Dave Barry: Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up

POLICE OFFICER: We tracked the alleged perpetrator from the crime scene by following the trail of his dragging pants butt. PROSECUTOR: And what was he doing when you caught up with him? POLICE OFFICER: He was hobbling in a suspicious manner.

What I want to know is, how do young people buy these pants? Do they try them on to make sure they DON’T fit? Do they take along a 500-pound friend, or a mature polar bear, and buy pants that fit HIM?

I asked my son about these pants, and he told me that mainly “bassers” wear them. “Bassers” are people who like a lot of bass in their music. They drive around in cars with four-trillion-watt sound systems playing recordings of what sound like above-ground nuclear tests, but with less of an emphasis on melody.

My son also told me that there are also people called “posers” who DRESS like “bassers,” but are, in fact, secretly “preppies.” He said that some “posers” also pose as “headbangers,” who are people who like heavy-metal music, which is performed by skinny men with huge hair who stomp around the stage, striking their instruments and shrieking angrily, apparently because somebody has stolen all their shirts.

“Like,” my son said, contemptuously, “some posers will act like they like Metallica, but they don’t know anything about Metallica.”

If you can imagine.

I realize I’ve mainly been giving my side of the parent-teenager relationship, and I promise to give my son’s side, if he ever comes out of his room. Remember how the news media made a big deal about it when those people came out after spending two years inside Biosphere 2? Well, two years is nothing. Veteran parents assure me that teenagers routinely spend that long in the bathroom. In fact, veteran parents assure me that I haven’t seen anything yet.

“Wait till he gets his driver’s license,” they say. “That’s when Fred and I turned to heroin.”

Yes, the next few years are going to be exciting and challenging. But I’m sure that, with love and trust and understanding, my family will get through them OK. At least I will, because I plan to be inside Biosphere 3.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Dave Barry’s best-selling books Include: Dave Barry Does Japan, Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up, and Dave Barry Turns 40. Championed by the New York Times as “the funniest man In America,” Barry’s syndicated column for The Miami Herald now reaches over 250 newspapers across the country. Television has even succumbed to his wit—the popular sitcom “Dave’s World” is based on his life and columns.