Insanity runs on Dear Prudie. It practically gallops.

This week's gems come once again from Slate's Dear Prudie, as I haven't seen anything more stupid or droll out there to take a swing at: Slate can pony up fake letters as well as anyone, but these were seemingly written by someone new: there's the same scary lack of passive voice across the board, indicating an English major wrote them (and these people are supposedly stupid enough to go to Emily Yoffe for help?), but they're a little more bland and tired than usual. I weep for the future of write-in letter blogs.

Here it is: http://www.slate.com/id/2233031/

Ah, just so. It's all fodder for me, my friends.

***

Creeped Out – recap: you and your super-extra-awesome BF of four years are getting married. BF's sister and he are close enough to play toesies and talk about “private” things (which could mean he knows where she keeps her Rabbit or perhaps that she shoplifted as a kid, for all you told us). You think this whole relationship between them is fucked up, but not fucked up enough to skip that whole marriage thing like "Kentucky Hill People fucked up", just fucked up enough to get you all weird and twisted up about it, like "West Virginia Hill People fucked up." All this fuckupedness simply fucks you up.

Congratulations on the pending nuptials, but of course I can't leave it at that: what the bloody hell are you thinking? I'm not making a qualitative analysis on your boyfriend's relations with sissy – that's incidental – I'm talking about you. You actually wrote a letter that clearly states that this situation creeps you out, and now you're getting married to the source of the creepiness? That's very good prioritization, Amelia Airhead.

See, where grown ups are, they do things like fix the car before taking a long drive. They tie their shoelaces before a long run. They turn on the stove before hard boiling the eggs.

So there's you, then. Okie dokie.

Maybe the problem will go away! Yeah! Yippie! And maybe the Goddamn Incest Fairy will sweep all sparkly and twinkly and lovely down into your lives and un-fuck this asinine situation you've gotten yourself into. Are you kidding?

Hey – you have to live with this, Princess Incest, and failure to repair the issue before diving into a whole new host of issues (marriage, little dearie, is not a fucking cake walk, in case you ever had your brain screwed into the socket long enough to listen to people far, far brighter than you talk about it). Some might call this “Throwing Good Money After Bad.” Some might say “Jumping From the Frying Pan and Into the Fire.”

Some might say “You're a Fucking Idiot.”

Yeah. I might say that.

Fix it first, genius, then take it out for a spin.

***

Framed – Oy-goddamn-vey, they come out of the woodwork, do they not? These questions, seemingly innocuous but at the same time so brilliantly idiotic it's a wonder if the people writing them have sufficient mental capacity to wipe their asses after a productive trip to see Mr. Potty.

All right, let's recap: you got a painting of your tits and squishy girly parts but are evidently too haggish to paint from the neck up. You want to hang it on the wall, but you don't want to hang it on the wall, because the wall is where picture and paintings go, and people look at pictures and paintings, but you certainly don't want people to see this particular painting because they may realize “hey – butterface: that's YOU! Nice tits!”

Wherein I pause to sigh heavily.

Um – I gotta ask: you have a lot of repairmen in your house? Are you a 1970's porn script waiting to happen? “gee,” she says coyly, her robe slipping open to reveal her dusky naked and ripe womanly-ness beneath, “I've never seen a hammer that...big..before.”

“Why, yes,” says Joe Rockhard, flexing his biceps then unhitching his Oshkosh B-Gosh biballs. “I can really pound them in hard and deep with this big fella.”

Cue bad Wurlitzer organ music.

All right, dinglenuts: I hear you do not have any walls (like, in the bedroom?) that are not subject to a constant parade of Quakers and Amish and Mennonite and other prude stereotypes and your pastor and mom and dad and scores of super-judgmental people (and many repairmen too!) who all would stop and say “Harlot! Whore! Slut! That's YOU in that painting, I know it, and I for one am disgusted by having seen this foul monstrosity to the degree I might have to write a stupid fucking letter to Dear Goddamn Prudie to overcome the horrible mental anguish of having seen your v-v-v-vagina! AAAAHHHH!!!”

So you have no problem posing for a nude (as well you shouldn't – it's not a big deal), you have a problem with people actually seeing it later (which is understandable, because let's face it, most people would, and in your case people will feel awkward holding back the words “gee, it's no wonder he didn't paint your face, I mean...”).

