You're a Horrible Person, But I Like You: The Believer Book of Advice (6 page)

Rob

…

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

…

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

…

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

…

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

…

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

…

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

…

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

…

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

…

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

…

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

…

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

…

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

…

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 populace 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

…

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

…

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?

Lisa
St. Louis, MO

Dear Lori:

Get out a piece of paper and write down the pros and cons of being mistaken for a seventeen-year-old. Cons: you get carded at bars and 7-Elevens, your parents still feel like they can treat you like a child, and high school guys hit on you. Pros: you’re always going to look younger than you are, you can act like a teenager and no one will tell you to “grow up,” and you can help out in that
To Catch a Predator
program by luring creepy Internet stalkers into the house so Chris Hansen can come out with his cameramen and humiliate the pervy perpetrators.

I’d say the pros list wins. Relax and enjoy your perpetual youth.