remember the things I had.

If I am wearing a tie, please loosen it. But, again, do not take it off and keep it. It is not yours and is probably more expensive than you can afford. If I am not wearing a tie, look around at the other people who have gathered to look at me and see if any of them is wearing a tie that might belong to me. If so, please approach that individual and ask for my tie back. If he says it is his, say you do not think so. If he insists, give him one of the cards (in the same pocket where you found this note) of my attorney, and tell the person he will be hearing from him soon.

Keep me warm. Take off your coat and put it around me. Do not worry, you will get it back. If you do not, within thirty days contact the attorney on the card, and he will advise you.

If you must, build a fire to keep me warm. But—and this is very important
—DO NOT ROAST ME OVER THE FIRE.
I say this because many people who stop to help others are not that smart, and are capable of doing such a thing.

There are some pills in one of my pockets. Take them and hold on to them. If any authorities ask you about them, say they are yours.

If I am outdoors under a hot sun, do not allow children near me with a magnifying glass. Even if they are on leashes, do not allow monkeys near me. Do not allow others to make fun of me, poke me with sticks, or, if an anthill is nearby, pour honey on me. Do not allow onlookers to pose with me for “funny” photos. Failure to stop any of these things may be construed as participation in them, and may subject you to severe legal remedies.

Try to keep me calm. If you are not a physically attractive person, try not to let yourself be the first thing I see when I wake up.

Call an ambulance. I guess that would be obvious to most people, but you never know.

If I am on fire, put me out. If you put me out by rolling me on the ground, do not let me roll down a hill. If I do roll down a hill and get stuck under some bushes, just leave me there; you’ve given me enough “help” already.

If I suddenly begin to sweat profusely and my entire body begins to shimmy violently, do not worry; that is normal.

If I am bleeding, how’d that happen? What did you do now?

Even though I am unconscious, do not dangle things over me. I do not like that.

Answer my cell phone if it rings. If it is a woman named Peggy, pretend to be me and say you are breaking up with her.

If I have wet my pants, get a glass of water and act like you tripped and spilled it on my pants.

If I appear near death, do not call a priest. And do not call a rabbi and a minister, and have them all go into a bar and do something funny, because I don’t want my life to end up as one big joke.

Get a better job. If you have time to stop for unconscious people, you are obviously not working at full capacity.

Thank you again for stopping. Now, please, stand back and give me some air.

1999

CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY

HOMEWORK: A PARENT’S GUIDE

M
ID-YEAR
Parent-Teacher Conferences:
Explain to child’s teachers that you and your spouse declined all social invitations during the previous semester, including a state dinner at the White House, owing to amount of child’s homework. Effect may be enhanced by blubbering, twitching, fidgeting with metal balls, etc. Suppress impulse to perform act of aggravated violence on fellow-parent who counters that his child is insufficiently “challenged” by current homework load. (Note: Recent juries have demonstrated marked reluctance to convict in such cases.)

•
The Appeal:
In event teacher does not appear to care that you are staying up until eleven-thirty every night to help child with report on Gross Domestic Product of Guatemala, you may discuss your “issues” (previously called “rage”) with the school principal. This will result in an expression of sympathy, and an increase in the workload to 12:30
A.M.
In extremis, drop hint to school principal that you are contemplating “significant” gesture to principal’s “discretionary fund” (code for principal’s summer “cottage”), but that you lack the proper time in the evening to “judiciously” oversee liquidation of the relevant equities, bonds, real-estate properties, etc.

•
Math:
Parents will find that the current “new” math bears no resemblance to the one of their own day, or, indeed, to any math. Ptolemy and Euclid would not recognize it. The multiplication table, for instance, has been replaced by a system whereby the digits of the right hand are interlaced with the toes of the left while the child hops backward in three-two time. (Chicago Math.) Variants include the Milwaukee Math, in which whole numbers (that is, numbers not followed by dots and more numbers) are expressed by binary burping, and the San Francisco Math, which employs Grape-Nuts and an algorithm based on the number of people currently leaping off the Golden Gate Bridge each month. These advances have rendered the normally capable parent incapable of calculating how many apples Jerome will be left with if he gives half to Mary, eats two and deposits the remaining number in an offshore account in the Cayman Islands. Fathers today find it increasingly useful to advise, “Go ask Mom; she really knows this stuff.” (Note: You will be expected to be conversant with the metric system. Useful tips: One metre is “a squidge” more than the traditional yard. A hundred millimetres equals an extra-length cigarette, while a “litre” bottle of expensive French fizzy water is “more or less” one quart.)

