by The Believer
Michael
…
Dear Michael:
How is it that every time I go to the grocery store, I forget to get the milk?
Isadora
Modesto, CA
Dear Isadora:
You’ve just got way too much on your mind. You need to clear your head, girl. Spend a weekend in San Antonio; there’s a ton of fun stuff to do there.
Michael
Vernon Chatman and John Lee
Dear Vernon and/or John:
Does electrolysis really work? I’m not so sure.
Angie Kritenbrink
Federal Way, WA
Dear Angie:
First off, what is Federal Way? That sounds like some sort of lie. There is no “way” for our federation. Like the Death Star or Rome, we are hurtling toward an abysmal destination that only the worthless history books and withered poets can encapsulate, word-wise. As for your question about electrolysis, try covering your hirsutitude with a hat, preferably worn faux-haphazardly askew, as is the style these days.
Vernon and John
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Dear Vernon and/or John:
My nine-month-old pug named Fang has recently taken a liking to eating his own poop. When I get the chance to actually spend an entire day with him, I feel like he teaches me a thing or two. My question is, should I try eating his poop?
Chris Funk
guitarist for the Decemberists
Portland, OR
Dear Chris:
Well, yours is an arrestingly unique conundrum, Mr. Funk. And, in fact, you very well may be joking, as is your human right. But we still intend to answer this question for the benefit of those for whom the nightmare of Spastic Fecal Ingestion is very real. SFI has only recently been acknowledged by the U.S. Medicalry Institute, an organization that itself has yet to be recognized by anyone anywhere. It just so happens that our great-aunt Lillia “suffered” your plight, but she was a fighter to the last who could beat anything, and she “passed” her homeliest of home remedies on to us. Use it wisely: take a quarter-pinch of raw talcum powder and hold it between your two ring toes; douse your back hair in a blend of rainwater, cran-apple cocktail, and Dramamine; pop the ticks on your left arm with a wooden matchstick, and, as they burst, kiss a jar of our grandmarm’s famous hand-marmed marmalade between each of the crisp crackles, take a deep breath, hold it, and then immediately eat as much of the dog’s rectal output as you can stomach. You should awake the next morning to find your hair has more bounce, more luster, and more sheen than you could have possibly foreseen!
Vernon and John
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Dear Vernon and/or John:
Since arriving in New York about a year ago, I haven’t been motivated to cook. I haven’t had sex, either, and I’m beginning to think the two are somehow related. My friends have suggested the “pity lay,” but I feel that’s cheating—sort of the equivalent of a microwave dinner. Any suggestions for turning these two worrying trends around?
Lauren Marks
New York, NY
Dear Lauren:
Manners! Never, ever, ever turn down a “pity lay.” It is also considered bad form to reject the offering of a courtesy cuddle, a grievance grope, sorrow sex, a hunger hump, a shame shag, an ennui shower, a gloat scroting, a phantom-limb handjob, an anosognosian booty call (with one’s own booty, no doubt), a gymnophobes dry hump, a rusty-trombone marrow transplant, a free falafel (shoved up your ass), or a sincere, sensual session of meaningful lovemaking.
As for your question, what you feel is natural. Food and sex fit together like a penis made of olives fits into a snug vagina knit from hen cutlets. Our advice is, be careful out there. Don’t want those olives to spoil. Always keep them in chilled brine before serving (penetration).
Vernon and John
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Dear Vernon and/or John:
Why is it that every time my family sits down for a Sunday dinner I simultaneously feel the urge to massacre each one of them with my bare hands, ripping every fiber of their being into obliteration and leaving no shred of evidence except for their as-yet-untouched plates of barbecued chicken and mashed potatoes, which I will surely eat once I wash my hands of the evidence, and want to hug them until they bleed?
Ben Siegel
Williamsville, NY
Dear Ben:
You’ll be happy to know that this is not your fault. The only thing to blame here is that dastardly rascal known as “your emotions.” This horrible fiend has revealed the thin double-edged sword between love and hate. Again, not your fault. And fear not; we have a solution to your woes. But to ensure that our advice isn’t bogged down in crass feelings, we have printed it in binary code: 101101001 10101 1010110110, 111 0010 101 0111. 1010 10101 10 01010101 1010 Coca-Cola 1010111 10101 1011 01 0101010 10101 … 0101 01.
Vernon and John
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Dear Vernon and/or John:
I am a forty-eight-year-old who has been enjoying the occasional use of cannabis since puberty. Because this is an illegal substance controlled by a mafia of seventeen-year-olds, I find that it has become difficult (if not impossible) for a middle-aged suburbanite to hook up with “the man.” Should I just grow up and go cold turkey, or go back to high school and hope to hang with a cool crowd? Please advise.
Theodore W. Oestendiek
A rural part of Arizona
Dear Theodore:
It is well-known that Rodney Dangerfield went back to school for the same reasons you are thinking, and now he’s dead. Or, let’s put it this way: It’s like my beloved Aunt Clorvis always used to say. “Let me make this very clear. We are not related. Kindly remove your withered bodyclaw from my ladybags.” In other words, follow your heart. But whatever you do, do it au gratin. And just in case you still missed it, let me dumb it down for you a notch: make like a fig and fuck off, stoner.
