Chips Off the Old Benchley Read online

  I have now reached an age and arterial condition where this business of selection of gifts for particular people throws me into a high fever (102) and causes my eyes to roll back into my head. It isn’t the money that I begrudge. I spend that much in a single night on jaguar cubs and rare old Egyptian wines for one of my famous revels. It is simply that I am no longer able to decide what to get for whom. In other words, that splendid cellular structure once known as my “mind” has completely collapsed in this particular respect. (I am finding other respects every day, but we won’t go into that now.)

  It is not only at Christmas and New Year’s that I am confronted with this terrifying crisis. When I am away on my summer vacation, when I go away on a business trip, or even when I wake up and find myself in another city by mistake, there is always that incubus sitting on my chest: “Which post-card shall I send to Joe?” or “What shall I take back to Mae?” The result is that I have acquired a full-blown phobia for post-card stands and the sight of a gift shop standing in my path will send me scurrying around a three-mile detour or rolling on the ground in an unpleasant frenzy. If I knew of a good doctor, I would go to him for it.

  On my last vacation I suddenly realized that I had been away for two weeks without sending any word home other than to cable the bank to mind its own business and let me alone about that overdraft. So I walked up and down in front of a post-card shop until I got my courage up, gritted my teeth, and made a dash for it. I found myself confronted by just short of 450,000 post-cards.

  Taking up a position slightly to the left and half facing one of those revolving racks, I gave it a little spin once around, just to see if it was working nicely. This brought the lady clerk to my side.

  “Some post cards?” she asked, perhaps to make sure that I wasn’t gambling with the contraption.

  “I’m just looking,” I reassured her. Then, of course, I had to look. I spun the thing around eighty or ninety times, until it began to look as if there were only one set of post-cards in the rack, all showing some unattractive people in a rowboat on a moonlit lake. Then I started spinning in the opposite direction. This made me dizzy and I had to stop altogether. “Let me see,” I said aloud to myself in order to reassure the lady that I really was buying cards and not just out on a lark, “who – whom – do I have to send to?”

  Well, there were four in my own family, and Joe and Hamilton and Tweek and Charlie (something comical for Charlie) – oh, and Miss McLassney in the office and Miss Whirtle in the outer office and Eddie on the elevator, and then a bunch of kidding ones for the boys at the Iron Gate and – here I felt well enough to start spinning again. Obviously the thing to do was to take three or four dozen at random and then decide later who to send each one to. So I grabbed out great chunks of post cards from the rack, three out of this pack showing mountain goats, six out of this showing a water-colored boy carrying a bunch of pansies (these ought to get a laugh), and seven or eight showing peasants in native costume flying kites or something.

  “I’ll take these,” I said, in a fever of excitement, and dashed out without paying.

  For four days I avoided sitting down at a desk to write those cards, but at last a terrific mountain storm drove me indoors and the lack of anything to read drove me to the desk. I took the three dozen cards and piled them in a neat pile before me. Then I took out my fountain pen. By great good luck, there was no ink in it. You can’t write post-cards without ink, now, can you? So I leapt up from the desk and took a nap until the storm was over.

  It was not until a week later that I finally sat down again and began to decide which cards to send and to whom. Here was one showing an old goat standing on a cliff. That would be good for Joe, with some comical crack written on it. No, I guess this one of two peasant girls pushing a cart would be better for Joe. I wrote, “Some fun, eh, kid?” on the goat picture and decided to send it to Hamilton, but right under it was a colored one showing a boy and a girl eating a bunch of lilies of the valley. That would be better for Hamilton – or maybe it would be better for Charlie. No, the goat one would be better for Charlie, because he says “Some fun, eh, kid?” all the time. . . . Now let’s do this thing systematically. The goat one to Charlie. Cross off Charlie’s name from the list. That’s one. Now the boy and girl eating lilies of the valley – or perhaps this one of a herd of swans – no, the boy and girl to Hamilton because – hello, what’s this? How about that for Hamilton? And how about the boy and girl eating a herd of swans in a cartful of lilies of the valley on a cliff for Eddie or Joe or Miss McLassney or Mother or Tweek or –

  At this point everything went black before me and when I came to I was seated at a little iron table on a terrace with my face buried in an oddly flavored glass of ice. Not having had a stamp, I didn’t send even the card I had written to Charlie, but brought them all home with me in my trunk and they are in my top desk drawer to this very day.

  The question of bringing home little gifts is an even more serious one. On the last day before I start back I go to some shop which specializes in odds and ends for returning travelers. I have my list of beneficiaries all neatly made out. Here are some traveling clocks. Everyone has a traveling clock. Here are some embroidered hand bags. (As a matter of fact, I have come to believe that the entire choice of gifts for ladies, no matter where you are, is limited to embroidered hand bags. You ask a clerk for suggestions as to what to take to your mother, and she says: “How about a nice embroidered hand bag?” You look in the advertisements in the newspapers and all you can find are sales of embroidered hand bags. The stores at home are full of embroidered hand bags and your own house is full of embroidered hand bags. My God, don’t they ever think of anything else to make?)

