Snots At Sea

Like most Americans, I was thrilled to death last February when our wealthy yachting snots won the coveted America’s Cup back from Australia’s wealthy yachting snots.

It was not an easy victory. Our boys spent years experimenting with different designs for their boat before they came up with the innovative idea of having a submerged nuclear submarine tow it. “That was the real breakthrough,” explained Captain Dennis Conner. “We could hit nearly 50 miles per hour without even putting up our sails. Plus we had torpedoes.” It was American ingenuity at its best, and I think that, as a nation, we should be inspired to take up sailing as a popular mania, similar to the way, in previous years, we have taken up Bruce Springsteen and being Re publican.

I have done some sailing myself, and let me tell you: There’s nothing quite like getting out on the open sea, where you can forget about the hassles and worries of life on land, and concentrate on the hassles and worries of life on the sea, such as death by squid. My son, Robert, has this book entitled Giants of Land, Sea, and Air, Past and Present, which I like to read to him at bedtime to insure that he won’t fall asleep until just after dawn. Here’s what this book says regarding squid: “The giant squid may reach a length of 55 feet, including its 35-foot tentacles.”

My point is that while you should of course enjoy your sailing experience, you should take the routine marine precaution of being constantly aware that a creature the size of Yonkers, New York, could be oozing and sliming along just beneath the surface, watching you with humongous eyes. Another one of Robert’s books, The Big Book of Animal Records, states that the eye of a giant squid can get to be—this is an Amazing True Nature Fact, coming up here—16 inches across. Think about that. Think about the size of the whole eyeball. Think of the pranks you could play if you got hold of an eyeball like that.

DELIVERY ROOM DOCTOR: Well, Mr. and Mrs. Foonster, here’s your newborn child!

NEW PARENTS: AIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

But this is not the time for lighthearted humor. This is a time to learn Safe Boating Practices, so that your sailing experience will not be ruined in the event of a squid attack. Here is the procedure recommended by boating safety experts:

1. Do not panic. Remember that the squid does not necessarily want to eat you. Oh, sure, it wants to eat somebody, but this does not have to be you.

2. Shout: “Here! Eat Ralph!”

Boating safety experts recommend that you always keep a supply of unpopular guests on hand to push overboard as emergency marine sacrifices. They do not, however, have to be named Ralph. You can just claim they are named Ralph, because you are dealing with a squid.

OK, that takes care of boating safety. Now let’s talk about the kind of boat you should select. There are many different kinds, the main ones being yachts, swoops, tankers, frigates, drawls, skeeters, fuggits, kvetches, and pantaloons. These are all basically the same. The only important factor to bear in mind, when selecting a boat, is that it should be “seaworthy,” meaning that if for some reason you accidentally drive it into another boat, or a reef, or a Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge, you will not be held financially responsible.

This means the type of boat you want is what veteran mariners refer to as a “stolen” boat, or, if this is not practical, a “rented” boat.

I rented a boat once, in the Virgin Islands. My wife and I did this with another couple, and we agreed that I should be the captain, because I had the most sailing experience, in the form of sitting on various people’s sailboats drinking beer and remarking upon the weather. Fortunately the boat we rented had a motor in it. You will definitely want this feature on your sailboat too, because if you put up the sails, the boat tips way over, and you could spill your beer. This was a constant problem for Magellan. I put the motor on whenever we wanted to actually get somewhere, or if we came within two miles of something we might run into, such as another boat or a Virgin Island. On those rare occasions when I did attempt to sail, I was hampered by the fact that the only nautical commands my crew understood were:

1. “Pull on that thing.”

2. “No, the OTHER thing.”

3. “No, the thing over THERE, dammit.”

4. “Never mind.”

Our navigational policy was always to steer the boat in the direction of restaurants and hotels that had real bathrooms. Our boat allegedly had a bathroom (or as we say aboard ship, a “bathroom”), but it was about the size of those styrofoam containers you get Egg McMuffins in, and it was mostly filled with the marine toilet, a complex and punitive device that at any moment you expected to see a tentacle come snaking out of. Which is why the No. 1 rule of the sea is: If you absolutely have to use the marine toilet, you want to send Ralph in there first.

Sic, Sic, Sic

I would have to say that the greatest single achievement of the American medical establishment is nasal spray. Oh, I realize it can be overdone. A friend of mine named Tatnall claims he knew a woman who was so addicted to nasal spray that she carried some down the aisle on her wedding day. Her hand would go darting under her veil, and a snort would resound through the church. Tatnall swears this is true. So I fully agree that nasal-spray abuse is a serious problem and we certainly need some kind of enormous federal program to combat it.

But aside from that, I feel that nasal spray is a wondrous medical achievement, because it is supposed to relieve nasal congestion, and by gadfrey, it relieves nasal congestion. What I’m saying is that it actually works, which is something you can say about very few other aspects of the medical establishment.

This is especially true when it comes to figuring out what is wrong with sick people. My experience has been that doctors will give you a clear-cut, understandable diagnosis only if you wander in with, say, an ice pick protruding from your skull. And even then, you have to pretend that you don’t know what’s wrong. If you say, “I have an ice pick in my skull,” the doctor will become irritated, because he spent all those years in medical school and he’s damned if he’s going to accept opinions from an untrained layperson such as yourself. “It conceivably could be an ice pick,” he’ll say, in a tone of voice that suggests he’s talking to a very stupid sheep, “but just in case I’m going to arrange for a test in which we remove a little snippet of your liver every week for eight weeks.” So your best bet is to keep your mouth shut and let the doctor diagnose the ice pick, which he will call by its Latin name.

If you have a subtler problem, however, you may never find out what’s wrong. For example, a few months back, one side of my tongue swelled up. I tried everything—aspirin, beer, nasal spray—but my tongue was still swollen. So I went to a doctor. His receptionist began my treatment by having me sit in the waiting room where I read a therapeutic article in a 1981 issue of National Geographic. That took me maybe an hour, during which I learned a great deal about this ancient tribe of people who managed to build a gigantic and photogenic temple in a jungle several thousand years ago despite the fact that they were extremely primitive at the time.

Step Two in the therapy was when a nurse put me in a little examination room with a paper-covered table, which evidently was emitting some kind of invisible healing rays because they had me sit there alone with it for 43 minutes by my watch. It wasn’t as boring as it sounds because there was a scale in there, so I could weigh myself for amusement.