•
The Phone Call:
Each night just as dinner is on the table, child will announce that he must telephone Georgia or Joseph to get the assignment for tomorrow, despite your tantrums of the previous four evenings over the absolute necessity of writing down the assignment in class. As a rule, Georgia or Joseph’s phone will be busy for not less than one and a quarter hours, prompting rancorous parental running commentary. (Warning: Late-night calls to the teacher to find out the assignment are generally considered unwise, as the parent is by now in a state of acute emotional derangement and is therefore apt to “download” on the subject of homework. This will result in an increase in the daily load to 1:30
A.M.
)

•
The Knapsack:
The current fashion is for child to carry a knapsack weighing no less than 3.2 times body weight (gross tonnage). This includes such items as are deemed essential by today’s students, such as a hundredweight of Pokémon cards, hair scrunchies mixed with jelly beans, spare limbs from Barbie dolls, rotting fruit matter from the previous term, and extra ammunition clips. Net tonnage is the amount—expressed in long tons—of materials directly related to education, such as books, binders, and a minimum of three dozen mechanical pencils not containing leads. Care should be exercised while assisting child with harnessing of knapsack so as to avoid slipped disks and rotator-cuff injuries necessitating surgery. Nightly commencement of homework process (see tab A: “Getting To ‘Okay,
Okay
’ ”) will involve ten minutes of rummaging in knapsack for “the” pen, despite parental proffer of any number of alternative pens. Length of time necessary to locate pen generally corresponds to time remaining in current episode of “Dawson’s Creek.”

•
The Science Project:
No phrase strikes more terror into the heart of a parent today than “Science Project.” Notwithstanding, a few weeks into the start of term your spouse will cheerfully announce to you—in child’s presence, so as to preclude any protest on your part—the “wonderful” news that your child has selected you, specifically, to be his “partner” in the aforementioned exercise. (Refrain from stabbing spouse with fork under the table; there will be plenty of time in which to express your rage, betrayal, and other emotions.) You are now expected to devote all your “free” time over the next six weeks to devising a miniature version of the particle accelerator at
CERN,
in Switzerland, a home video explaining string theory using cooked spaghetti, or erecting a model of the human genome using 3.4 trillion Styrofoam balls (available at Wal-Mart). Unfortunately, the days are past when science projects could without embarrassment consist of store-bought ant farms (minus ants); hastily drawn cardboard charts showing how fast ice melts when immersed in a mixture of five parts gin, one part vermouth; a model of Sputnik using a Ping-Pong ball and two toothpicks; or a malodorous dish of dead tadpoles proving scientifically once and for all that amphibians cannot be left indefinitely on a hot radiator. In extremis, a project can be built around parent’s recent hospitalization for exhaustion.

2000

DAVID OWEN

WHAT HAPPENED TO MY MONEY?

G
OD
has taken your money to live with Him in Heaven. Heaven is a special, wonderful place, where wars and diseases and stock markets do not exist, only happiness. You have probably seen some wonderful places in your life—perhaps during a vacation, or on television, or in a movie—but Heaven is a million billion times more wonderful than even Disney World. Jesus and Mary and the angels live in Heaven, and so do your grandparents and your old pets and Abraham Lincoln. Your money will be safe and happy in Heaven forever and ever, and God will always take care of it.

Your money is still your money—it will always be your money—but it cannot come back to you, not ever. That may seem unfair to you. One day you were buying puts and shorting straddles, and the next day you woke up to find that your account had been closed forever. Perhaps you got a sick or empty feeling in your stomach when that happened; perhaps you have that sick or empty feeling still. You loved your money very, very much, and you did not want God to take it away.

Your feelings are natural and normal—they are a part of the way God made you—but God took your money in accordance with His wonderful plan, which is not for us to know or understand. You must trust God and have faith that He loves your money just as He loves you and every other part of His creation. Someday—probably a very, very long time from now, after you have lived a long and happy life in compliance with the nation’s securities laws—God will take you to live with Him in Heaven, too. Then you will understand.

