THE TAMING OF THE SCREW
by
Dave Barry

               Several million homeowners' problems sidestepped
                                        
                                        
                                      By
                                  Dave Barry
                         Illustrated by Jerry O'Brien
                                        
                                        
                                 Rodale Press
                              Emmaus, Pennsylvania
                             Copyright (C) 1983 by
                                  Dave Barry
                        Illustrations copyright 1983 by
                                 Jerry O'Brien
                              All rights reserved
                                        
                                        
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any
information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of
the publisher.
 
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
Book design by Bill Bosler
Art direction by Karen A. Schell
 
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
 
Barry, Dave.
The taming of the screw.
Includes index.
1. Dwellings--Maintenance and repair--Anecdotes, facetiae, satire, etc.
ISBN 0-87857-484-0 paperback
 
 
                                   Contents
                                        
                                        
Introduction.................................................................1
Chapter 1 Tools: Why they want to injure you, and how to thwart them.........2
Chapter 2 Wood: If God had wanted us to use it, He wouldn't have made
     plastic.................................................................8
Chapter 3 Electricity: You can safely do your own wiring, most likely.......12
Chapter 4 Plumbing: Troubleshooting your plumbing with a loaded sidearm.....20
Chapter 5 Walls: Paneling, and other common mistakes........................28
Chapter 6 Heatin and Cooling: New-age, chic alternatives to tacky fossil
     fuels..................................................................34
Chapter 7 Insulation and Weatherproofing: Kicking the crutches out from under
     Old Man Winter.........................................................42
Chapter 8 Masonry: At last, a practical use for Maine.......................46
Chapter 9 Easy Projects: Getting off to a slow start........................50
Chapter 10 Impossible Projects: How to build a hot tub and a hotter
     computer...............................................................58
Chapter 11 Household Pests: Getting tough with toads........................62
Chapter 12 The Lawn and Garden: Why all the plants in your garden hate you,
     and how to win their respect...........................................68
Chapter 13 Car Repair: The three keys to trouble-free motoring: animal traps,
     a wading pool, and this fact-crammed chapter...........................74
Chapter 14 Redecorate Your House in a Day: And stick "aesthetics" back where
     it belongs, in the dictionary..........................................80
Chapter 15 Build Your Own House: On second thought, don't...................84
Index.......................................................................90
 
 
                                   Introduction
                                          
                                          
                    Sincere statement of thanks from the author
                                          
     I sincerely thank you for purchasing this do-it-yourself book, instead of
one of the thousands of other, much better ones.  I want to assure you that
there is not a single project in this book that I would not have considered
doing myself if I hadn't been so busy writing a do-it-yourself book.
      
                            Why you need this book
                                        
     If you're like most homeowners, you're afraid that many repairs around
your home are too difficult to tackle.  So when your furnace explodes, you
call in a so-called professional to fix it.  The "professional" arrives in a
truck with lettering on the sides and deposits two assistants whose combined
IQ's would still be a two-digit number, and they spend the better part of a
week in your basement whacking objects at random with heavy wrenches, after
which the "professional" returns and gives you a bill for slightly more money
than it would cost you to run a successful campaign for the U.S. Senate.
      
     And that's why you've decided to start doing things yourself.  You
figure, "If those bozos can fix my furnace, then so can I.  How difficult can
it be?"
      
     Very difficult.  In fact, most home projects are impossible, which is why
you should do them yourself.  There is no point in paying other people to
screw things up when you can easily screw them up yourself for far less money.
This book can help you.
      
                             How to use this book
                                        
     The best way to use this book is to place it on a coffee table so that
your guests can place their drinks on it.  Or, if you'd like to attempt a home
repair project, you can look up the appropriate chapter.  For example, if you
want to fix a plumbing problem, you'd look up Chapter 4, "Plumbing."  Or
Chapter 8, "Masonry."  It won't make much difference.
      
      
                                   Chapter 1
                                     Tools
              Why they want to injure you, and how to thwart them
                                        
                                        
     Basically, a tool is an object that enables you to take advantage of the
laws of physics and mechanics in such a way that you can seriously injure
yourself.  Today, people tend to take tools for granted.  If you're ever
walking down the street and you notice some people who look particularly smug,
the odds are that they are taking tools for granted.  If I were you, I'd walk
right up and smack them in the face.
      
     We ought to be very grateful that we have tools.  Millions of years ago
people did not have them, and home projects were extremely difficult.  For
example, when a primitive person wanted to put up paneling, he had to drive
the little paneling nails into the cave wall with his bare fist, so generally
the paneling wound up getting spattered with primitive blood, which isn't
really all that bad when you consider how ugly paneling is to begin with.
      
    Special Cautionary Procedure for Those of You Who Choose to Disregard My
                     Advice and Use a Power Saw, You Fools
                                        
1. With the saw off and all the power in the house off and the power lines
     completely detached from the house, place the piece of wood you want to
     cut near the saw.
2. Leave the room and have the power turned back on.  (WARNING: Never attempt
     to turn on the power yourself!  Have one of your children do it.)
3. Have the power turned back off and peek into the room, wearing industrial
     goggles.  If you see any signs of movement from the saw, fire a few
     rounds at it from a small-caliber revolver, such as you might use to
     unclog a toilet (see Chapter 4, "Plumbing").  If you see no signs of
     movement, have one of your remaining children retrieve the piece of wood.
 
                          The three major kinds of tools
                                          
   Tools for hitting things to make them loose or to tighten up or jar their many
           complex, sophisticated electrical parts in such a manner that
       theyfunction perfectly.  These are your hammers, maces, bludgeons, and
                                    truncheons.
          Tools that, if dropped properly, can penetrate yourfoot.  Awls.
   Tools that nobody should ever use because the potential danger is far greater
       than the value of any project that could possibly result.  Power saws,
        power drills, power staplers, any kind of tool that uses any kind of
                  power more advanced than flashlight batteries.
                                          
            How to get a complete home tool set for under four dollars
                                          
     Go to one of those really cheap discount stores where they sell plastic
furniture in colors visible from the planet Neptune and have a food section
specializing in cardboard cartons full of Raisinets and malted milk balls
manufactured during the Nixon administration.  In either the Hardware or
Housewares department, you'll find an item imported from an obscure oriental
country and described as "Nine Tools in One," consisting of a little handle
with interchangeable ends representing inscrutable oriental notions of tools
that Americans might use around the home.  Buy it.  This is the kind of tool
set professionals use; not only is it inexpensive, but it also has a great
safety feature not found in the so-called quality tool sets: The handle will
actually break right off if you accidentally hit yourself or anything else, or
expose it to direct sunlight.
      
     WARNING: Do not be misled by advertisements for so-called tool sets
allegedly containing large numbers of tools.  These are frauds!  Oh, sure, you
get a lot of tools, but most of them are the same kind!  For example, you'll
get 127 wrenches, and the only difference is that one will be maybe an eighth
of an inch bigger than another.  Big deal.
      
      
                                   Chapter 2
                                     Wood
         If God had wanted us to use it, He wouldn't have made plastic
                                        
                                        
     Wood has been the preferred building material for thousands of years,
because it is one of the few materials that will rot as well as burn.
Basically, there are two kinds of wood: hardwoods such as oak and walnut,
which are used by skilled craftsmen to make furniture that you cannot afford;
and softwoods such as fir, spruce, and tripe, which are actually members of
the crabgrass family and are more suitable to the kinds of projects that an
incompetent such as yourself will be doing.
      
                           Dealing with lumberyards
                                        
     Lumberyards are dangerous and hostile places, inhabited by suspicious men
who wear bib overalls and spit a lot and duck behind piles of boards as soon
as they see a homeowner coming.  These men have lived in the lumberyard since
childhood.  It is the only home they know.  At night, they just pull sheets of
plywood over themselves and go to sleep.  They don't like intruders,
especially homeowners such as yourself who are buying wood for some idiot home
project, and they will try any crafty ruse to drive you away.  For example,
all their wood measurements are lies.  A so-called two-by-four is not two
anythings by four anythings, and so on.  There is no way you can possibly know
what size of wood you're getting.
      
     Another common trick among the lumbermen is to call things by silly
names, such as "soffit."  They dream these names up at night while they're
lying under their sheets of plywood, and they use them to make you feel stupid
when you try to order your wood.
      
     You: Hi.  I'd like two eight-foot two-by-fours, please.
      
     LuMBERMAN: What are they for?
      
     You: What?
      
     LuMBERMAN: Are they for joists?  Headers?  Beams?  Rafters?  Footers?
Sills?  Framing?  Tenons?  Partitions?  Templates?  Easements?  Debentures?
Just what is it you want, mister?
      
     You: Uh, well, ah, maybe I better go home and recheck my measurements.
      
     The home center: an alternative to the lumberyard?  NO.
      
     Several years ago, some smart businessmen had an idea: Why not build a
big store where a do-it-yourselfer could get everything he needed at
reasonable prices?  Then they decided, nah, the hell with it, let's build a
home center.  And before long home centers were springing up, like herpes, all
over the United States.
      
     Home centers are designed for the do-it-yourselfer who's willing to pay
higher prices for the convenience of being able to shop for lumber, hardware,
and toasters all in one location.  Notice I say "shop for," as opposed to
"obtain."  This is the major drawback of home centers: They are always out of
everything except artificial Christmas trees.  The home center employees have
no time to reorder merchandise, because they are too busy applying little
price stickers to every object--every board, washer, nail, and screw--in the
entire store.  Once they've applied a round of stickers, they immediately set
out to apply a new set, with slightly higher prices, to the same merchandise.
This leaves them no time to learn about the products they sell, so it is
utterly futile to ask them for help.
      
