Dave Barry - Dave Barry’s Greatest Hits

Shark documentaries took an important stride forward recently with a series called “Ocean Quest,” in which, instead of using trained divers, the documentary maker rented a former beauty queen, Shawn Weatherly, and spent a year dropping her into various shark-infested waters. The idea was that she, being a regular person just like me and you except she has a great body, would be able to convey to us viewers the various human emotions she was feeling. This was pretty funny, inasmuch as Shawn’s acting ability is such that she could not convey the concept of failing if you pushed her off a cliff. But the point is, here was a shark documentary that barely even pretended to be scientific, and instead focused on the excitement involved in watching somebody act as bait.

So I say it’s time to take this one step farther. I say the public is ready to drop the Scientific Research aspect altogether, and to get past all the usual shark-documentary foreplay. I don’t think it would be a problem, getting the celebrities. You look for somebody whose career really needs a boost—a Telly Savalas, for example, or a Zsa Zsa Gabor—and you point out what exposure like this could do for a person. I don’t think you could keep Zsa Zsa out of the water. Ed McMahon could be the host. Your only real problem would be getting a shark. Most of your top sharks probably have commitments to do documentaries.

Today’s science question comes from eight-year-old Bobby Johnson, an imaginary child who lives in Maryland. Bobby asks: “What good are insects, anyway? You know?”

ANSWER: It’s a shame, Bobby, but for far too many people, the usual reaction upon encountering an insect Is to want to smash it with a rock. That’s certainly my immediate reaction, although there are certain insects I would prefer to use a flame-thrower on, such as those large tropical-style spiders that appear to be wearing the pelts of small mammals.

Oh, I can hear you junior-high-school science teachers out there now, spitting out your cafeteria entree (“Tuna Warmed Up”) and shouting: “Wait a minute! Spiders aren’t insects! Spiders are arachnids!” That’s exactly what’s wrong with our junior high schools today: all those snotty science teachers going around telling our young people that spiders are not insects, when they (the science teachers) could be leading voluntary organized prayers. Of course spiders are insects. The very word “insect” is a combination of two ancient Greek words: “in,” meaning “a,” and “sect,” meaning “repulsive little creature.” Thus not only are spiders insects but so are crabs, jellyfish, the late Truman Capote, bats, clams, olives and those unfortunate little dogs, “Pugs,” I believe they are called, that appear to have been struck repeatedly in the face with a heavy, flat object such as the Oxford English Dictionary.

So, Bobby, we can see that ... Bobby? Bobby! Take that finger out of your nose and pay attention when I answer your Science Question! Whose finger is that, anyway?! Put it back where you found it this instant!!

All right. So, Bobby, we can see that the insect family is very large and varied indeed. just sitting here thinking about it, I would estimate that there are over 600 billion species of insect in my basement alone, which is a real puzzle because we pay $16 a month to have a man come and spray an allegedly lethal chemical all over the place. What I think has happened is that the insects got to this man somehow. Maybe a group of wasps met him at the end of our driveway one afternoon and made it clear to him by gesturing with their feelers that they wouldn’t want to see him or his wife or God forbid his small children get stung in the eyeballs, and so what he has actually been spraying around our basement all this time is Liquid Insect Treat.

This is probably good. We cannot simply destroy insects in a cavalier manner, because, as many noted ecology nuts have reminded us time and time again, they (the insects) are an essential link in the Great Food Chain, wherein all life forms are dependent on each other via complex and subtle interrelationships, as follows: Man gets his food by eating cows, which in turn eat corn, which in turn comes from Iowa, which in turn was part of the Louisiana Purchase, which in turn was obtained from France, which in turn eats garlic, which in turn repels vampires, which in turn suck the blood out of Man. So we can see that without insects there would be no ... Hey, wait a minute! I just noticed that there are no insects in the Great Food Chain. Ha ha! Won’t that be a kick in the pants for many noted ecology nuts! I bet they all race right out and buy 4,000-volt patio insect-electrocution devices!

Nevertheless, we do need insects for they perform many useful functions. Without insects, for example, we would have no reliable way to spread certain diseases. Also, in some part of Africa that I saw in a documentary film once, they have this very, very large insect, called the Goliath beetle, which grows to almost a foot in length, and the children actually use these beetles to pull their little toy carts. Wouldn’t that be fun, Bobby, to have a foot-long beetle of your own, pulling a cart around and clambering into bed with you? Perhaps I’ll get you one!

Of course most of us find it difficult to talk about insects without bringing up the subject of sex. According to scientists who study insects (known as “entomologists,” or “Al”), the male insect initiates reproduction by rubbing his legs together to produce a distinctive sound, which attracts a bird, which eats the male, then throws up. The female insect then lays 1.5

billion eggs, eating them as she goes along so she will have the strength she will need to suckle them when they hatch. The young insects, called “maggots,” enjoy a carefree childhood, writhing playfully under their mother’s 76,806,059 watchful eyes and engaging in maggot games that teach them skills they will need to survive as adults, such as scurrying under the refrigerator when the kitchen light comes on. Eventually, they reach a point where their mother can teach them no more, so they eat her, and the males start rubbing their legs together. This life cycle takes about 18 minutes, slightly less in my basement.

So there you have it, Bobby, a fascinating look at the jillions of tiny life forms that inhabit Spaceship Earth with us, and that will still be around long after we’re all dead from nuclear war! Of course the insects know this, too, and they do everything they can to promote international tension. They send their top-rated chiggers to all the nuclear-arms-reduction talks, so after a few minutes the negotiators for both sides are so welt-covered and irritated that they lunge across the table and try to punch each other in the mouth. It’s just one more way these amazing little creatures adapt to the world around them. So the next time you’re about to stomp on an insect, Bobby, remember this: A sudden, jerky motion can lead to serious muscle strain!

Well, kids, that’s it for this month’s science question. Tune in next month, when a child from Ohio named “Suzy,” or perhaps “Mark,” will write in to ask about the Six Basic Rules of cattle-prod safety.

The difficult thing about studying history is that, except for Harold Stassen, everybody who knows anything about it firsthand is dead. This means that our only source of historical information is historians, who are useless because they keep changing everything around.

For example, I distinctly remember learning in fifth grade that the Civil War was caused by slavery. So did you, I bet. As far as I was concerned, this was an excellent explanation for the Civil War, the kind you could remember and pass along as an important historical lesson to your grandchildren. (“Gather ‘round boys and girls, while Grandpa tells you what caused the Civil War. Slavery. Now go fetch Grandpa some more bourbon.”)