Even though your money is gone forever, it can still be a part of your life. As long as love and kindness and happiness dwell in your heart, your money can dwell there, too. At night, before you go to sleep, you can talk to your money in a prayer. You can think about the B.M.W. that you and your money were going to buy, and you can remember the house on the beach that you and your money were going to build, and you can laugh about your funny old plan to send your children to private colleges. Someday, when you no longer feel as sad as you do today, you may even find that thinking about your money can give you some of the same happy feelings that spending your money used to give you.

Those feelings belong to you and they always will; no one can take them away from you. Even when you are very, very old, you will still be able to think about your money and remember how much you loved it. But you will still not be able to spend your money, or even borrow against it.

2000

RECOLLECTIONS
AND
REFLECTIONS

ALEXANDER WOOLLCOTT

ON TAXI DRIVERS

I
AM
engaged at present on a monumental work which will give the history of the New York taxicab up to and including 1930. It will take up many problems, such as why the most rheumatic cabs invariably throng the curbs outside the best hotels, and will examine the morbid passion of the drivers for weaving in and out of elevated pillars. Then it will assemble all the best recipes for dissuading the tumultuous creatures from driving at a pace faster than the shattered fare can endure. I may add that these recipes will be compiled by a nervous wreck, who feels that nothing is so certain as death and taxis.

Above all, it will inquire into the reasons for the flashing individualism which, in an age of robots, makes the taxi driver as vivid and striking as a scarlet tanager in a thicket of spruces. Long ago I wrote an essay entitled “The Paris Taxi Driver Considered as an Artist.” Therein I told, among other anecdotes, the story of the sneering cab which cruised the rain-swept streets one night when most of the Paris taxis were on strike. Its malicious driver would swoop up to the curb, ask a frantically signalling citizen where he wanted to go, and then drive laughingly on without him. But when one young couple, huddled pathetically under an umbrella, told him that they had hoped to go to the opera, he suddenly forgot all about the class war, and even forgot to bargain for the extra fare everybody was offering.

“
Mon dieu,
” he cried, “jump in. It is ‘Samson and Delilah’ tonight, and the overture begins at eight.”

And whirled them across Paris on one wheel. That essay was written in my salad days, and is marred by the provincial notion that a
pomme de terre
has a glamour not possessed by our own potato, or more particularly that all quaint characters are to be found abroad. Now, in what must be my cheese-and-crackers days, I know that the seeing eye would find just such anecdotes on every corner in New York. Your correspondant has at least a listening ear for any who may have such tales to tell.

My book will include the episode of Towne and Tennyson. It happened of a summer’s evening last year, when Charles Hanson Towne, editor and fairly
bon vivant,
was dining out, somewhere on the upper East Side, I assume. At all events, Mr. Towne noted with delight that the dusky jehu’s name was Clifford Tennyson, and lapsing at once into a broad Southern accent, addressed him so humorously as Cliffahd all the way up town that his companion grew restive at so much comedy. Therefore when, two blocks before their destination, Mr. Towne descended from the cab to buy a winsome nosegay for his hostess, this companion and the driver went into hasty conference, to rehearse a faintly retaliatory scene.

Thus it befell that when they finally dismissed the cab, and Mr. Towne said, “Cliffahd, what do Ah owe you?” he was reduced to a becoming stupefaction by the sight of a brown hand grandly waving him aside. If only the driver had heard the whispered instructions accurately, the result would have been really stunning. Even as it was, the aforesaid
bon vivant
was bowled over by hearing this reply: “Not a penny, sir, not a penny. It is a pleasure to drive you, Mr. Towel.”

NOW and again a driver does actually recognize his fare, particularly if it be one whose face appears much in the public prints. One of my favorite stories deals with the emotions of such a driver who, after profitably conducting a distracted and solitary young man around and around Central Park for several hours one night, finally grew sleepy and switched an inquisitive light on his fare, only to discover that it was none other than Charlie Chaplin. Under pressure of this inspection, the comedian expressed an intention to drive on vaguely until dawn. He had reason to suspect that process servers lay in wait for him at his hotel, and he was not minded to show his celebrated face there or anywhere else. Finally, the drowsy driver decided to put the fugitive up for the rest of the night at his own home, but insisted that the visit be made incognito, lest the little woman take umbrage at their sheltering so notorious a character. As it happened, the only place for guests in the driver’s flat was one half of a bed, of which the other was occupied by his ten-year-old son. I have always thought there never was such an awakening since the world began as the one which that incredulous youngster enjoyed next morning.