     Let's say a piece of your toilet breaks, so you remove the broken part,
take it to the home center, and ask an employee if they carry replacements.
The employee, who has never in his life even seen the inside of a toilet, will
peer at the broken part in very much the same way that a member of a primitive
Amazon jungle tribe would look at an electronic calculator, then say, "We're
expecting a shipment of these sometime around the middle of next week."
      
     So the bottom line is that home centers are even worse than lumberyards
as a source for lumber.  The only really good place to buy lumber is at a
store where the lumber has already been cut and attached together in the form
of furniture, finished, and put into boxes.
      
      
                                   Chapter 3
                                  Electricity
                You can safely do your own wiring, most likely
                                        
                                        
     Electricity is actually made up of extremely tiny particles, called
electrons, that you cannot see with the naked eye unless you have been
drinking.  Electrons travel at the speed of light, which in most American
homes is 110 volts per hour.  This is very fast.  In the time it has taken you
to read this sentence so far, an electron could have traveled all the way from
San Francisco to Hackensack, New Jersey, although God alone knows why it would
want to.
      
     The five main kinds of electricity are alternating current, direct
current, lightning, static, and European.  Most American homes have
alternating current, which means that the electricity goes in one direction
for a while, then goes the other direction.  This prevents harmful electron
buildup in the wires.
      
                          Your home electrical system
                                        
     Your home electrical system is basically a bunch of wires that bring
electricity into your home and take it back out before it has a chance to kill
you.  This is called a "circuit."  The most common home electrical problem is
when the circuit is broken by a "circuit breaker"; this causes the electricity
to back up in one of the wires until it bursts out of an outlet in the form of
sparks, which can damage your carpet.  The best way to avoid broken circuits
is to change your fuses regularly.
      
     Another common problem is that the lights flicker.  This sometimes means
that your electrical system is inadequate, but more often it means that your
home is possessed by demons, in which case you'll need to get a caulking gun
and some caulking (see Chapter 6, "Heating and Cooling," for more on getting
rid of demons with caulking.)  If you're not sure whether your house is
possessed, see The Amityville Horror, a fine documentary film based on an
actual book.  Or call in a licensed electrician, who is trained to spot the
signs of demonic possession, such as blood coming down the stairs, enormous
cats on the dinette table, etc.
      
                             How to change a fuse
                                        
     You should change your fuses every six months or 200,000 amperes,
whichever comes first.  Here's how:
      
1. Go down to the basement, which should be located beneath the first floor,
     and find the gray box with all kinds of wires leading to it and little
     stickers on it saying things like "CAUTION: 80 SKILLION WATTS."
2. Standing about 15 feet away, toss a small domestic animal toward the box
     and note whether it (a) falls to the floor unscathed or (b) is reduced to
     a lump of carbon by a gigantic bolt of electricity.
3. In the event of (b), call an experienced electrician without dependents and
     have him replace your fuses.  In the event of (a), open the box and
     remove the old fuses by unscrewing them or whacking at them with a
     1/8-inch steel chisel, and replace them with new fuses, which can be
     obtained wherever new fuses are sold.  Then simply close the box and
     continue to lead a normal life.
 
                    How to repair a broken electrical appliance
                                          
1. The primary cause of failure in electrical appliances is an expired
     warranty.  Often, you can get an appliance running again simply by
     changing the warranty expiration date with a 3'/16-inch felt-tipped
     marker.
2. If this fails, take the appliance to the basement and leave it there for
     several months, on the theory that (a) it will get lonely and want to
     work again so it can be up in the kitchen with all the other appliances,
     or (b) we'll have a nuclear war, and you won't have any uses for
     appliances any more because you'll be too busy defending your beef jerky
     and water from your neighbors, or (c) you'll develop a horrible,
     lingering disease, and people will feel sorry for you and give you new
     appliances.
3. If, after several months, the appliance still doesn't work, locate the
     motor or some other electronic part and whap it briskly with a 58-ounce
     tire iron.  This technique is particularly effective with your modern
     personal home electronic computers, which are smart enough to not want to
     be struck by blunt instruments.  Toasters are much, much stupider--some
     of them cannot perform even simple addition--and often must be whapped
     for hours before coming around.
 
    Harness the power of nature to generate electricity for only pennies a day,
                           not counting parts and labor
                                          
     If you're tired of paying high electricity bills, and you live in an area
that has a great deal of nature, you should definitely consider generating
your own electricity via one of the extremely ecological methods described
below.  Then you should go back to whatever you were doing.
      
                                  WIND POWER
                                        
     Wind, which is imported into the United States from Canada in the form of
cold air masses, can be used to turn the blades of a windmill, which in turn
can generate electric power.  At least that's what Popular Mechanics is always
claiming.  The big problem is that, because of labor problems, Canada is an
unreliable source of wind.  So what you need is a wind collection device, such
as the Goodyear blimp, to store the wind for use during times of Canadian
labor unrest.
      
                                   SEA POWER
                                        
     The sea is potentially a source of vast amounts of electrical energy, as
well as haddock.  Scientists predict that some day, possibly as early as next
week, whole cities will be powered by the sea.  The key will be gigantic
undersea electric turbines, whose blades will be turned by the relentless,
powerful motion of lobsters walking along the sea bed.  If you live near the
sea and own a gigantic electric turbine, you can harness this power today.
The trick is to make sure your turbine is parallel with the prevailing lobster
motion.
      
                                 ATOMIC POWER
                                        
     At one time atomic power was considered difficult to handle, but these
days just about every dirtball little country has it, and I see no reason why
you shouldn't, too.  You'll need an atomic reactor.  This is a good time to
buy one: Most of your electric companies are trying to unload their reactors
because they might have this defect wherein they heat up and go all the way
through the earth and destroy Communist China, so you can probably pick one up
for a song.  Don't worry about the Communist Chinese.  They're not losing any
sleep over you, believe me.
      
      
                                   Chapter 4
                                   Plumbing
              Troubleshooting your plumbing with a loaded sidearm
                                        
                                        
     You should worry incessantly about your plumbing.  No doubt you have
heard the tragic story of the family who went away on vacation, unaware that
one of their pipes had sprung a small leak.  By the time they returned, the
leak had destroyed the home and all their possessions, forcing them to collect
$175,000 from the insurance company and use the money to go to Hawaii and buy
a small, chic restaurant that became fabulously successful, so now all they do
is lie around on the beach sipping tropical rum drinks.
      
     This needless tragedy would never have occurred if this family had taken
more of an interest in its plumbing.  Plumbing is one of the easiest of
do-it-yourself activities, requiring only a few simple tools and a willingness
to stick your arm into a clogged toilet after a diseased houseguest has used
it.  In fact, you can solve many home plumbing problems, such as an annoying
faucet drip, merely by turning up the radio.  But before we get into any
specific plumbing techniques, let's look at how plumbing works.
      
     A plumbing system is very much like your electrical system, except that
instead of electricity, it has water, and instead of wires, it has pipes, and
instead of radios and waffle irons, it has faucets and toilets.  So the truth
is that your plumbing system is nothing at all like your electrical system,
which is good, because electricity can kill you.
      
     The major problem with plumbing systems is that they leak.  To understand
why, imagine that you're on a cross-country bus trip and you have drunk three
six-packs of beer single-handedly and you really, really have to go to the
bathroom, only the bus doesn't have a bathroom and the driver refuses to stop
until he gets to Elkhart, Indiana, which is 280 miles away.  That is how your
home plumbing system feels all the time.  It sits there filled with water, day
in and day out, until after a while all it can think about is leaking.
      
     The key to preventing leaks is proper maintenance.  At least once a year
(and more often if you have a small brain) you should go around and poke at
the various elements of your plumbing system with the end of a cane.  If you
see anything the least bit suspicious, make a note of it in a spiral notebook.
This routine maintenance program will prevent many plumbing headaches.  And if
anything does go wrong, don't be afraid to tackle it yourself.  Remember: The
only difference between you and an experienced master plumber is that he is an
experienced master plumber, whereas you are not.
      
                         What to do when a pipe breaks
                                        
1. Go down to the dankest corner of the basement and locate the valve that
     turns off all the water in the house.  This will be the valve that is
     covered with slime and a spiderweb containing a spider and the festering
     bodies of dead insects.
2. Using a 3/4-inch drive socket wrench or a tire iron, prod the spider firmly
     until it scuttles off to some other area of the basement, muttering
     angrily.
3. Turn the valve handle clockwise until it breaks off in your hand like a
     damp pretzel, which is the signal that the water is off.
4. Locate the broken pipe and replace it with a new pipe in such a manner that
     it will not leak even when it has water going through it.
5. Have a plumber turn the water back on.  This job is best left to a
     professional, since (a) the handle is broken off and (b) the spider has
     returned with thousands of poisonous friends and relatives to defend the
     valve.  Be sure to select a plumber who has a good reputation and life
     insurance and a flamethrower.
 
                             The history of the toilet
                                          
     The toilet was invented several hundred years ago by Sir Robert Toilet,
an Englishman who was trying to put an end to war.  At the time, everybody
went to the bathroom outdoors, which, as you can imagine, was fairly
disgusting.  So countries were always trying to go to the bathroom in other
countries.  Thousands of, say, Frenchmen would suddenly appear in Germany,
relieve themselves, and stride back to France, snickering; the next day even
greater numbers of Germans would retaliate.  Eventually the dispute would
escalate into a war, which was even worse, because of the horses.  Then,
thankfully, Sir Robert had his idea: Instead of going to the bathroom on the
ground in other countries, why not go to the bathroom in a toilet?  This would
put an end to needless wars and give everybody a chance to read magazines.
The idea caught on, and today very few wars are caused by the French and the
Germans going to the bathroom on each other's land, which is not to say that
they don't want to.
      
