Home, home again. I like to be here when I can.

Lawyers spend a great deal of time shoveling smoke.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

A week out of the country does good things for a body, even when I have to continue to work while away. This is especially true when one can get up from one's borrowed desk, take off the headset, then wander lazily to the northern edge of the Saint Lawrence River and watch sailboats meander quietly along their way, stop for an ice cream cone, and revel in temperatures roughly 25+ degrees lower than the ugly swelter visited upon us back at home.

And arriving home, everything was just as we left it but clean, as our house-sitter spent her time cheerfully scrubbing and making tidy the house. And a bonus: we had purchased a case of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale for the trip, but it didn't fit in the car, so it was here waiting for me in my garage fridge, calling to me, “drink us, we are SO much better than Labatt's!” And they are.

Today I am feeling nominal but uneasily back at my old bad habits: sitting too long staring at data on a screen, hoping it will all fix itself for me. It never does, though. I stand up and my ankles hurt, and this is not healthy. Sigh.

It is good to be home. Now I need to get up and move around a bit.

Prudie this week = omfg+wtf+stoopid. Seriously.

Originals here.

***

1.) Twenty years ago, I had a child out of wedlock. I was banging two different guys. We did a DNA test which proved the father was not my daughter's father, it was the other father who wasn't the father who is her father. Now my daughter wants to meet the un-father who is. What do I do?

So Ashamed – As a man, I have never had this problem: if a woman I have sex with becomes pregnant, I always know who the mother was. To the best of my knowledge, I have only had two biologicals (which are currently in the background fighting over a Zhu zhu), but I had to take a DNA test years ago because my ex-girlfriend said “it could be yours, but it could be this guy's or this guy's, too. Oh, and it could be my step-brother's, maybe” which fucking creeped out my shit. In the end, it was a fifth guy's baby, and there you have it, but in the end, where was I going?

Oh, yeah – she was always the mother. No doubt.

As are you, I assume. So why all this shame? Are you having that “oh, gee, I was sleeping with TWO guys, and that's just, you know, awful and makes me a whore” thing going on?

Let's start with that possible, albeit unseemly, issue: I have been involved with more than one woman at a time. I do not feel like a whore. You were involved with two men at a time. You have the choice. If that's an issue, get over yourself, Sister Sally Straightlaced, 'cause unless you have some Catholic (or other ill-guided) guilt hanging over you, it's only the big deal that YOU make it out to be.

Second, and probably the real reason you have this shame thing happening: your daughter knows you were a slutty goddamn whore, humping every guy in a fifty yard vicinity and not keeping track of the condoms.

Speaking of which – are you serious? It was roughly 1990 when you took to the bedroom with the dynamic duo. Ever heard of condoms? Are you fucking crazy?

Let's move on: so your daughter knows you were sexually active with two guys in a short period. She's also over 18. Do the math. I got ten bucks says she knows the score. If she's going to gig you for anything it should be the condom thing, you stupid dipshit, and hopefully she'll learn a lesson from it before she makes you either a grandmother or a victim.

***

2.) I am a female law student who is employed for the summer (and potentially for the school year) at a small firm that I'm really enjoying. I am surrounded by men who act like they're living in a frat house and it's pretty gross. The work environment is becoming so unpleasant that I wonder how long I can stand it. What should I do?

Livid but Lost Law Student – Terrible place to be, Realityland is. Assholes everywhere, doing and saying asshole things and generally refining their overall assholishness like the assholes they are.

And poor little you: just a little lamb among those big, bad wolves. Meh.

The way I see it, you have three options. These are options based upon the reality that surrounds you which you appear to not yet comprehend to the full extent. Here goes:

One, you can sue those fuckers. You're a law student, right? Fuck 'em! Hire a lawyer, and sue those lawyers in a big fat conflagration of lawyerly lawfulness and get what you can. Better hope for a big payoff, too: you may never work in the field again, when future employers find this out. If I were a senior partner at a law firm, I'd see you as a liability. Reality.