Then, only the other day, Heywood Broun was at once startled and gratified to have the driver of the cab he was dismissing pause to discuss, with flattering disapprobation, the literary style of Mr. Broun’s several successors on the New York
World.
This unexpected pundit was particularly hard on St. John Ervine, who, by this time, must be already on the high seas, bound for the welcoming bosom of the London
Observer.
In his own mind, the driver had somewhat disconcertingly recognized the intended target of Ervine’s recent allusion to “a big, orbicular newspaper man,” and had loyally resented it. “Why,” he said, “I guess if anyone’s a sissy, he’s one himself.”

Which reminds one fondly of the time when Margaret Mayo made her report to Al Woods on a French script she had just read for him.

“I don’t think it’s so salacious,” she said.

“No,” he replied, “I don’t think it will go well, either.”

BUT to return to the taxi drivers, I must certainly include the experience of Samuel Merwin with the one he hailed outside the Players Club one stormy night.

“I want to go to the Algonquin,” said Mr. Merwin firmly, and then added, with wanton pessimism, “I don’t suppose you know where it is?”

“I ought to,” grunted the driver, “there’s only three of us left in New York.”

“Only three drivers who know where the Algonquin is?” queried the pessimist, in the surprised tone of one beaten at his own game.

“No,” replied the driver, thrusting a superb, hawklike Indian profile into the light, “only three Algonquins.”

1929

CLARENCE DAY

FATHER ISN’T MUCH HELP

I
N
Father’s day, it was unusual for boys in New York to take music lessons. His father had sent him to college, but he hadn’t had him taught music. Men didn’t play the piano. Young ladies learned to play pretty things on it as an accomplishment, but few of them went further, and any desire to play classical music was rare.

After Father grew up, however, and began to do well in his business, he decided that music was one of the good things of life. He bought himself a piano and paid a musician to teach him. He took no interest in the languishing love songs which were popular then, he didn’t admire patriotic things such as “Marching Through Georgia,” and he had a hearty distaste for songs of pathos—he always swore if he heard them. He enjoyed music as he did a fine wine or a good ride on horseback. He had long, muscular fingers, he practiced faithfully, and learned to the best of his ability to play Beethoven and Bach.

The people he associated with didn’t care much for this kind of thing, and Father didn’t wish to associate with the long-haired musicians who did. He got no encouragement from anyone and his progress was lonely. But Father was not the kind of man who depends on encouragement.

His feeling for music was limited but it was deeply rooted, and he cared enough for it to keep on practicing even after he married and in the busy years when he was providing for a house full of boys. He didn’t go to symphonic concerts and he never liked Wagner, but he’d hum something of Brahms’ while posting his ledger, or play Mozart or Chopin after dinner. It gave him a sense of well-being.

Mother liked music too. We often heard her sweet voice gently singing old songs of an evening. If she forgot parts here or there, she swiftly improvised something that would let the air flow along without breaking the spell.

Father didn’t play that way. He was erecting much statelier structures, and when he got a chord wrong, he stopped. He took that chord apart and went over the notes one by one, and he kept on going over them methodically. This sometimes drove Mother mad. She would desperately cry “Oh-oh-oh!” and run out of the room.

Her whole attitude toward music was different. She didn’t get a solid and purely personal enjoyment from it like Father. It was more of a social function to her. It went with dancing and singing. She played and sang for fun, or to keep from being sad, or to give others pleasure.

ON Thursday afternoons in the winter, Mother was always “at home.” She served tea and cakes and quite a few people dropped in to see her. She liked entertaining. And whenever she saw a way to make her Thursdays more attractive, she tried it.

About this time, Mother’s favorite niece, Cousin Julie, was duly “finished” at boarding school and came to live with us, bringing her trunks and hatboxes and a great gilded harp. Mother at once made room for this beautiful object in our crowded parlor, and the first thing Julie knew she had to play it for the Thursday-afternoon visitors. Julie loved her harp dearly but she didn’t like performing at all—performances frightened her, and if she fumbled a bit, she felt badly. But Mother said she must get over all that. She tried to give Julie self-confidence. She talked to her like a determined though kind impresario.

These afternoon sessions were pleasant, but they made Mother want to do more. While she was thinking one evening about what a lot of social debts she must pay, she suddenly said to Father, who was reading Gibbon, half-asleep by the fire, “Why not give a musicale, Clare, instead of a series of dinners?”