               Three Useful Tips for Unclogging a Clogged Toilet
                                        
     Before you attempt to unclog the toilet, make sure that it is a toilet
that you are responsible for.  If it is in a public restroom, or someone
else's home, don't give it another thought.  Just sidle out of the room as if
nothing has happened.
      
     If the clog is caused by something soft, such as a corsage, you can
dislodge it simply by firing a .22-caliber pistol into the toilet.
      
     For tougher clogs, such as turtles or jewelry, you'll need to flush a lit
cherry bomb, which you can obtain from any reliable teenager.
      
      
                                   Chapter 5
                                     Walls
                      Paneling, and other common mistakes
                                        
                                        
     Walls are an important part of any home, because they keep the roof from
falling down and damaging your television set.  But walls are more than just
structural; they are also large objects that you have to cover with something.
The three major wall coverings, in ascending order of unattractiveness, are
paint, wallpaper, and paneling.
      
                              How to paint a room
                                        
1. To determine how much paint you'll need, stand with your back against an
     end wall of the room you plan to paint, then take little mincing steps
     across the room until you mince into the opposite wall.  Now repeat the
     procedure, only start with your back against a side wall.  Now multiply
     the number of steps by the length of your foot in inches, making sure you
     subtract for windows.  This will tell you the number of square inches
     your floor would be if it had windows in it.
2. Go to a paint store and buy six gallons of paint.  Oil-based paint is tough
     and adheres extremely well to any surface, especially human skin.  Your
     best bet is latex paint, which comes in a wide variety of colors, all of
     them white.  Well, almost white.  Paint manufacturers have tried for
     years to make plain white paint, but unfortunately their factories are
     old and unsanitary, and the paint batches always end up getting
     contaminated with rodent droppings.  So all the paint comes out
     off-white, and they have to give it classy names like Oyster White or
     Antique White, on the grounds that nobody would buy it if they called it
     Rodent Dropping White.
3. Now it's time to paint.  Read the directions on the paint can, which will
     contain some snotty statement such as "CAUTION: SURFACE MUST BE FREE OF
     DIRT, GREASE, AND PEELING OR FLAKING PAINT."  This is utter nonsense, of
     course.  If the surface were free of dirt, grease, and peeling or flaking
     paint, why on earth would you want to paint it?  So don't waste any time
     preparing the surface.  Go ahead and paint the damn surface, dirt and
     all.  If you see any insects, paint over them, too, unless they are major
     tropical insects, in which case you should first smash them flat with a
     23-ounce rubbertipped mallet, such as your professional painters use.
 
                                     Wallpaper
                                          
     Wallpaper dates back to colonial times, when people had much smaller
brains.  It would have died out years ago if not for the fact that women get
pregnant.  Pregnancy causes women to secrete a hormone that compels them to
want to install wallpaper with jungle animals on it in the baby's room.  My
wife and I installed jungle-animal wallpaper on a hot August day when she was
about 17 months pregnant, and she was a driven woman.  She was determined to
make the head of the rhinoceros on one sheet of wallpaper line up with the
rhinoceros body on the adjacent sheet.  Proper rhinoceros alignment is very
important to your child's development.  Children who grow up looking at
rhinoceros heads springing out of, say, clown bodies, are likely to grow up to
become drug addict ax murderers or members of the state legislature.
      
                       The easy way to wallpaper a room
                                        
     Don't be an idiot.  There is no easy way to wallpaper a room.  The finest
scientific minds in the nation have been working on this problem for decades,
and they have failed miserably.
      
     Oh, sure, the salesman at the wallpaper store will tell you it's easy to
install wallpaper, but you'll notice his store walls aren't wallpapered.
They're painted Rodent Dropping White.
      
                                   Paneling
                                        
     Paneling is a surprisingly easy way to make any room less attractive.  A
panel is simply a four-by-eight-foot piece of compressed industrial waste that
has been finished in such a way that it looks nothing whatsoever like wood,
then given an absurd name such as Heritage Oak.  If you were to show a typical
piece of paneling to 100 people chosen at random, and ask them what it was,
they would all answer, "I don't know, but it's not wood."
      
     Many homeowners panel their basements, because basement walls are usually
cold, dank concrete with earthworms oozing through the cracks.  The idea is
that if you put paneling up, you'll transform your basement into a warm,
friendly recreation room where the family can play bumper pool and have
several hours of meaningful family togetherness until the earthworms start
oozing through the cracks between the panels.
      
                                 Paneling Tips
                                        
     The shiny, plasticlike side of the paneling should always face the inside
of the room, unless you think the unfinished industrial-waste side is more
attractive.
      
     The easiest way to install paneling is to simply lean it up against the
walls all around the room.  This way, you can remove it quickly and hide it in
the garage when tasteful visitors come to call.
      
     If you decide to attach the panels permanently, you may have to adjust
them slightly to allow for doors and windows, assuming you intend to continue
to use the doors and windows.
      
      
                                   Chapter 6
                              Heating and Cooling
               New-age, chic alternatives to tacky fossil fuels
                                        
                                        
     There was a time, during the Eisenhower administration, when most homes
were heated via thermostats.  Just one of these wondrous little devices, no
larger than a snuff box, could automatically heat an entire house.  This left
everybody with lots of free time to worry about international communism or
watch "Leave It to Beaver."
      
     You may be fortunate enough to have a 1950s-style home that is still
heated by a thermostat.  If-so, you should count your blessings, because many,
many homes in the past decade were built by deranged granolaoriented ecology
nuts who are opposed to convenience in any form, and who therefore tried to
heat their homes with wood.
      
                     Wood heat: inefficient, but dangerous
                                        
     Wood heat is highly ecological, since trees are a renewable resource.  If
you cut down a tree, another will grow in its place.  And if you cut down the
new tree, still another will grow.  And if you cut down that tree, yet another
will grow, only this one will be a mutation with long, poisonous tentacles and
revenge in its heart, and it will sit there in the forest, cackling and making
elaborate plans for when you come back.
      
     To heat your house with wood, you'll need a good wood source.  The best
wood sources are woodpiles, which can be found in most suburban backyards in
early fall.  You should gather your wood very early in the morning, wearing
dark clothing and a loaded sidearm.  You should try to gather hardwoods, such
as veneer, because these extinguish themselves automatically seconds after you
light them, which makes them very safe.  You should avoid the softwoods, such
as cork, because these burn far too easily.  You can cause a piece of softwood
to explode into flame merely by dropping it on the ground.
      
     The principle behind wood heat is that wood contains a certain number of
British Thermal Units, or Btu's.  Btu's are these little thermal units
invented by the British to tell you how much heat you have in your wood, and
like everything else invented by the British, they don't work.  Let's say you
have a log made of oak.  Now a British person would claim that you're going to
get maybe 10,000 Btu's of heat when you burn your log, but in fact you're
going to get 6 Btu's of heat and 9,994 Btu's of smoke.  This is why virtually
everyone in England wears sweaters all the time.
      
     Now you'll need someplace to burn your wood.  You should not use your
fireplace, because scientists now believe that, contrary to popular opinion,
fireplaces actually remove heat from houses.  Really, that's what scientists
believe.  In fact, many scientists actually use their fireplaces to cool their
houses in the summer.  If you visit a scientist's house on a sultry August
day, you'll find a cheerful fire roaring on the hearth and the scientist
sitting nearby, remarking on how cool he is and drinking heavily.
      
     Instead of a fireplace, you should heat your house with a woodstove,
preferably one that is airtight.  To test for airtightness, leave a smallish
animal that your children have not grown fond of, such as a chicken, inside
the stove for several days.  You can use the chicken later to clean your
chimney.
      
     Wood-burning stoves are large, squat, black objects that range widely in
price from $500 to $525 and come in a variety of attractive styles designed to
enhance the appearance of any room whose appearance would be enhanced by the
presence of a large, squat, black object.  Your stove must be installed
safely, so this is something you should leave in the hands of somebody who
will charge you a great deal of money.  But once it's installed, your stove
will give you hours of comfort and enjoyment, unless you burn wood in it, in
which case it will give you hours of smoke and fear caused by the fact that
you have an insanely hot metal object in your living room.
      
                     What to Do about a Cold, Drafty Room
                                        
     No matter what kind of heating system you have, you'll probably find that
one room always feels cold and drafty.  The commonest cause of this problem is
demonic possession.  Demons are always taking over rooms and making them
colder.  This is annoying, but it's a heck of a lot better than when they take
over bodies and turn their heads around backwards or make them speak dead
languages, the way they did to that little girl in The Exorcist.
      
     If you want to get rid of the demons, you'll need a caulking gun and some
caulking.  Clear out a space in the middle of the floor of the possessed room,
and squeeze the caulking onto the floor in a mystical, demon-repelling
pattern.  The good news is that this will cause the demon to stop possessing
the room.  The bad news is that it will be looking for something else to
possess, so be alert if you find your head is rotating like a bar stool.
      
                      Heating your home with solar energy
                                        
     Solar heat comes from the sun, which is really nothing more than a nearby
star, which means it could explode at any minute.  In the meantime, though,
the sun is giving off scads of energy in the form of rays, which slam into the
Earth at nearly the speed of light and bounce back into outer space, where
they illuminate the moon, form comets, etc.  But you can also use these rays
to form heat.  If you were to capture just one-billionth of the rays that hit
your house every day, all your appliances would melt.
      
     The easiest way to heat your house with solar energy is to move it to
Central America, which is located directly under the sun.  You'll start
feeling much, much warmer in a matter of minutes, and you'll never complain
about high fuel bills again.  You'll be too busy fending off tarantulas the
size of briefcases.
      
