Dave Barry - The Taming Of The Screw

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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