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Back Barrel Fever
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  1. Barrel Fever
  2. Barrel Fever
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She asked if she could call me after my meeting and I told her to hold on a moment as I had another call coming in. She’s been holding for fifteen minutes now and I still can’t make up my mind. I look over at my mother’s card on the refrigerator. BE GOOD. But she never specified: Be good to whom? If I’m good to Trudy Chase, I’ll tell her never to call me again. If I’m good to myself, I’ll wind up making fudge and walking the dogs of stroke victims. Which is worse?

Barrel Fever

E S S A Y S

Barrel Fever

DIARY OF A SMOKER

I RODE my bike to the boat pond in Central Park, where I bought myself a cup of coffee and sat down on a bench to read. I lit a cigarette and was enjoying myself when the woman seated twelve feet away, on the other side of the bench, began waving her hands before her face. I thought she was fighting off a bee.

She fussed at the air and called out, “Excuse me, do you mind if we make this a no-smoking bench?”

I don’t know where to begin with a statement like that. “Do you mind if we make this a no-smoking bench?” There is no “we.” Our votes automatically cancel one another out. What she meant was, “Do you mind if I make this a no-smoking bench?” I could understand it it we were in an elevator or locked together in the trunk of a car, but this was outdoors. Who did she think she was? This woman was wearing a pair of sandals, which are always a sure sign of trouble. They looked like the sort of shoes Moses might have worn while he chiseled regulations onto stone tablets. I looked at her sandals and at her rapidly moving arms and I crushed my cigarette. I acted like it was no problem and then I stared at the pages of my book, hating her and Moses — the two of them.

The trouble with aggressive nonsmokers is that they feel they are doing you a favor by not allowing you to smoke. They seem to think that one day you’ll look back and thank them for those precious fifteen seconds they just added to your life. What they don’t understand is that those are just fifteen more seconds you can spend hating their guts and plotting revenge.

My school insurance expires in a few weeks so I made an appointment for a checkup. It’s the only thing they’ll pay for as all of my other complaints have been dismissed as “Cosmetic.”

If you want a kidney transplant it’s covered but if you desperately need a hair transplant it’s “Cosmetic.” You tell me.