                               Air conditioners
                                        
     All air conditioners work essentially the same way: They take warm air
and make it cooler somehow.  If your air conditioner fails to operate
properly, the chances are that one or more parts is broken.  To repair it, you
should take it to the basement and hit it (see Chapter 3, "Electricity").
      
                                  Heat pumps
                                        
     Heat pumps are a new wrinkle on the heating and cooling scene: in the
summer, they cool your home, and in the winter, they heat it!  How is this
possible?  Heat pump manufacturers tell us the secret is that even on the
coldest day, there is some heat in the outside air, and the heat pump extracts
this heat.  This is a lie, of course.  There is no heat in the air on cold
days.  That's why we call them "cold days."  If there's so much heat out there
on cold days, how come you never see heat pump manufacturers frolicking
outside in bathing suits, huh?  Answer me that.
      
     The truth is that heat pumps work via theft.  Even on the coldest days,
there is heat in your neighbors' houses.  The heat pump sucks up this heat,
like some kind of gigantic electrical leech, and uses it to keep you warm.  On
a really cold day, your heat pump may have to range for miles to keep you
warm; it will steal heat from churches, old peoples' homes, or phanages,
hospitals, etc.  It will even suck the heat out of newly born puppies.  This
is definitely the high-tech heat source of the future.  You should get one
before your neighbor does.
      
      
                                   Chapter 7
                        Insulation and Weather Proofing
              Kicking the crutches out from under Old Man Winter
                                        
                                        
     During the winter, heated air is constantly escaping from your home.
During the summer, cooled air is constantly escaping from your home.  If you
had a brain in your head, you'd get the hell out of your home before you die
of oxygen deprivation.  Your other option is insulation.
      
     Even though insulation is one of the most important and boring issues of
the day, many people don't know how it works.  I certainly don't.  I have read
dozens of articles about how to insulate and weather-strip my home, and
they're all full of terms I don't understand, like this: "When caulking your
windows, be sure to put a 1/8-inch bead of polyvinyl-butylacetate caulking
between the jamb and the main soffit adjacent to the eave cornice, taking care
not to dislodge the newels."
      
     Now I have looked at my windows, and I cannot for the life of me locate
any of these things.  All I have in my windows are pieces of wood and
poisonous spiders.  I don't have the vaguest idea where to put the caulking.
This is a problem because, as you have probably noticed, caulking guns are
designed so that as soon as you pick them up, the caulking starts oozing out,
and it keeps on oozing out until there is none left.  This is a clever ploy of
the caulking manufacturers to keep themselves in business.
      
     So anyway, I end up standing outside my window, looking for the eave
cornice, with caulking oozing onto my pants, until finally I give up and smear
some caulking on the spiders and go inside.
      
     So I thought, as a public service, I would explain home insulation in
layman's terms.  I will do it in the handy question-and-answer format in which
I make up questions and then answer them, which is a heck of a lot easier than
answering real questions.
      
                Eight common stupid questions about insulation
                                        
Q: Where should I put insulation?
A: Wherever you can work comfortably.  The worst place is the attic, because
     attics are hot, dangerous places, full of filthy objects and rabid bats.
     Oh, I know do-it-yourself home insulation articles always have pictures
     showing a cheerful homeowner cheerfully insulating his attic, but these
     pictures are frauds.  I mean, look at the attic they show: It always
     looks clean, well lit, and safe, unlike any other attic in the known
     world.  What those articles don't tell you is that when the pictures were
     taken, dozens of highly trained men were standing just out of camera
     range, holding the bats at bay with semiautomatic rifles.  So stay out of
     your attic.  Put your insulation someplace safe and convenient, such as
     in your den or along your driveway.
 
Q: What kind of insulation should I buy?
A: You should definitely not buy synthetic insulation, which comes in
     grotesque colors and is harsh and scratchy and leaves you covered with
     prickly little things that will never come off as long as you live.  I
     suggest you buy insulation that is naturally soft and washable and can be
     dyed to match your den decor.  Cotton is a good choice.
 
Q: How much insulation do I need?
A: Four thousand dollars' worth.
 
Q: What about blown-in insulation?
A: Blown-in insulation is fine, if you don't mind a fuzzy tongue and wads of
     spit-covered insulation all over the place.
 
Q: How does insulation work?
A: To understand how insulation works, conduct this simple home experiment.
 
1. Mix yourself a stiff gin and tonic in a tall glass, then drink it.  Notice
     how cold the glass feels?  Repeat this procedure several times, until you
     have a really good idea how cold the glass feels.
2. Now wrap a piece of insulation around the glass and pour yourself several
     more gin and tonics and drink them.  Notice how much warmer the glass
     feels?  Even your stomach feels warmer, doesn't it?
3. Repeat the procedure several times, and you'll start having all kinds of
     major insights about insulation.  It also works fairly well on the Middle
     East crisis.
 
Q: Do I actually have to install the insulation in my house to qualify for the
     federal tax credit?
A: No.  You can leave it in your garage, or, if you prefer, simply toss it out
     of your car window on the way home from the insulation store.
 
Q: What is "R-value"?
A: I don't know.  It was one of those things that were in vogue back during
     the 1970s, like disco and the metric system, but you hardly ever hear
     anybody talk about it any more, so I wouldn't worry about it.  I don't
     think it's suspected of causing cancer or anything.
 
Q: What about dirt?
A: Dirt is a superb natural insulator.  It is not mere coincidence that the
     Amazon jungle, which is filthy, is one of the warmest places on Earth.
     During the great energy crises of the 1970s, many smart,
     energy-conscious, patriotic homeowners stopped cleaning their houses or
     bathing or even wiping off the slime that grows around the base of the
     toilet, and today their heating bills are extremely low, although I
     should point out that they spend an average of $65,000 a year on
     antibiotics.
 
                            Caulking Doors and Windows
                                          
     Energy experts tell us that caulking doors and windows is one of the
easiest ways to get caulking all over yourself.  Here's how you do it:
      
1. Take a good, close look around the edges of your front door.  See all those
     tiny cracks?  Ignore them.  I mean, why waste your time on tiny cracks?
     It's the door hole (the hole that appears in your house when you open the
     door) that you should be worrying about.  Old Man Winter isn't going to
     mess around with cracks when he can just waltz through the door hole.
2. Go to your home center or hardware store and get a caulking gun and enough
     caulking to plug your door and window holes.  A typical door hole will
     require 750 tubes of caulking, but you'll save so much energy that the
     caulking job will easily pay for itself by the time the Earth establishes
     permanent colonies on the planet Jupiter.
3. Apply the caulking in such a manner that Old Man Winter will be unable to
     waltz through the door hole.
 
 
                                     Chapter 8
                                      Masonry
                        At last, a practical use for Maine
                                          
                                          
     "Masonry" is a term used in the building profession to describe any kind
of building material that can fall on you and kill you.  The big advantage of
masonry structures is that they last thousands of years; the only real
drawback is that they eventually become haunted.  The two most popular
projects for do-it-yourselfers are walls and pyramids.
      
                              How to build a wall
                                        
1. Drive two stakes into the ground and stretch a string between them to serve
     as a guide for where your wall will be.*
2. Attach a row of bricks or other masonry units to your string.  Always start
     from the top, so your wall will have a nice, even appearance.
3. Using cement or masking tape, attach a second layer of masonry units under
     the first, and so on, forming tasteful and traditional masonry patterns.
     Do not remove the string until your wall reaches all the way to the
     ground.
 
*Despite what many so-called professionals will tell you, your string should
     not be level with respect to the horizon.  You probably can't even see
     the horizon from where you live, so the hell with it.  Your string should
     be level with respect to the ground.  This principle was discovered
     thousands of years ago by the ancient Chinese when they built the Great
     Wall of China to keep out the marauding barbarian hordes.  If the ancient
     Chinese had been so stupid as to build the Great Wall parallel to the
     horizon, the barbarians would have been able to barge right into China.
     So the Chinese wisely built the wall parallel to the ground, which
     stopped the barbarians.  Of course, the ancient Chinese were fortunate
     that the barbarians weren't bright enough to simply throw a few ladders
     together and climb over the wall, but that's why they were called
     barbarians.  All they knew how to do was maraud around in hordes, and as
     often as not they got that wrong.  The bottom line is that there is a
     right way and a wrong way to stretch your string, and you should stretch
     it the right way.
 
                        An easy home pyramid in three steps
                                          
     Some do-it-yourselfers hesitate to build pyramids because they have been
led to believe it is extremely difficult.  The blame for this widespread
misconception has to rest squarely on the shoulders of archeologists, who are
always announcing in loud voices that they don't have the vaguest notion how
the Great Pyramids of Egypt were built.  Well, of course they don't.  They're
archeologists, for God's sake.  When the rest of us were learning useful
skills, they were out squatting on some wretched desert somewhere digging up
little snippets of ancient pottery and trying to glue them together so as to
form ancient pots.  They wouldn't know how to seal a Tupperware container, let
alone build a pyramid.
      
     I have personally conducted a very thorough study of a photograph of a
pyramid in the Encyclopedia Britannica, and I have concluded that the ancient
Egyptians built them by piling up a lot of great big stones in the shape of a
pyramid.  I see nothing particularly difficult about this, and I encourage all
of you to rush right out and build a pyramid according to the instructions
below.
      
                                   MATERIALS
                                        
50,000 hewing tools
A source of rocks, such as the coast of Maine
150,000 college students.
 
     College students are perfect for pyramid building, because they're strong
and they're used to engaging in elaborate, pointless mass activities, such as
attending college.
      