Vernon and John
Rob Corddry
Dear Rob:
I’m seriously considering buying a houseboat. I already know about all the bad reasons to do this—my friends and family have been very helpful in that department—but nobody has bothered to tell me why this would be insanely cool and bad-ass. What do you think?
Chad Lewis
Waukesha, WI
Dear Chad:
Just curious: What are the bad reasons to buy a houseboat? A deep, penetrating sleep cycle? Iconoclastic neighbors? Too much pussy? Unless you hate Halloween, I can’t think of one single reason not to buy a sleek, modern houseboat. By the way, I’m cc’ing my houseboat salesman on this.
Rob
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Dear Rob:
Will learning to juggle increase my chances with the ladies?
Ralph
Toledo, OH
Dear Ralph:
That you even have to ask is evidence that you are hopeless with “the ladies.” I doubt it’s your lack of carnival skills hurting you the most, my uncoordinated friend. Only we jugglers know the real secret to soaking a woman’s panties: three balls and the truth.
Rob
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Dear Rob:
The other day somebody asked me what my spirit animal is, and I honestly had no idea what to tell him. Where would I find this information? And do I get a say in the matter?
Brendan S. G.
Albuquerque, NM
Dear Brendan:
I will answer your question in the form of a story, not unlike the way Jesus would.
When I was a young man, I was an avid hiker. I would spend hours walking trails, communing with nature. It was there that I developed a profound communion with the residents of the forest. It was there that I felt I could communicate with them on some basic level. It was also there that I ate a poisonous mushroom and tripped my nuts off for days until the forest ranger found me living in a burned-out car surrounded by waterlogged Playboy magazines.
Long parable short, my spirit animal is Miss February 1986’s vagina.
Rob
&nb
sp; …
Dear Rob:
I am fairly reluctant to “dive in” when it comes to kitchen appliances, but maybe it’s because nothing interesting enough has been produced yet. If you could crossbreed two kitchen appliances into one MEGA appliance, what would they be and what would you call it?
Just curious.
Mel in Chicago, IL
Dear Mel:
As a rich and famous person, all of my appliances are MEGA. It’s a secret little perk, like being able to murder one person a year. My fridge doubles as an oven, so you can imagine the convenience there. My helper robot has most kitchen utensils readily available to me, and my coffeemaker doubles as a toilet. Oh, and I have slaves.
Rob
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Dear Rob:
My roommate is a slob and he never pays his share of the rent or bills. But he’s got an old record player and an amazing collection of vinyl, including a mint-condition copy of London Calling. My question is, if I murder him will the records be taken away as evidence?
Emma Lynsky
Fort Wayne, IN
Dear Emma:
I’m not sure I understand your logic. Do you usually make a habit of watching only half of CSI? I think the records would be admissible only if you killed him with them, which would be a fuller, warmer, crackly kind of murder. But also kind of elitist.
Rob
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Dear Rob:
There’s this shop around here that sells foofy stuff. Bells and whistles. Seashells, feathers, fancy cups. Absinthe. Gem-studded coasters. Dessert napkins. Lots of French imports. Should I feel guilty about buying things from there? Is it obvious that I only like this stuff because I’m being ironic? If not, how do I make my guests aware that I’m not the kind of guy who shops at foofy stores?
J. M. Barrie
San Francisco, CA
Dear J. M.:
The answer to your real question is yes, I do not like you.
Rob
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Dear Rob:
They say bank heists are up this year. Do you recommend a life of crime or what?
My best,
Parched in Houston
Dear Parched:
Bank crimes are up this year, but the word “heist” is down. Keep beatin’ your gums like a palooka and you’ll be all fours and fives! Keep on the sinker and you’ll be on the trolley like a hayburner!
I had to look all that stuff up but I got bored. “Sinker” means “doughnut.” Yes, crime pays.
Rob
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Dear Rob:
What’s the second-best way to ask your boss for a raise?
Lucy
Tallahassee, FL
Dear Lucy:
Assuming that the best way to ask your boss for a raise is to build a time machine, go back in time, fix all of your stupid mistakes, and start making good, responsible choices while being nice and respectful to your fellow workers? The second would be to just ask him.
Rob
Larry Doyle
Dear Larry:
I have trouble making a good impression on new people. I cannot engage in an intelligent conversation for more than five minutes before I am suddenly, unnaturally aware that I am communicating and am doing it badly. How can I be more likable?
Sue
Stroudsburg, PA
Dear Sue:
Why do you want to be liked, Sue? You know who was liked? Adolf Hitler. One of Jessica Mitford’s sisters even called him “sweet.” And yet.
But if you still want to be liked, Sue, I would recommend that when meeting a new person, you try to maintain eye contact. And never, ever say anything stupid. Good luck!
Larry
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Dear Larry:
This year I will be turning twenty-seven, which as we all know is the ripest age for suicide. Several of my friends have gone before me—to the age of twenty-seven, not suicide—and my time is fast approaching. I can’t help but feel despair. Do you have any advice on how to cope with the post-twenty-seven, suicide-free, life-after-death lifestyle?