When Father was able to understand what she was talking about, he said he was glad if she had come to her senses sufficiently to give up any wild idea of having a series of dinners, and that she had better give up musicales, too. He informed her he was not made of money, and all good string quartets were expensive; and when Mother interrupted him, he raised his voice and said, to close the discussion: “I will not have my peaceful home turned into a Roman arena, with a lot of hairy fiddlers prancing about and disturbing my comfort.”

“You needn’t get so excited, Clare,” Mother said. “I didn’t say a word about hairy fiddlers. I don’t know where you get such ideas. But I do know a lovely young girl whom Mrs. Spiller has had, and she’ll come for very little, I’m sure.”

“What instrument does this inexpensive paragon play?” Father inquired sardonically.

“She doesn’t play, Clare. She whistles.”

“Whistles!” said Father. “Good God!”

“Very well, then,” Mother said after an argument. “I’ll have to have Julie instead, and Miss Kregman can help her, and I’ll try to get Sally Brown or somebody to play the piano.”

“Miss Kregman!” Father snorted. “I wash my hands of the whole business.”

MOTHER asked nothing better. She could have made a grander affair of it if he had provided the money, but even with only a little to spend, getting up a party was fun. Before her marriage, she had loved her brother Alden’s musicales. She would model hers upon those. Hers would be different in one way, for Alden had had famous artists, and at hers the famous artists would be impersonated by Cousin Julie. But the question as to how expert the music would be didn’t bother her, and she didn’t think it would bother the guests whom she planned to invite. The flowers would be pretty; she knew just what she would put in each vase (the parlor was full of large vases); she had a special kind of little cakes in mind, and everybody would enjoy it all thoroughly.

But no matter what kind of artists she has, a hostess is bound to have trouble managing them, and Mother knew that even her homemade material would need a firm hand. Julie was devoted to her, and so was the other victim, Sally Brown, Julie’s schoolmate. But devoted or not, they were uneasy about this experiment. Sally would rather have done almost anything than perform at a musicale, and the idea of playing in public sent cold chills down Julie’s back.

The only one Mother worried about, however, was Julie’s teacher, Miss Kregman. She could bring a harp of her own, so she would be quite an addition, but Mother didn’t feel she was decorative. She was an angular, plain-looking woman, and she certainly was a very unromantic sight at a harp.

Father didn’t feel she was decorative either, and said, “I’ll be damned if I come.” He said musicales were all poppycock anyway. “Nothing but tinkle and twitter.”

“Nobody’s invited you, Clare,” Mother said defiantly. As a matter of fact, she felt relieved by his announcement. This wasn’t like a dinner, where she wanted Father and where he would be of some use. She didn’t want him at all at her musicale.

“All I ask is,” she went on, “that you will please dine out for once. It won’t be over until six at the earliest, and it would make things much easier for me if you would dine at the club.”

Father said that was ridiculous. “I never dine at the club. I won’t do it. Any time I can’t have my dinner in my own home, this house is for sale. I disapprove entirely of these parties and uproar!” he shouted. “I’m ready to sell the place this very minute, and we can all go and sit under a palm tree and live on breadfruit and pickles!”

ON the day of the musicale, it began to snow while we were at breakfast. Father had forgotten what day it was, of course, and he didn’t care anyhow—his mind was on a waistcoat which he wished Mother to take to his tailor’s. To his astonishment, he found her standing on a stepladder, arranging some ivy, and when he said “Here’s my waistcoat,” she gave a loud wail of self-pity at this new infliction. Father said in a bothered way: “What is the matter with you, Vinnie? What are you doing up on that ladder? Here’s my waistcoat, I tell you, and it’s got to go to the tailor at once.” He insisted on handing it up to her, and he banged the front door going out.

Early in the afternoon, the snow changed to rain. The streets were deep in slush. We boys gave up sliding downhill on the railroad bridge in East Forty-eighth Street and came tramping in with our sleds. Before going up to the playroom, we looked in the parlor. It was full of small folding chairs. The big teakwood armchairs with their embroidered backs were crowded off into corners, and the blue velvety ottoman with its flowered top could hardly be seen. The rubber tree had been moved from the window and strategically placed by Miss Kregman’s harp, in such a way that the harp would be in full view but Miss Kregman would not.