                                  DIRECTIONS
                                        
1. Line up your students and have them count off by threes to form three
     teams, the Hewers, the Haulers, and the Hefters.  Encourage the teams to
     make up team cheers and play pranks on each other and stick their fingers
     in the air and yell "We're Number One!" so as to build a sense of
     college-style fun that will make them work without food or water until
     they drop.
2. Position your Hewers on the coast of Maine and have them hew it into large
     blocks of stone, each about the size of a bungalow, which your Haulers
     should haul to your pyramid site.  NOTE: Maine probably has a Department
     of Environmental Activities or some other ecology-nut organization that
     will come up with all kinds of picky reasons why it's illegal to remove
     the coast, so the police may try to stop one of your blocks as the
     Haulers inch it toward the state line.  Under no circumstances should
     your Haulers try to outrun the police, because once you get a gigantic
     stone block going three or four miles an hour it becomes very difficult
     to control, which could lead to major damage in the form of hernias.  A
     much better approach is to disguise the stone blocks as Rose Bowl
     parade-style floats, which are perfectly logical objects for college
     students to be hauling around, and thus unlikely to make the police
     suspicious.
3. Have your Hefters form the blocks into a pyramid full of hidden passageways
     and vaults containing ancient dead Egyptians and invaluable art objects.
     It might help if you provided the Hefters with a pyramid-shaped string
     stretched between two stakes but don't feel that you have to.  You've
     done enough already.
 
 
                                     Chapter 9
                                   Easy Projects
                            Getting off to a slow start
                                          
                                          
     Here are a few beginner's projects for do-it-yourselfers, or even
craftsmen who have become heavily dependent upon narcotic substances.  The
first weds two boards together in a way that is not only attractive, but also
highly practical around the home.
      
                   Project #1: Two boards attached together
                                        
                                   MATERIALS
                                        
1 board, preferably wooden, 11' 13/18" x 45/32" x 7'4 15/15" or some other
     size
1 drop of the glue that is advertised on television as being capable of
     lifting a domestic automobile
 
                                       TOOLS
                                          
Various saws or axes such as you might use to divide a board into 2 separate
     boards so you can attach them together again in the form of a project.
A stubby, craftsmanlike pencil
 
                                    DIRECTIONS
                                          
1. Look down one edge of the board in a highly critical manner, as you have
     seen professional carpenters do.  If you see anything in the least bit
     suspicious, report it to the police immediately.
2. Using a copy of Newsweek magazine as a guide, draw a line across the board
     with your pencil.
3. Carefully whack the board on or near the line with an ax or saw until it is
     actually 2 boards.
4. Use your glue to assemble your project.  Be very careful in handling the
     glue, so as not to permit your project to become permanently bonded to
     your head.
 
                              OPTIONAL SAFETY DEVICE
                                          
To prevent injury from the jagged board edges, install a rubber glove on each
     end.
 
   Project #2: A highly modular and portable total home storage system made from
                                 industrial refuse
                                          
     Probably the single biggest problem in the entire world today is lack of
storage space.  Look at Asia.  From what I read in the newspapers, I gather
Asia has all these huddled masses of people teeming around with no place to
store anything, and everybody is wretched.  I bet your own home is no
different; you can never find anything, and you're always tripping over
things.  This is mainly because you drink too much, but it wouldn't hurt to
have more storage space.
      
     Well, here's a total home storage system that will easily hold every
object and domestic animal you own, yet can be easily moved or disassembled
should you want to burn it.  The secret is that it has a modern modular
design, which means that it is actually packing crates piled on top of each
other.
      
                                   MATERIALS
                                        
A great many packing crates, which you can obtain at any large factory merely
     by demanding them at gunpoint.  Also pick up a forklift.
 
                                       TOOLS
                                          
A cattle prod
 
                                    DIRECTIONS
                                          
Stack your crates in a modular fashion, then place your possessions in them,
     using your cattle prod to keep your domestic animals in place and ward
     off law enforcement agents should they attempt to reclaim your forklift.
 
                      Project #3: Cutting board/ platform bed
                                          
     Homeowners constantly complain, "I have room for a cutting board or a
platform bed, but not both."  If that sounds like you, then this project is
just what the doctor ordered.  By day, it's a cutting board that's spacious
enough for all your cutting needs, including whole roast oxen.  By night, it's
a modern, hippie-style platform bed that combines the advantages of simple
design with the advantages of sleeping on the floor.
      
                                   MATERIALS
                                        
A sheet of plywood
 
                                       TOOLS
                                          
An industrial-grade spatula
 
                                    DIRECTIONS
                                          
1. Assemble the plywood.
2. To use the project as a cutting board, simply place it in an attractive
     kitchen location and cut things on it.
3. To convert it to a platform bed, simply flip it over and place it on the
     floor.
4. To convert it back to a cutting board, use the spatula to pry it off the
     floor, which it will be attached to by congealed oxen blood.
 
 
                                    Chapter 10
                                Impossible Projects
                   How to build a hot tub and a hotter computer
                                          
                                          
     Now that you've built the simple and utterly useless starter projects in
Chapter 9, why not tackle these two advanced projects?  One reason that
springs to mind is that nobody has ever been able to get either of them to
work.  Another is the likelihood of serious injury or death.  If you need any
more reasons, drop me a note, because I'm sure I can come up with dozens.
      
                       Project #1: Easy-to-build hot tub
                                        
     Have you ever wondered what makes Californians so calm?  Besides drugs, I
mean.  The answer is hot tubs.  A hot tub is a redwood container filled with
water that you sit in naked with members of the opposite sex who are not
necessarily your spouse.  After a few hours in their hot tubs, Californians
don't give a damn about earthquakes or mass murderers.  They don't give a damn
about anything, which is why they are able to produce "Laverne and Shirley"
week after week.
      
                                   MATERIALS
                                        
Footers and headers
Many redwood slats
Water
A couple hundred gallons of Clorox
Penicillin
 
                                       TOOLS
                                          
Shovel
Tub-making implements
 
                                    DIRECTIONS
                                          
     I suggest you locate your hot tub outside your house, so it won't do too
much damage if it catches fire or explodes.  First, you decide which direction
your hot tub should face for maximum solar energy.  After much trial and
error, I have found that the best direction for a hot tub to face is up.
      
     The next step is to dig the footers.  I'm not really sure why hot tubs
need footers, but I have yet to read a do-it-yourself article that didn't
order the reader to dig a few footers, and I see no reason why I should be any
more lenient than the other writers.  Your footers should extend down to the
"frost line," which is a line of frost that you'll come to if you dig deep
enough.  If you live in a normal state, such as Ohio, you should find the
frost line about 2 feet down.  If you live in Florida, you'll have to dig 40
or 50 feet to find any frost; if you live in Maine, you'll find your frost
line 10 to 12 feet above the ground, almost any time of year.
      
     Once you've dug your footers, you should build some headers and several
joists, taking care not to mortise the soffits.  Now all you have to do is get
a large quantity of redwood slats and attach them together in such a manner
that they form a watertight tub, and you're all set to go ... except that now
you need some way to get water into the tub and heat it.
      
     Contrary to what a lot of so-called experts will tell you, you don't need
fancy plumbing and a filtering system for your hot tub.  All you need to do is
fill it up with the garden hose, or used dishwater.  This approach is much
cheaper and the only drawback is that after a couple of days the water will
teem with every known form of deadly mutant disease-causing microorganism.  So
if you're a real health fanatic, you might want to test the tub before you use
it by tossing in a cat or a neighbor's child.  If neither of these is
available, you might want to pour in a couple of hundred gallons of Clorox
mixed with penicillin just to be on the safe side.
      
     The only other question is how you're going to heat your outdoor hot tub
once the cool fall weather rolls around.  One method that we have found to be
simple, cheap, and dangerous is the wood-burning stove.  What we do is perch
the stove on a ledge above the hot tub, get it up to about 36,000 degrees
Fahrenheit, then tip it over into the tub.  In a matter of seconds, the water
that was once merely tepid is warm enough to vaporize stainless steel, and
many of the deadly mutant disease-causing microorganisms are dead.  Of course,
the ones that survive are usually very angry, so it's best to wait a week or
two before you actually plunge in.
      
                         Project #2: Homemade computer
                                        
     Despite what you've heard from computer salesmen, home computers are
actually straightforward devices that can be built in an afternoon by anyone
who has a few simple tools and the brains of a spittoon.
      
     Once you have gained some experience with your computer, you can program
it to do the kinds of things that computers owned by major corporations do,
such as destroy the credit ratings of people you don't even know, or answer
your telephone automatically and tell your callers that everybody in your
house is too busy to talk to them.  And besides all these advantages, my
easy-to-make personal home computer, which is the result of months of
research, experimentation, and heavy drinking, can actually heat your home.
Impossible, you say?  Why not build it and find out?
      
     First, head down to your home workshop and gather together the tools and
materials you'll need.
      
                                   MATERIALS
                                        
Solder
A television set
8 to 10 pounds of assorted electronic parts, which you can buy wherever
     electronic parts are sold.  I find that transistors work best, although
     you can use diodes, provided they're fresh.
 
                                       TOOLS
                                          
A screwdriver
An ice pick
A drill
A Bowie knife
A hacksaw
Something to melt solder with, such as a soldering gun or toaster
 
                                    DIRECTIONS
                                          
     Now you're all set.  Remove the back from the television cabinet, and,
using your ice pick, chip out the insides and throw them away.  Next, using
your Bowie knife, stab the top of the cabinet to create an eight-inch gash.
      
     Now arrange your electronic parts on your workbench in an attractive
display and melt solder on them until they all stick together, taking care not
to drop too much molten solder on your dog.  Next, you can either wait for the
parts to cool off, or, if you're in a hurry, simply dump them in a bucket of
water.  (CAUTION: Never touch the hot parts with your bare hands.  Ask a
neighbor to do this.)
      