Wendi
Cleveland, OH
Dear Wendi,
There’s no way to make it past twenty-seven without committing suicide and not feel somewhat a failure. After that magical age, one risks ending a life no longer worth living, undermining the romance of it all. Hemingway blew his brains out at sixty-one, depriving the world of what? A thousand-page, slightly more pornographic Garden of Eden?
Wendi, you are right to stick with your plan. Your post-suicidal friends will try to talk you out of it, but in the end they will admire your gumption, so tragically self-snuffed.
Larry
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Dear Larry:
My white-ass friend and my own white ass were walking by the lake the other day, and after I told her a joke she screamed, “You a jive-ass turkey!” Loudly. A black guy whom I hadn’t noticed jogging in front of us turned around abruptly with a really weird look on his face. Should I try to make my friend feel bad about that or was this man just being oversensitive?
White and Uptight
Minneapolis, MN
Dear White and Uptight:
I’m afraid you lost me at “my white-ass friend.” This kind of indecorous anatomical reference I would expect from an Urban Person, not a Minnesotan.
Larry
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Dear Larry:
I’m one of those naïve young people who still dream of writing the Great American Novel. Am I wasting my time? Is the novel dead, as so many of my peers have told me, or is there still hope that I might become an acclaimed and award-winning author?
D. R. Sullivan
Cambridge, MA
Dear D. R.:
Your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds.
Yes, D. R., the Great American Novel lives. It exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Not believe in the Great American Novel! You might as well not believe in short stories or writers’ retreats!
Larry
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Dear Larry:
I had insomnia a few nights ago and I ended up watching the “Sixth Finger” episode of The Outer Limits. It occurred to me that this episode is a perfect metaphor for anti-intellectualism. Is this how people in the red states look at the rest of us, as translucent aliens with huge brains?
Bryan H.
Scottsdale, AZ
Dear Bryan:
I am not allowed in red states, so I cannot answer your question knowledgeably, but I’m happy to speculate on what other people think. I doubt that they view you as a more highly “evolved” species, though I’m sure that watching something in black-and-white, even on TV, makes you suspect. Meanwhile, watching television, even ironically, makes you unfit to walk among your own. You are a man without a half-a-country.
Larry
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Dear Larry:
I have a mole on my cheek with irregular edges that my husband thinks might be melanoma. But I’m afraid of going to a dermatologist and letting him hack it off, because my mole is one of the most interesting things about my face. Isn’t being unique worth a little skin cancer?
Cheri Colvin
Rochester, NY
Dear Cheri:
Of course. However, you may want to consider how interesting your face will look with a big hole in it.
Larry
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Dear Larry:
All of us up here in Canada are a little nervous about what you guys in the United States are up to. You’re not planning to invade us anytime soon, are you? Just give us a heads-up; that’s all we’re asking.
Cheers,
Brigette K.
Winnipeg, MB, Canada
Dear Brigette:
No, not at all. Please continue disarming your popula
ce and emasculating your men with draconian pornography laws.
Larry
Paul Feig
Dear Paul:
I just had a dream where a large bear started attacking me because I was in a prison tower and it was angry. I am concerned because in the dream, someone I don’t know brought the bear to my house in a plastic igloo and said, “Look, it’s my pet!” Is this an omen?
Liz, age 18
Dear Liz:
What kind of a bear was it? Grizzly? Polar? Teddy? Chicago? What kind of prison tower? An old one, like the Tower of London? Older, like the one Rapunzel tossed her hair out of? Or modern, like the kind the guards stand on at San Quentin? And what kind of igloo was it? One of those doghouse igloos? If so, the bear couldn’t have been that big. It wasn’t an Igloo-brand cooler, was it? The bear would be even smaller if that was the case. If you want my help, I need details, girl. Maybe you eighteen-year-olds think this whole vague-description thing is the bomb, but for us guys in our forties, we need specifics. You wouldn’t be this ambiguous if I were Dr. Phil, now would you? Write me back and get that thesaurus out.
Paul
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Dear Paul:
For years I have tried to make my Hungarian grandmother’s cucumber salad. She improvises her recipe, so she wrote down the steps for me to follow. But try as I might, mine never tastes as good as hers. What am I doing wrong?
Linda Nagy
Fort Wayne, IN
Dear Lisa:
You’re trying to crash your grandmother’s party, that’s what you’re doing. Did you ever stop and think that maybe your grandmother isn’t giving you the exact recipe because she wants your salad to be worse than hers? What’s next? You going to try on her clothes? Steal her boyfriend? Pretend that you’re from Hungary, too? My advice is to let your grandmother be the master of her cucumber recipe. Tell her she’s the only one who can make it, then take a bowl of it to a lab and have it analyzed. Then you can make the exact recipe in the privacy of your home and she’ll still believe she’s the queen of the cucumbers.
Paul
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Dear Paul:
I am twenty-five years old, but people often mistake me for a seventeen-year-old. I wouldn’t mind so much if it meant I was getting discount bus fare, but it’s all the wrong people who think I’m a minor. Do I have to wear makeup and shave my legs to be taken seriously?