Dave Barry - Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up

So this could be an important product. Maybe, when you go to a restaurant, if you order certain foods, the waiter should bring Beano to your table, instead of those stupid utility-pole-sized pepper grinders. “Care for some Beano?” the waiter could say. “Trust me, you’ll need it.”

And getting back to Justice Stevens’s original concern, I think federal helicopters should spray massive quantities of Beano on the nation’s dairy farms, to reduce the cow methane output. And of course it should be mandatory in the dining rooms of the United States Congress. I’m sure the Supreme Court will back me up on this.

I want to warn you right away that today’s topic involves an extremely mature subject matter that might offend your community standards, if your community has any.

I became sensitive about community standards recently when, at the suggestion of no less than a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, I wrote a column about a ground-breaking antiflatulence product called Beano. Some newspapers—and I do not wish to name names, but two of them were the Portland Oregonian and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch—refused to print this column on the grounds that it was tasteless and offensive. Which of course it was, although it was nothing like the disgusting trash you hear from the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Anyway, those readers who have community standards should leave the room at this time, because today’s topic is: circumcision. This is a common medical procedure that involves—and here, in the interest of tastefulness, I am going to use code names—taking hold of a guy’s Oregonian and snipping his Post-Dispatch right off. This is usually done to tiny guy babies who don’t have a clue as to what is about to happen. One minute a baby is lying happily in his little bed, looking at the world and thinking what babies think (basically, “Huh?”), and suddenly along comes a large person and snip WAAAAHHH the baby is dramatically introduced to the concept that powerful strangers can fill his life with pain for no apparent reason. This is excellent training for dealing with the Internal Revenue Service, but it’s no fun at the time.

Most of us guys deal with this unpleasant experience by eventually erasing it from our conscious minds, the way we do with algebra. But some guys never get over it. I base this statement on a San Jose Mercury News article, written by Michael Oricchio and mailed to me by many alert readers, concerning a group of men in California who are very upset about having been circumcised as babies. They have formed a support group called RECAP. In the interest of good taste I will not tell you what the P in RECAP stands for, but the “RECA” part stands for “Recover A.”

According to the article, the members (sorry!) of RECAP are devoted to restoring themselves to precircumcision condition “through stretching existing skin or by surgery.” I swear I am not making this up. Here is a quotation from RECAP co-founder R. Wayne Griffiths:

“There are a lot of men who are enraged that they were violated without their consent and they want to do something about it. I’ve always been fascinated by intact men. I just thought it looked nicer. I had friends growing up who were intact. I thought, ‘Gee, that’s what I’d like to be.’”

The article states that, to become intact again, Griffiths invented a 7-1/2-ounce skin-stretching device that “looks like a tiny steel barbell,” which he taped to the end of his Oregonian and wore for “four to 12 hours every day, except weekends, for a year.” Using this method, he grew himself an entirely new Post-Dispatch. Other RECAP members are involved in similar efforts. They meet regularly to discuss technique and review their progress.

I’m not sure how I feel about all this. I’m a middle-age white guy, which means I’m constantly reminded that my particular group is responsible for the oppression of every known minority PLUS most wars PLUS government corruption PLUS pollution of the environment, not to mention that it was middle-age white guys who killed Bambi’s mom. So I’m pleased to learn that I myself am an oppressed victim of something. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t get enraged about it. I’ve asked other guys about this.

“Are you enraged about being circumcised?” I say.

“What?” they say.

So I explain about RECAP.

“WHAT??” they say.

I have yet to find a guy who’s enraged. And nobody I talked to was interested in miniature barbells, let alone surgery. Most guys don’t even like to talk about medical procedures involving the Oregonian region. One time my wife and I were at a restaurant with two other couples, and one of the women, Susan, started describing her husband Bob’s vasectomy, which she had witnessed.

“NO!” we guys shouted, curling our bodies up like boiled shrimp. “Let’s not talk about that!”

But our wives were fascinated. They egged Susan on, and she went into great detail, forcing us guys to stick wads of French bread in our ears and duck our heads under the table. Periodically, we’d come up to see if the coast was clear, but Susan would be saying, “And then the doctor picked up this thing that looked like a big crochet needle ...” And BONK we guys would bang our heads together ducking back under the table.

So Post-Dispatchwise, I think I’m going to remain an oppressed victim. But don’t let me tell the rest of you guys what to think; it’s your decision. This is a free country. In most communities.

The thing I like best about being a journalist, aside from being able to clip my toenails while working, is that sometimes, through hard work and perseverance and opening my mail, I come across a story that can really help you, the consumer, gain a better understanding of how you can be killed by breakfast snack food.

This is just such a time. I have received, from alert reader Richard Rilke, an alarming article from the New Philadelphia (Ohio) Times headlined: OVERHEATED POPTARTS CAUSE DOVER HOUSE FIRE, OFFICIALS SAY. The article states that fire officials investigating a house fire in Dover, Ohio, concluded that “when the toaster failed to eject the Pop-Tarts, they caught fire and set the kitchen ablaze.”

According to the article, the investigators reached this conclusion after experimenting with Pop-Tarts and a toaster. They found that “strawberry Pop-Tarts, when left in a toaster that doesn’t pop up, will send flames ‘like a blowtorch’ up to three feet high.”

Like most Americans, I have long had a keen scientific interest in combustible breakfast foods, so I called up the Dover Fire Department and spoke to investigator Don Dunfee. He told me that he and some other investigators bought a used toaster, rigged it so it wouldn’t pop up, put in some Kellogg’s strawberry Pop-Tarts, then observed the results.

“At five minutes and 55 seconds,” he said, “we had flames shooting out the top. I mean large flames. We also tried it with an off-brand tart. That one broke into flames in like 3-1/2 minutes, but it wasn’t near as impressive as the Kellogg’s Pop-Tart.”

A quality you will find in top investigative journalists such as Woodward and Bernstein and myself is that before we publish a sensational story, we make every effort to verify the facts, unless this would be boring. So after speaking with Dunfee I proceeded to my local K-mart, where I consulted with an employee in the appliance sector.

ME: What kind of toaster do you recommend for outdoor use? EMPLOYEE: A cheap toaster.

I got one for $8.96. I already had Kellogg’s strawberry Pop-Tarts at home, because these are one of the three major food groups that my son eats, the other two being (1) pizza and (2) pizza with pepperoni.