     Once the soldered-together parts are cool, drill a few holes in them and
screw them to the inside of your television set, using your optional hacksaw
on either the television set or the parts to insure a good fit.  Now all you
need to do is reattach the cabinet back and check to make sure your fire
insurance is paid up.  You're ready to enter the World of Home Computing.
      
     First, you'll need some data to put in, or "input."  Have your children
go around the house, inside and out, and gather up, or "upgather," all your
bills, check stubs, candy wrappers, receipts, lawn clippings, tax records, and
lint balls.  The more data you give your computer, the better it will work.
To input your data, simply stuff it into the Bowie-knife gash.
      
     Next, send your children to another room, or, if possible, another state;
then plug your computer in.  For a few seconds, nothing will happen, but then
you'll hear the computer start to process, or "process," the data.  Before
long, you'll actually be able to see it working, even smell it; after 20
minutes or so, your computer will be processing data at such a rate that your
entire house will be warm as toast.  In fact, this easy-to-make personal home
computer produces heat so effectively that since I built mine, we haven't
spent a nickel on home heating, primarily because of the medical bills.
      
      
                                  Chapter 11
                                Household Pests
                           Getting tough with toads
                                        
                                        
     In this chapter, we'll explore various techniques for reducing common
household pests to lifeless blobs of tissue.  Now before I get a lot of angry
letters from ecology nuts, let me assure you that I am all in favor of
wildlife, as long as it stays in its place, which is Africa.  I believe that
if God had wanted us to share our homes with insects, He would not have made
them so unattractive.
      
     Although the techniques described in this chapter are designed primarily
for the smaller styles of pests, they will also work on larger ones, such as
goats or people who want you to become an Amway distributor.
      
                                   Termites
                                        
     Termites are unattractive little insects that have developed a highly
complex society, very much like American society, except that instead of
houses they have nests, and instead of a president they have a queen.  The
queen can lay up to 46,000 eggs a day, more than eight times the output of the
most productive U.S. president, Grover Cleveland (1837-1908).  So we can see
that termites are indeed amazing creatures.
      
     Beneath the queen in the termite hierarchy are the drones, and beneath
them are the workers, who are chosen for their stupidity.  Each day, thousands
of workers scurry from the nest in search of wood, with the idea that they
will chew it up and mix it with spit and bring it back to the queen.  The
queen doesn't want it, of course; nothing appeals to her less than chewed wood
mixed with termite spit.  So the instant they leave the nest, she and a few
top aides swarm off to another house, probably yours.
      
     The easiest way to keep termites away is to install a 6,000-volt,
one-inch-high electrical fence around your house.  This fence will keep out
not only termites, but also most snakes.  Of course, the snakes that do get
past the fence are likely to be extremely angry, so it might be a good idea to
wear a sidearm at all times.
      
                                    Roaches
                                        
     Roaches are the hardiest form of life on earth.  In a recent experiment,
scientists detonated a hydrogen bomb directly on top of a female roach, and
the only noticeable effect was that several days later she gave birth to
65,000 baby roaches, some of them weighing as much as three pounds.
      
     Many people believe they can get rid of roaches by spraying them with
poisonous chemicals, but this is utter nonsense.  Roaches love poisonous
chemicals.  They'll often gather under the sink late at night and lick the
residue off the Black Flag can.  The more chemicals you spray, the more
roaches you attract.  This is how your professional exterminators stay in
business.
      
     The only surefire way to get rid of roaches is to remove all the liquor
from your house.  Roaches can mate only when they're drunk.  Can you blame
them?  Would you mate with a roach if you were sober?  So what roaches do is
get really drunk, then have hurried, squalid sex amongst the filth and little
rolled-up balls of grease and ketchup in the darkness under the refrigerator.
The next morning the female lays 35 billion eggs and vows never to do anything
so disgusting again, but by nightfall she and her mate are creeping up the
side of the Jim Beam bottle again.  Alcohol abuse is a terrible problem among
roaches, which is why you see so few of them in positions of responsibility.
So you'll be doing them a big favor if you get rid of your liquor.  It might
also be a nice idea if you and your family squatted in front of the
refrigerator from time to time and had inspirational discussions about the
evils of drink.
      
                                   Children
                                        
     You cannot simply spray toxic chemicals on children the way you can with
roaches, because children represent our Hope for a Brighter Tomorrow.  So the
best way to deal with pesky children is to read them a few old-fashioned
traditional fairy tales in which various deformed creatures ingest children
who do not behave.  At the end of the story, say: "See, Bobby?  If you don't
want the great big ogre with eyes that glow like red-hot coals in the darkness
to come into your room tonight and plunge his enormous yellow fanglike teeth
repeatedly into your flesh, you must never set fire to Daddy's legs again."
Or, if this approach doesn't work, you can simply place your children in the
washing machine and set it on Spin Dry.
      
                                     Mice
                                        
     The best way to get rid of mice is to set traps.  To illustrate why traps
are so effective, let's look at what goes on behind the scenes in a mouse
family.
      
     It's a cold winter's evening, and Momma and Poppa Mouse are putting
little Debbie and Jimmy Mouse to bed.  "Oh, Momma," Debbie cries, sniffing her
little pink nose as a tiny tear trickles from her deep, brown eyes to her
soft, gray fur.  "I'm so hungry I don't think I can sleep.  Couldn't we have
something to eat, please?"
      
     "Now, now," sighs Momma Mouse.  "You know how upset the humans get when
we eat their food."
      
     "That's right," chimes in Poppa Mouse.  "And frankly, I don't want to
upset the humans any more, because they've been acting mighty odd lately.  The
other day, they were squatting in front of the refrigerator and talking about
liver damage."
      
     "But Daddy," says little Jimmy Mouse.  "If we don't get something to eat
soon, we'll starve to death, and it's Christmas Eve.  Besides, there's a stale
old piece of cheese just outside the hole, and I'm sure the humans wouldn't
mind if we ate it."
      
     "You're right, Jimmy," says Poppa Mouse pensively.  "I'll just go outside
here and pick up this piece of ..."
      
                                     Toads
                                        
     The only way I know of to get rid of toads is to clear the children out
of the room and strike them (the toads) with hot pokers.
      
      
                                  Chapter 12
                             The Lawn and Garden 
   Why all the plants in your garden hate you, and how to win their respect
                                        
                                        
     You should take care of your yard, because it tells people a lot about
you.  For example, if you have a lot of yard statues, it tells people you're a
jerk.
      
     The most important part of your yard is the lawn.  In America, having a
nice lawn is considered a major cultural achievement, like owning a hardcover
book or watching "Meet the Press."  Americans would rather live next to a
pervert heroin addict Communist pornographer than a person with an unkempt
lawn.
      
                              Drugs and your lawn
                                        
     The first step toward a nice lawn is to determine the chemical content of
your soil.  To do this, dig up a handful of soil and examine it carefully
under a harsh light: It should be composed of dirt, unless you live in New
England, in which case it will be composed of enormous rocks; if you live in
the South, your soil may also contain used tires.
      
     Once you've determined the chemical content, you should add some random
chemicals to your soil.  Many lawn experts recommend that you add nitrogen,
which is stupid, because nitrogen is a gas, and there is no way in the world
you can add it to your lawn.  It will simply drift off into the atmosphere the
instant you open the bag.  So your best bet is to just go up to the medicine
cabinet and root around for some chemicals in the form of old prescription
pills and dump them on your lawn.
      
     I use old tranquilizers on my lawn, and not only have I saved a lot of
money on chemicals, but I've also found that I have an extremely relaxed lawn.
Take the earthworms.  Instead of sliming around underground in a nervous,
twitching manner, as so many worms do, my worms loll about on the lawn
surface, laughing the laugh of the truly carefree.  Oh, sure, sometimes they
get underfoot, but it's a lot better than the time I gave them amphetamines
and they were up all night shrieking about how nobody loved them.
      
                           Dandelions and crabgrass
                                        
     Dandelions are easy to get rid of: You just jab them with red-hot
knitting needles.  Some people even eat them in soups and salads.  Most of
these people die within hours.
      
     Crabgrass, the squat, ugly, tattooed plant that makes up 85 percent of
your lawn, is tougher.  Crabgrass can grow on bowling balls in airless rooms,
and there is no known way to kill it that does not involve nuclear weapons.
Oh, I know you've seen advertisements for lawn products that are supposed to
kill crabgrass, but don't believe them.  Crabgrass thrives on these products.
In fact, my crabgrass often tries to dupe me into buying them.  When I'm
getting into my car, my crabgrass will yell, in mock horror, "Oh, please,
don't go to the garden supply store and buy one of those deadly anticrabgrass
lawn products!"
      
     The only way to deal with crabgrass is to sneak up on it in the dead of
night, pound it repeatedly with a ball-peen hammer, and flee on foot before it
can snare you by the ankles.  You won't kill the crabgrass, of course, but it
may become irritated enough to move to a neighbor's lawn.
      
                         How to grow all of your food
                                        
     Your first job is to prepare the soil.  The best tool for this is your
neighbor's motorized garden tiller.  If your neighbor does not own a garden
tiller, suggest that he buy one.  Then select a section of your lawn or
driveway that looks as though it might have soil underneath it, and rip it up
with the tiller.  As the sharp steel blades slice violently into the ground,
you may be able to hear the tiny screams of the various worms and furry little
woodland creatures hibernating in the soil.  Pay no attention.
      