  I roam about in shop after shop, thinking that in the next one I shall run across something that will be just right. Traveling clocks and embroidered hand bags. Perfumes and embroidered hand bags. Perfumes and traveling clocks. And all of them can be bought at home right down on Main Street and probably a great deal better. At this point, the shops all close suddenly, and I am left with my list and lame ankles to show for a final days shopping. It usually results in my sneaking out, the first day that I am home, and buying a traveling clock, some perfume, and an embroidered hand bag at the local department store and presenting them without the tell-tale wrappings to only moderately excited friends.

  This is why I pretend to be in jail around Christmas and New Years. It may end up in my pretending to be (or actually being) in jail the year round.

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  So You’re Going

  to New York

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  To the traveler who is returning to New York after a summer in Europe, full of continental ways and accustomed to taking in with an appraising eye such points of interest as have been called to his attention by the little books he bought at Brentano’s, perhaps a few words will not be amiss to refresh his memory about his homeland. One forgets so easily.

  We approach New York by the beautiful North River, so-called because it is on the west of the island, the scene of many naval battles during the Civil War and referred to by Napoleon as “le robinet qui ne marche pas” (“the faucet which does not work”). All true Americans, on sailing up the harbor, will naturally feel a thrill of pride as the tall towers (incorrectly called “the tall towers of Ilium”) raise their shaggy heads through the mists, and will naturally remark to one another: “Well, after all, there isn’t anything like Little Old New York.” These will be the last kind words they speak of New York until they are abroad again next year.

  The word for douanier is customs-house officier, and you will find that the American customs are much less exacting than those of foreign countries, owing to the supremacy of American industries and their manufacturing efficiency which makes it possible for them to make better goods at lower prices than those of Europe. The only articles which one is not allowed to bring into America in any quantity are:

  Wearing apparel, je
welry, silks, laces, cottons (woven or in the bale), living equipment, books, gifts, raw hides, marble slabs, toothpaste, sugarcane, music (sheet or hummed), garters (except black with a narrow white band), sunburn acquired abroad, moustaches grown abroad (unless for personal use), cellulose, iron pyrites, medicine (unless poison), threshing-machines, saliva, over four lungfuls of salt air, and any other items that you might possibly want to bring in.

  The customs thus disposed of, we take a cab and tell the driver to drive slowly to our hotel. This will be difficult at first, owing to the hold which the French or German language has got on us. We may not have noticed while we were abroad (and certainly the foreigners never noticed it) how like second-nature it comes to speak French or German, but, on landing in America, we shall constantly be finding ourselves (especially in the presence of friends who have been at home all summer) calling waiters “Garçon” or saying to drivers: “Nicht so schnell, bitte!” This will naturally cause us a little embarrassment which we will explain away by saying that we really have got so used to it that it is going to take us a couple of days to get the hang of English. Some way should be found to make Americans as glib in foreign languages while they are abroad as they are when they get back to New York. Then there will be no more wars.

  American money will cause us quite a lot of trouble, too. Compiling statistics ahead of time, we may say that roughly one million returning Americans will remark to friends, during the month of September: “Say, I thought I had a ten-shilling note here,” or “I’ll be giving one of these dollars for ten francs the first thing I know.” The fact that they are not the same size at all will not enter into it. Sharp-tempered people who have been in New York throughout the torrid season may have to take the matter into their own hands and shoot a great many returned travelers.

  American money will, however, present quite a problem, owing to the tendency of those who have been accustomed to wadding five-and ten-franc notes (to keep them from falling apart) to leave dollar bills similarly wadded around in peignoir pockets or toss them off as tips. New York waiters, during the month of September, will probably reap a harvest of wadded dollar-bills. Or maybe, when it is a matter of a loss of seventy-five cents, the travelers will catch themselves just in time and remember that they are back in America.

  Now that we are safe and sound at our hotel, or home, or favorite bar, we have the whole of marvelous New York before us. New York was founded by the Dutch in the Seventeenth Century (the editors will not give you the exact date because by looking it up for yourself you will remember it better) and is a veritable gold-mine of historic associations. We must divide our days up wisely, in order to get the most out of our stay here, and to renew old friendships and revisit familiar scenes. We shall also spend a few days looking over old bills which we neglected to pay before sailing.

  The old friendships will not be so difficult to renew. The first old friend we meet will say: “Hi!” cheerily and pass on. The second will say: “Not so hot as it was last week, is it?” and the third will say: “When are you going to take your vacation?” This will get us back into the swing again, and we can devote the rest of our time to studying points of interest. Most of these will either have been torn down or closed.

  There is an alternate, or Trip B, from Europe to New York. If we follow this, we stay right on the boat and go back to Cherbourg.

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  Future Man:

  Tree or Mammal?