Then again, maybe this might help: hang it in the goddamn bedroom. Yes, I know I already mentioned that. I figured in your case...well, you get it.

Whatever, little bunny. I'm tired of talking about this. Go and do whatever the hell you want with the picture, then please go back into your coma.

***

How Do I Tell the Truth –

We!

Have!

A!

WINNNAHHHHHH!!! “Schuyler The Cat's Stupidest Question Ever Asked By The Stupidest Person Ever Award!” goes to YOU, genius! Schuyler LOVES the really stupid ones: “Dear Whoever: I have a big warty-looking growth on my otherwise truly beautiful face, so big makeup won't cover it up. In fact, it weighs seven pounds and now resembles a '57 Studebaker. I've taken to wearing a second hat on it. How do I go on a date with someone I met on the internet without them noticing it, especially since the horn honks every seven minutes?”

Recap: given your cowardice, deceitfulness, poor parenting skills, and overall lack of any single redeeming quality you lied to your daughter, and now want to tell the truth.

You actually use these words at the end of your letter: “Please help me find a starting point at which to address this issue.”

Uh.

Okay: go get your Way-Back Machine, Ms. Wizard, and set the clock for before you were so fucking stupid. Now go back in time and tell the goddamn truth in the first place. There's your starting point, idiot. Problem solved! Any other questions? What a moron. Who's the “bad” parent again?

Incidentally: try apologizing, you brainless twat. You owe her one, and I would start hoping she takes after her grandmother instead of you.

***

Paranoid D-I-L – let's recap: M-I-L is a pre-Alzheimer's kleptogranny right outta the very fiery horrors of hell itself, you seem to hate it, and haven't the forcible emotional functionality to really tell her “stop it.” We straight?

Listen up, D-I-Lweed, here's what you say:

“Stop it.”

If she does, great. I she doesn't, great. This is your issue? Jesus, and I think I need to get a life. I had no idea just how good I had it until I read this wheedling slack-jawed crap from you.

You know, I had to call NASA, and I spent a few hours on the phone with Dr. Phil, then I called a medium who summoned and channeled Nikola Tesla (we got along pretty well, but he's soooo standoffish), and I read “Origin of the Species” and “The Undiscovered Self” and “Chicken-Fucking-Soup for the Stupid Letter Writer's Soul” and I traveled to Nepal and practiced all kinds of Nepalese monk-type shit for YEARS to come up with that brilliant, ingenious, and also rather witty answer, you brain-bereft clot of baboon snot.

***

And so once again, my friends, I have exhibited my typical patience and kindness in the spirit of brotherly love amid my weekly primal scream therapy session. I am at peace.

Cheers! STC =^oo^=

19 comments:

  1. “Chicken-Fucking-Soup for the Stupid Letter Writer's Soul”

    That made me laugh. Hard. :)

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  2. Geez, Schuyler:

    All along I thought Little Miss Nude-Painting-From-The-Neck-Down-and-Especially-Including_the_Naughty-Bits had gained a couple hundred pounds and was no longer able to shave her, shall we say, saddle area.

    What do you think? Did she pork up or just get ugly inside her head?

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  3. Victoria - that, my dear, is why I do this publicly now. I achieve Nirvana when people pass coffee out their nose. Oh, great book BTW.

    TG - I gave it little thought, but in hindsight I think the latter. Sounds like she's proud of her "work", and flirting with the edges of self-exposure to bolster an already fragile ego. Who knows...but the letter was appropriately crafted to bring on the curiosity, huh? I mean, I really want to see this painting. Weird.

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  4. Oh sweet mother of Jesus on a sesame seed bun, Schuyler! I read your column because I love it. Every week, I love it. And it makes me laugh. And laughter makes me happy. Then, not even a minute later, I think to myself, "Why is this guy not writing late night comedy television? You know, the actual good kind that you have to seek out, not the shit on the basic channels." Then, right after that, I realize, "Well, no matter what, I'm glad he's here because I don't get cable. And I would miss him."

    Excellent stuff, as always, brother. Especially in your very-warranted recognition of the difference between Kentucky and West Virginia hill people. ;-)

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  5. Just. Died. Laughing.
    Thank you for a wonderful cap on a crappy week!