     Now you should buy some vegetable seeds, which are sold in little packets
with attractive photographs on the covers to illustrate what your vegetables
will not look like.  The backs of the packets will give you specific planting
instructions, depending on what area of the country you live in.  For example,
if you live in Florida, you should plant your seeds in the ground, whereas if
you live in Maine, you should plant your seeds in Florida.
      
     Once you have planted your garden, you have to deal with insects.  The
trick is to prevent them from eating all the seeds within minutes after you
plant them, so they'll have something to eat later on.  The best way to do
this is to scatter sandwiches and pastries around the garden to distract the
insects until the seeds have had a chance to form vegetables.
      
     Larger animals, such as rabbits and elk, are tougher to keep away.  You
may have to fire a few bazooka rounds over their heads.  This will also keep
your neighbor at bay if he's trying to get his motorized garden tiller back.
      
     Your only remaining task is to rotate your crops.  About every two weeks,
dig everything up and put it where something else was.  This may seem like a
lot of work, but your major farmers do it all the time.  For that matter, some
of your major farmers manage to get out of growing crops altogether, and the
government pays them for this valuable service.  You might want to try setting
up the same arrangement.  Instead of starting a vegetable garden, write the
government a letter like this:
      
     "Dear Sirs: I didn't grow anything this year.  Please send me $126,000."
      
     I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know how the government responds,
especially if it sends you money.  If, on the other hand, armed federal agents
arrive at your door, I'd prefer that you didn't mention my name.
      
                      Tips on Growing Popular Vegetables
                                        
                                   Tomatoes
                                        
     Tomatoes are the most popular garden vegetables, because you can do so
much with them.  For example, you can eat them.  The trick to growing tomatoes
successfully is to stagger the planting.  Plant one-fourth of your tomatoes,
then wait two weeks and plant another fourth, and so on, until you have
planted them all.  This insures that all your tomatoes will ripen within a
five-minute period late in August, usually when you are away on vacation, so
you will return home to find 700 pounds of tomatoes rotting on the ground in a
sodden, insect-covered mass.
      
                                   Zucchini
                                        
     The zucchini is a dense, flavorless vegetable that is useful primarily as
ballast.  You can also eat zucchini, but only in very small quantities: One
zucchini is enough to satisfy the zucchini needs of a family of six for a
year.  The trouble is, you cannot grow just one zucchini.  Minutes after you
plant a single seed, hundreds of zucchinis will barge out of the ground and
sprawl around the garden, menacing the other vegetables.  At night, you will
be able to hear the ground quake as more and more zucchinis erupt.  To prevent
your property from becoming one big, pulsating zucchini herd, you will be
forced to sneak over to your neighbors' houses in the dead of night and hurl
excess zucchinis onto their lawns.
      
                                    Cashews
                                        
     Plant your cashew seeds about six inches apart, and be sure to salt them
every four days.
      
                                    Rhubarb
                                        
     This hardy vegetable was a favorite of my mother's.  Every year, she
would produce an elaborate rhubarb pie, which was second only to Brussels
sprouts in the category of things we kids would rather die than eat.  Rhubarb
is ideal for canning.  You just put it in cans, stick the cans in your pantry,
then move.
      
                                     Corn
                                        
     Your corn should be knee-high by the Fourth of July.  If it isn't, you
could be fined or jailed.
      
      
                                  Chapter 13
                                  Car Repair
   The three keys to trouble-free motoring: animal traps, a wading pool, and
                           this fact-crammed chapter
                                        
                                        
     Most common car problems are caused by pets.  The best way to avoid these
problems is preventive maintenance, by which I mean always checking your car
for pets before you start it.  You should also change your oil all the time.
This is what your top race car drivers recommend.  Of course, your top race
car drivers also routinely drive into walls at speeds upwards of 180 miles an
hour, so I don't know that we should accept their opinions as gospel.
      
                        Handy car maintenance checklist
                                        
     ENGINE.  The engine is the large, filthy object under your hood, unless
you live in a really bad neighborhood.  To understand the importance of proper
maintenance, let's take a look at what goes on inside your engine when you
turn the ignition key.  This will require you to cut the engine open with a
blowtorch, but I think you'll be glad you did.
      
     When you turn the key, gasoline comes rushing out of the gas tank and
electricity comes rushing out of the battery, and they meet in the engine,
where they explode with a force that could easily reduce the engine to
hundreds of pieces of red-hot shrapnel traveling at high speeds and capable of
destroying every living thing within 50 feet.  But this will probably not
occur if every one of the 63,000 parts that make up the engine is working
perfectly, which is why you should maintain your engine.  Every six or seven
thousand meters, open up the hood and inspect the engine closely.  It should
have many random tubes and wires running off toward other areas of the car.
Newer engines should also have oriental writing.
      
                            How to change your oil
                                        
1. Start your car and allow it to warm up.
2. Lie on your back and inch along under the car until you locate a little
     boltlike object that you cannot remove without a wrench, then inch back
     out and locate a wrench.
3. Inch back under and rotate the boltlike object counterclockwise until oil
     starts gushing out, just like in those old movies where John Wayne and
     his sidekick discover oil and dance around, except whereas they are
     dancing vertically in glee, you will be dancing horizontally in pain,
     inasmuch as the oil has been heated to roughly 6,000 degrees by the
     engine.
4. Speaking of the engine, I forgot to tell you to turn it off.  That should
     have been Step 2.  I'll try to remember to correct that before this book
     goes to the printer, so as to avoid a lot of unnecessary engine damage
     and death.
5. Get some oil and pour it into an orifice in the engine until you see little
     rivulets of oil running across the driveway because you forgot to put the
     little bolt back in the engine, which I suppose I should have told you to
     do back in Step 3, which will be Step 4 once I move the current Step 4 to
     Step 2, where it belongs, but frankly, I'm tired of having to think of
     every tiny little detail for you.
 
     TRANSMISSION.  The truth is, there is nothing you can do about your
transmission.  Nobody knows how transmissions work, or even where they come
from.  They just arrive at car factories in unmarked crates, and the workers
put them into the cars.  Many people believe transmissions are created by
beings from other solar systems.  There is evidence to support this theory,
namely transmission manuals, which contain bizarre diagrams and deranged alien
commands such as: "Using a 6.57 reductionended canister wrench, rotate the
debenture nut 6 degrees centigrade, taking care not to disenfranchise the
gesticulation valve."  So if something goes wrong with your transmission, your
best bet is to just give your car to the poor and claim a tax deduction.
      
     TIRES.  Tires are extremely important, for without them the tire
industry, as we now know it, would cease to exist.  You should inspect your
tires frequently for signs of tread and obscure little letters and numbers on
the sides, which represent significant events in the lives of the tire factory
employees.  For example, A78-13 means "All 78 of us tire factory employees
went out and got really drunk last night, so maybe 13 of the tires we make
today will be any good."
      
     EXTERIOR.  Your car's exterior takes a real beating, especially during
the summer.  Hour after hour, day after day, month after month, the sun beats
down on your car with harmful rays that can fade the paint and kill you if you
spend any time outside trying to do anything about it.  So the hell with the
exterior.
      
     EXHAUST SYSTEM.  This is located under the car, smeared with road kills.
From time to time you should hose it down or drive briskly through a wading
pool.
      
      
                                  Chapter 14
                        Redecorate Your House in a Day
        And stick "aesthetics" back where it belongs, in the dictionary
                                        
                                        
     The cheapest way to redecorate your home is to cover every horizontal
 surface in it with home decorating magazines filled with tasteful pictures of
 the interiors of homes belonging to people who spend more money on end tables
         in one month than you will spend on food in your entire life.
                                        
        A much more expensive approach is to hire an interior decorator.
 Interior decorators are people who have spent years studying the principles of
 color, shape, and texture, until they have reached the point where they would
 rather die than agree with an ordinary person such as yourself on a matter of
 taste.  So what you have to do is trick your interior decorator into believing
   you want the opposite of what you really want.  If you want a warm, cozy,
 intimate look, show the decorator a picture of a General Motors brake-assembly
 plant.  If you want a rustic look, show the decorator a picture of the Sistine
 Chapel.  You'll get what you want, and the decorator will think you didn't, so
                           everybody will be happy.
                                        
          Redecorating your kitchen in five easy-for-me-to-say steps
                                        
     1. To get some inspiration, read a batch of home decorating magazine
articles about people who completely remodeled their kitchens even though
they're incompetent jerks.  These articles always begin with a black-and-white
photograph of a horrible, dingy, 1950s style kitchen, with unclean plates
strewn all over and rats lounging around and waving at the camera.  Then you
see a glossy color photograph of a spectacularly modern kitchen that is clean
enough for neurosurgery and is at least six times as large as the kitchen in
the other photograph.  It is obviously a completely different kitchen,
probably in another state.
      
     2. Once you have been inspired, take a hard look at your own kitchen.
What don't you like about it?  Is it the layer of grease and scum that has
gradually built up on all the surfaces over the years, to the point where the
insects have trouble getting enough traction to climb up to the counters?  Or
is it the color scheme?  Are you among the millions of unfortunate American
families whose appliances are Harvest Gold or (God help you) Avocado?  Have
you ever wondered why, of all the colors they had to choose from, major
appliance manufacturers for many years insisted on making everything Harvest
Gold or Avocado, two of the ugliest colors ever devised by the mind of man,
colors more appropriate for stomach secretions than home decorating?  Were
they Dwight Eisenhower's favorite colors or something?
      
     Whatever the reason, people finally came to their senses, and you can no
longer find appliances in Harvest Gold or Avocado except in stores that have
special sections catering to people with bad taste.  Appliances now come in
many attractive colors, all of which you should ignore, because appliances
should be white.  So should toilets.  It is nature's way.  It is the American
way.  I am sure that the only reason the U.S. Constitution does not
specifically require that appliances and toilets be white is that the Founding
Fathers never dreamed anybody would be stupid enough to use any other color.
      