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  The study of Mankind in its present state having proven such a bust, owing to Mankind’s present state being something of a bust itself, scientists are now fascinating themselves with speculation on what Mankind will be like in future generations. And when I say “future,” I don’t mean 1940. Add a couple of ciphers and you’ll be nearer right. It’s safe enough to predict what Man will be like in that kind of future, because who’ll be able to check? We know what Man was like in the Pleistocene Age. He was awful. If he stood upright at all he was lucky, and, as for his facial characteristics, I would be doing you a favor if I said nothing about them. Somehow or other he knew enough to draw pictures of elephants and mammoths on the walls of his caves, but I have always had a suspicion that those elephant pictures were drawn by some wag who lived in the neighborhood along about 1830 and who wanted to have some fun. You can’t tell me that anyone who carried himself as badly as the Neanderthal Man could have held a piece of crayon long enough to draw an elephant. However, this is none of my business. I can’t draw an elephant either, which is probably why I am so bitter.

  But when it comes to predicting what Man will be like in 100,000 years (I put it at 100,000 years because, when it gets up into figures like that, it doesn’t make any difference; 100,000 years – 50,000 years – who cares?), when it comes to predicting that far ahead, it is anybody’s racket. I can do it myself.

  When we look back and see how Man has developed through all those corking stages from the Palaeozoic Age, from sponge to tadpole to jellyfish (maybe we’re on the wrong sequence – we don’t seem to be getting any nearer Man), anyway, through all those stages before he came on up through the ape to the beautiful thing we know today as J. Hamilton Lewis or Grover Whalen, and when we consider how many aeons and aeons it took for him to develop even arms and legs, to say nothing of pearl shirt-studs and spats, we realize that we must go very carefully before we predict what he will be like in an equal number of aeons. By then he may be a catalpa tree. Stranger things have happened.

  I am basing my prediction on the part which protective coloration has played in the development of Man from the lower animals. It was only those jellyfish which had the same color as the surrounding country which survived the rigors of evolution. (Name six rigors of evolution, beginning with Head Colds.) Birds which are the same color as the foliage in which they nest are less likely to be disturbed by other birds who want to drop in and chat, and therefore last longer. The chameleon is a good example of protective coloration carried to ridiculous extremes. If all the animals had been possessed of this ability to change colors at the drop of a hat, we should be living in a madhouse today.

  According to my theory, however, the principle of protective coloration will be working, from now on, in exactly the opposite manner from that in which it functioned in past ages. It will be only those men and women whose color differs most sharply from the surrounding country who will survive. If you will stop that incessant whispering and fidgeting and will come up in single file and drop your chewing gum into the wastebasket, Teacher will continue to explain what he means.

  Let us say that A and B are two citizens living in a modern city. A dresses in clothes which are of a dull slate color or perhaps low-class marble. When he goes out on the street he blends in with the color of the buildings, especially if he happens to be hung-over and not looking in the best of health. (Most people today do not look in the best of health owing to not being in the best of health.) What happens? He is run down by an automobile, the driver of which cannot distinguish him from the background of buildings and passing vehicles (unless a circus band wagon happens to be passing at the time, a contingency which it would be well not to count on too much), or he is shot by accident by a gunman who is aiming at a comrade and doesn’t see the drab-colored citizen at all.

  The other citizen, whom we have called B but whose name is probably W, dresses in bright reds and yellows and has a complexion which makes him stand out from his fellow men. (Drinking will do this for one.) He can cross the street with impunity, because he is conspicuous, and automobile drivers will sometimes run right up on the sidewalk and knock down a dozen drab-colored citizens rather than crash into him. Gunmen can also see him clearly and will recognize him as not one of their number, for gunmen are notoriously quiet dressers. It is B then (or W, as you will) who survives.

  But the man who doesn’t go out into the street at all will survive even longer than B. We call him B1, or better yet 2B. This wise man stays right
in his room and reads magazines all day, with an occasional look at the clock to see how late he would have been if he had kept that luncheon appointment. He has his meals brought in to him, and, when it is bedtime, he sends for a lot of friends and they play backgammon. In time, owing to never having to walk, he loses the use of his legs, and, after several centuries, his breed have no legs at all. I therefore predict that Man will, in 3,000 years, have no legs, for all of those men who once had legs and have gone out into the streets will have been killed off.

  This may seem fantastic and I shall probably be refused membership to the American Academy of Sciences because of promulgating this doctrine. See if I care. I still maintain that the Man of 1,900,031 will be very highly colored and will have no legs. His arms, however, owing to the constant raising and lowering of highball glasses (to preserve the high coloring) and centuries of turning on and off television dials (by means of which he will be kept in touch with the outside world), will have attained a remarkable flexibility and may reach five times the length of the distance now attained by what we fatuously call “modern man.” He will not be very pretty-looking, according to modern standards, but he will be alive, which is something.

  However, since we are in a period of transition right now, the best that we can do is to hasten this pleasant state of inactivity in behalf of our descendants. We ourselves cannot hope to reap its benefits. But we can attain to something of the charm and peace of that future state by resolving to stay indoors as much as possible, to increase our coloring to what others may consider an alarming degree, and to do nothing which will impede Nature’s progress toward her inevitable goal, the elevation of Mankind to the condition of the beautiful catalpa tree.