Two, do nothing and it'll go away. It might, you know. And a herd of wildebeest are currently roaming my living room, fattening up on candy and pastries before they start their trek to the bathroom, where they will be transformed into pretty unicorns that poop yummy Kit Kit bars and sing all the songs from the goddamn “Tinkerbell” soundtrack, you brainless dipshit. Not reality, but you get the point, I hope.

Three, you can fucking say something. Face down the skeezy guy without the subtle hints and throw down your feelings on the matter. If a man faces a woman and makes inappropriate comments, she's obviously within her rights to face him down and take him to task, and you should have already done that, rather than demurely drop hints that probably egg him on. He's a non-issue in the long run. The gay bashing in the background, that's easy to handle if you speak up to the ringleaders. Last, there is no shame in approaching your immediate superior with a simple statement that you're grossed out by the overtly crude male-ness in the office. Expect nothing for this effort. Reality.

Regardless what you do, realityland is open 24/7, holidays and weekends, always ready to serve you a steaming dish of shitty life lessons. Take a bite. Might learn something.

***

3.) My dad wants to friend me on Facebook, but I don't like him all that much and besides, I trash talk on Facebook. What should I do?

Facebook Challenged – Mother McCree and her silver fucking hair, I tire of this Facebook bullshit and the idiocy of it's users.

“Dear Prudie, I was on facebook and posted that I let my little dog Sniffles lick my butthole and my mom saw it and now she's like all mad and weird to me, what can I do? Signed, Puppybutt.”

“Dear Puppybutt, what kind of fucking asshole posts that stuff on Facebook?”

I realize that it's fun for people to get on their computer and pretend to have a new life there, but for some perspective, I was in a discussion with some people I know who were on Prodigy in the 1980's, and back in those days all three people you knew online were polite, to a degree.

The 1990's happened and a third of the online global population became a fucking asshole.

The 2000's came and rule 34 had already evolved: if it exists, there is porn of it somewhere.

So here we are, 2010, and you still don't get it, do you? Lemme help: you are an online presence. You can be more than one, of course, by creating throwaway accounts and trolling the shit out of /b/ and Digg and Reddit and generally acting like an asshole, all the while blissfully unaware that any post you make is subject to a certain amount of both scrutiny and rebuke, and if you aren't careful you can be found, anonymous or not.

In the end, though, if your name is “Jenny J. Smith, 3232 Boogie Woogie Avenue, Humperdump, NY 12345” and that's also your Facebook account persona, then you are no longer protected by any form of anonymity whatsoever. You may as well be standing in the town square with your tits out, begging people to point and laugh...except on Facebook you can pick your tormentors and un-pick them later.

There are 400 million users on Facebook, give or take a few. You can friend them all if you want to, every single one, or not.

But this is the world today, snookums, and secrecy is fast becoming – if it hasn't already become – far more relative to what you write on your status, not who sees it. Cope.

***

4.) I am engaged. This is the second marriage for us both. We don't fight much. Is my new relationship doomed because my fiance and I don't take part in those little squabbles?

To fight or Not To Fight? - You're fucked. My wife and I fight all day, every day. That goddamn bitch is a controlling, manipulative hairbag who can't seem to get enough tormenting me.

Feel better? Me neither.

Truth is, my wife and I have dustups about once every six, maybe eight months. They are typically minor. We do not see this as an obstacle. We seem to see it more as an understanding: if you agree on things, generally you don't fight. She and I agree on things, mostly.

Was that so hard? I wonder if maybe the two of you are both in the same low IQ range, and simply too dumb to find a subject to disagree upon. Sheesh. If it's that big a problem, go find an asshole and be happy.

***

And I am spent! Alas, the data I am staring at has not fixed itself, so I have to fix it, dammit. At least I have a job.

Cheers, Flysters!