     3. Once you've decided on your color scheme (white), you should get a
large sum of money somehow and go buy the actual appliances.  The big issue
here is whether you should get a regular oven or a microwave oven.  A regular
oven is hot inside, so when you put a tuna casserole inside, it gets hot.  Is
everybody with me so far?  A microwave oven, on the other hand, is not hot
inside.  Instead, it has these tiny little rays (hundreds of them could easily
fit into a woman's purse) that are manufactured in Japan.  These rays travel
right through the casserole dish at speeds approaching 250 miles an hour and
slam into the tuna, causing it to get hot.  The advantage of microwave ovens
is that since only the contents get hot, you can pick the dish up with your
bare hands.  The disadvantage is that as soon as you open the lid, the
microwaves come whizzing out in random directions, and could strike your
eyeballs or furniture.
      
     4. Once you've bought your appliances, you should get some graph paper
and draw up a floor plan of your new kitchen, showing where the new appliances
will go.  To make this project as difficult as possible, try to put each new
appliance at least 11 feet from the one it's replacing.  The only exception is
the refrigerator.  You must not move it, because all the jelly and ketchup you
spilled under there over the years and never bothered to clean up has festered
and evolved into a grotesque and durable life form that, if exposed to direct
sunlight, could awaken and decide to take over the world.  The responsible
course is to put the new refrigerator on top of the old one.
      
     5. Your new kitchen is almost done!  All that remains is for you to take
out the old appliances and put in the new ones according to your plan!  And
put in a new floor!  And cabinets!  And change the wiring and plumbing all
around!  Let me know how it goes.
      
      
                                  Chapter 15
                             Build Your Own House
                           On second thought, don't
                                        
                                        
     Here's a project for the really ambitious do-it-yourselfer with no grasp
of reality: building an entire house.  Not only will you save scads of money,
but you'll be continuing a tradition that dates back to pioneer days, when our
hardy forefathers used to whack down trees personally and form them into crude
log cabins, which they would live in for maybe two days, after which they
would migrate westward, because nothing in the world is worse than living in a
crude log cabin.  I mean, there's only one room, so you're all lying there at
night listening to each other's bodily noises and smelling the aroma of
congealing muskrat, or whatever pioneer dish you ate, and you hardly ever get
any sleep.  That's why everybody has such vacant stares in those old pioneer
photographs.
      
     So in the interest of continuing this fine old pioneer tradition, you
should build your own house, following the easy, step-by-step series of steps
below.
      
                             Step #1: Draw a plan
                                        
     You should never start to build without some idea of what the house ought
to look like when it's finished, so get yourself a piece of paper and a nice,
sharp pencil, and draw yourself a house plan.  The plan should consist of two
parts: an outside view showing what the completed house would look like if it
had smoke curling out of its chimney, and an inside view showing the location
of windows, appliances, rooms, etc.
      
             Step #2: Borrow an enormous sum of money from a bank
                                        
     This is the trickiest part of home building, because you'll have to
convince the banker that you know a lot about building, which is, of course, a
lie.  The best approach is to sprinkle your conversation with all kinds of
technical building jargon.
      
BANKER: So, Mr. Jones, just how much money were you thinking of borrowing?
 
You (showing your plan to the banker): Well, as you can see from this plan, to
     insure that the lateral stability of the main structural cross-members is
     adequate for the stress on the head jamb likely to be created by the
     rotational torque of the upper sash top rail, I'll need to use a vapor
     degreasing system with at least 64 kilobytes of random access memory.
 
BANKER (extremely impressed): Here.  Take $600,000.
 
                              Step #3: Get some land
                                          
     Most local building codes require that houses be built on some kind of
land.  One excellent source of land is Iowa, which has scads of land that
nobody ever uses for anything except growing corn, which is fed to pigs
anyway, so I'm sure nobody would mind if you just took a smallish plot and
built your house on it.  The worst that could happen is that an Iowa farmer
would tell you to move your house, and I doubt this would happen because every
Iowan I've ever met has been extremely nice.  Another advantage of Iowa is
that it is located conveniently close to Kansas.
      
     However, if you'd prefer not to locate your house in Iowa, don't despair,
because there's lots of spare land around in other places, such as along the
sides of interstate highways.  Some of this land even has little picnic tables
and people who come along from time to time to mow the grass, so if I were you
I'd snap it up before someone else does, or the Iowans start growing pig corn
on it.
      
     Another land source is estates belonging to the rich.  Many of these
estates are enormous, so the odds are the rich will never even notice you,
especially if they are famous rock stars who travel most of the time and even
when they're home they're not all that observant on account of they spend most
of their leisure time trying on clothes and ingesting narcotic substances.
      
                 Step #4: Buy a large quantity of house parts
                                        
     The main thing is studs.  Studs are these boards that are sometimes
called "two-by-fours" because they are not two anythings by four anythings
(see Chapter 2, "Wood").  Most houses contain billions of them.  You'll also
need nails, a roof, and one toilet for each bathroom shown in your plan.
      
     You can buy your house parts at a lumberyard, but as I pointed out back
in Chapter 2 (see Chapter 2), the people who work in lumberyards are hostile
and suspicious and they will probably try to trick you.  You'll ask for studs,
and they'll send you home with industrial sewage piping.  So I recommend you
get your house parts at a home center.  The advantage of going to a home
center is they give you little baskets and carts to put your house in, and
you'll always know how much you're paying because there will be at least six
price stickers on every stud.  The only drawback is that most of the time the
home center will be out of whatever you need, so you'll have to make upwards
of 600 trips (see Chapter 2 again; in fact, you might just as well stay in
Chapter 2, for all the good this chapter is doing you).
      
    Step #5: Standing on your land, attach the house parts together so they
                 form a house shaped like the one in your plan
                                        
     Building an entire house may look difficult, but all it really takes is a
little common sense and a willingness to accept the fact that you will never
finish no matter how long you live.  At the beginning, when you're nailing
large boards together, you'll think you'll be done in a matter of days, but
pretty soon you'll realize that the only materials you have left are skillions
of little pieces of molding and pipes and wires and doorknobs representing
600,000 man-hours of extremely tedious work, and you'll reach the point where
all you do is sit on the floor and drink beer and fantasize that you live in a
motel and you don't even have to fold your own towels.  I know a couple who
live in a semicomplete house that they once tried to build, and after a couple
of years they stopped even noticing that they have a pile of lumber in their
living room.  They just dust it off and put cheese and crackers on it when
company comes.  So good luck!  I admire your spunk.  Really.
      
      
                                     Index
                                        
                                        
                                       A
                                        
Asia, lack of storage space in, 52
Avocado, ugliness of, 82
 
                                       B
                                        
Bats, rabid, 43
Beam, Jim, 64
"Beaver, Leave It to," 34
Bomb
  cherry, 27
  hydrogen,63
Blimp, Goodyear, 16
Blood
  coming down stairs, 12
  congealed oxen, 54
  of primitive person, 2
 
                                       c
                                        
Californians, 58
Cattle prod, 52
Chablis, 8
Chinese Communists, 19
Cleveland, Grover, 63
Comets, 40
Corsage, in toilet, 27
 
                                       D
                                        
Debentures
  and wood, 10
  and transmissions, 78
Demons
  and caulking, 36
  and electricity, 12
Dinette table, enormous cats on, 12
Diseases
  horrible lingering, 15
  tropical, 8
Dogs, importance of keeping solder off, 61
Droppings, rodent, 29
 
                                       E
                                        
Egypt, Great Pyramids of, 40
Eisenhower administration, 14
Elk, 71
Elkhart, Indiana, 22
 
                                       F
                                        
Flamethrower, 24
Forefathers, our hardy, 84
Forklift, 52
Frenchmen relieving themselves on Germany, 26
 
                                       G
                                        
Germans relieving themselves on France, 26
 
                                       H
                                        
Hackensack, New Jersey, 12
Haddock, 18
Hordes, marauding barbarian, 46
Horizon, the, 46
Horror, The Amityville, 12
 
                                       J
                                        
Jerky, beef, 15
Jupiter, planet of, 45
 
                                       L
                                        
"Laverne and Shirley," 58
Lint balls, 61
Lobsters, relentless motion of, 18
 
                                       M
                                        
Maine, coast of, 48
Malted milk balls, 6
Memory, random access, 86
Middle East crisis, 44
Mincing, 28
Motors, General, 81
Murderers
  ax, 31
  mass, 58
Muskrat, 84
Mutant microorganisms, 60
 
                                       N
                                        
Narcotic substances, 50, 87
Needles, red-hot knitting, 69
Neptune, planet of, 6
Newsweek magazine, 50
Nuts, granola-oriented ecology, 34
 
                                       P
                                        
Pastries, gardening with, 71
Pool, bumper, 32
Puppies, heat being sucked out of, 40
 
                                       R
                                        
Raisinets, 6
 
                                       S
                                        
"Shirley, Laverne and," 58
Sistine Chapel, 81
Solar systems, other, 78
Spiders, vicious, 23
Spittoon, brains of, 60
 
                                       T
                                        
tarantulas, 40
Tentacles, tree, 37
Toads, 67
Toilet, Sir Robert, 26
Tonic, gin and, 44
Tripe, 8
Truncheons, 5
Turtles, plumbing and, 27
 
                                       U
                                        
U.S. Constitution, color schemes allowed by, 83
 
                                       W
                                        
War, nuclear, 15
Wayne, John, 76
Winter, Old Man, 45
Worms, earth, 32, 69
 
                                       Z
                                        
Zucchini, 72
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