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  6. Also, I came up with an alternative for #2: She can gain a whole lot of weight so no one would ever know that the nude is her, and then she could tell people that the nude is her "thinspiration picture."

    Seriously, I now want a big honking nude for the living room.

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  7. Gonna need some mouth-to-mouth here, Bro. I've done passed out from the sheer rapture of it.

    I'll bet you get that a lot though, huh?

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  8. How can you be so mean to "Creeped out" ???

    Can't you see that she looooooooves him! It's his sister who is the problem!!!

    Why you gotta be hatin'???

    Seriously - great stuff!

    Haven't checked out your whole blog, but incase you missed it, here's another columnist you're gonna love to hate: http://www.doublex.com/section/life/introducing-friend-or-foe-our-friendship-advice-column

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  9. TRULY outstanding work! Re the nude portrait: It doesn't even show her FACE?! & I guess I also don't understand how you're comfortable enough to go all "dejeuner sur la herbe" & pose nude w/no problem for a portrait, but get all weirded-out by displaying it. WHEN NO ONE CAN REALLY KNOW IT'S YOU ANYWAY. Honestly, we've had plenty of nude paintings hanging in our house. No one ONCE asked us if we knew the model, even when they knew the artwork was my grandfather's. But then, I pose nude for artists, & am not squeamish about the idea of hanging those pieces. I don't subscribe to nudity=sex. I guess b/c I have the experience of modeling, I don't get the difference between 1-several people seeing you naked in that setting to complete the work, & 1-several seeing the finished product.

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  10. Hey Smaggy: "Sweet mother of Jesus on a sesame seed bun"?

    Is that a MaryBurger? Omnomnom...

    And Libby? Really Sorry I killed you. See you on the other side!!!

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  12. We actually had the nude painting-on-the-wall experience. There was a very nice painting of a nude that we checked out of the public library, for pity sake ... !!! ... and hung on our bedroom wall. A couple weeks later my parents came to visit and my dad asked me, when there was just the two of us around, if that was Ms. Goldberg. I guess he had been wondering...

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  13. Schuyler, very sound advice as usual.. If you can't laugh then you're in real trouble.

    But you forgot to address the issue about the painting: why was it a body without a head? Isn't that obscene? Not to mention insulting, i.e. "you're nothing but a body to me," etc.

    So I would advise the headless (in more ways than one) letter writer to paste her or somebody elses face on the painting and hang it in her living room....

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  14. Schuyler, I do like 'MaryBurger', but I'm gonna go with a subMaryne sandwich. ;-) Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week!

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  15. Fan-bloody-tastic!

    I was really wondering about LW#1 - I mean, if my boyfriend was doing this with another woman, regardless of their blood ties, I'd be gone, not marrying the man. WTF!

    LW#2: Who the hell writes to an advice columnist about whether or not she should hang a picture on the wall? Not comfortable with it - then don't fucking hang it up, asswipe! Perhaps this was a trial run for a Penthouse letter?

    LW#3: "How do I tell the truth?" Open your mouth, speak the damn truth! Why do some people think it's better to tell a child that someone is DEAD rather than "not here, thank god for small favors" and yet when a pet dies they tell their child that Rover went to a great farm with chickens to chase?

    LW#4: Thank you for all those years of hard work and soul searching for that difficult answer to such a quandary! I know it cost you greatly! And I am so glad you are here to dispense such wonderful advice, because I was all for hog-tying granny and popping her in the basket while shopping and I am sure that this is illegal in some states. Possibly the ones with anti-incest laws. I bow to your extreme wisdom!

    ~ formerly known as ArchaeologyChick (because Slate would not let me use my "real" name)

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  16. That was my last cup of coffee dammit.

    Most excellent, Schuyler :)

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  17. Awesome stuff, 'Cat, as always. And I love that you brought up "Incest Fairy." Oh.Em.Gee. That made me laugh really loud! Good thing folks at work already think I'm crazy...

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  18. Wonderful stuff! I'm glad to have found my way here.

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  19. Hey Beckaroo Banzai - props for the awesome screen name!

    And Archaeogoddess - long time no hear from - welcome!

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