Dear Miss Eliza: Can You Spell Overdose?
Dear Miss Eliza
So I'm thinking about upgrading my weedwacker to a riding lawnmower but I'm unsure how to proceed. Some people say that I should just get a regular push mower since I live in a townhouse and the riding mower might be overkill, but I'd rather spend the money now for the comfort later. I don't want to develop any kind of back problems or anything.
Do you think I'm going overboard?
Sincerely
Juan Deere
Dear Juan,
As my theater teacher once told me,
"There’s no such thing as overdramatic." That's the kind of statement that will take you places in life. Why don't I say it again, just for good measure? "There's no such thing as overdramatic." (as my paddy used to say, "If it's worth repeating, it's worth repeating in color.)
Actually, I think it was my pastor that told me that. And you know as well as I do that pastors are always right, so that should hold loads more water than my theater teacher. I think she tried to teach us about subtlety. (If I’m not mistaken, she was an athiest. It just goes to show how clueless they all are... athiests, not theater teachers. But you never know, it might be the theater teacher part that makes her clueless.)
And since my pastor's always right and my theater teacher's going to hell,
of course I would go with the riding lawn mower. In fact, I just have a little studio apartment, and my main centerpiece is my knuckleboom loader. (I just don’t know how I’d have gotten by all this time without the hydraulic extend a boom. I tell ya, that thing’s a life saver. And that bypass grapple with 42" opening is just to die for.)
The problem then, isn’t whether or not your taking your mowing too seriously, it's what to do about all those unenlightened folks out there who just don’t understand. Reasoning with these people is useless of course, as they haven’t yet arrived at the Age of Reason (more commonly known as 15, the age where you know the reason for everything). What they do understand is the concept of a free ride.
Let me warn you, "free rides" can get expensive, so charge a nominal fee. It really will keep overall costs down. (and you don't have that Murphy guy of Murphey's law hanging around all the time because you're prepared for the worst. That's what money means in 56 different languages. Did you know that?)
In essence, you want to show them that a riding lawn mower is just as fun as a hot air balloon ride, and vastly more convenient. This isn’t hard to prove. All you need is a little mood music and an impulsive overbearing personality, and some price comparissons to hot air balloon rides, and they’ll do anything you suggest (better yet, they’ll believe whatever you say).
Enjoy the fun, and don’t forget to invite me when you start giving out those rides. I’ve never been on a riding lawn mower. That nuckleboom though, there’s nothing like it.
- Miss Eliza
Dear Miss Eliza: The Face That Only a Radio Could Love
Dear Miss Eliza,I'm trying to break into radio. What's the best way to get my start?Sincerely, Ayem EffemDear Eh-hem,
A good voice on the radio must be learned. We do not naturally come up with the necessary pomposity and delusional thinking. It takes years of study to mold your brain into shape. Start now. Enroll in seminary.
Preachers have more in common with the Rush Libaughs and Al Frankens of the world than anyone would care to admit. But the things you learn in seminary will serve you well in your chosen profession. How to talk for extended periods of time. How to always be right. How to make other people do what you tell them. And most importantly, How to make them love you for it.
Granted, the hazing systems at seminaries are far less regulated than you’ll find at an ordinary school. It’s a grueling process, but as they say, what goes in comes out so much better. Look at Daniel in the lions' den. Heck, look at any saint that was ever martyred.They go in looking human, and by the time they're finished being martyred, they may look a little worse for wear, but come on. They're saints. Anyway it’s worth it. So surrender yourself.
Now once seminary's over you’ve got your tone down to perfection. All you need to survive in radio is that level of obnoxiousness only found in People-With-A-Cause. So of course, you’ll need a cause. Here are some that are still waiting to be swept into the main stream:
Steroid use among chess players
Apples as a cause of cardio pulmonary distress
Federal aid for Acrophobics
The amount of candy in piñatas
And since any cause worth its name has an enemy, you’ll need someone to hate. Since, theoretically, the point of radio is to get people to listen to you, you’ll need to hate someone that lots of other people hate (and is adored by everyone not in that category) so that everyone will listen to you because they agree or if they disagree they’ll listen to you because they love the way you get their dander up.
Good enemies:
Reality TV
Jesus
Ted StephensJulia Roberts
Second cousins once removedSo now you’ve been baptized by fire. You preachiness is at an all time high, as is your self righteouness (thank you seminary). Your tone is dripping with excessively opinionated statements. All you need is a night with a hooker and the papparatzzi (they LOVE threesomes) and you know you’ve made it.
- Miss Eliza
Dear Miss Eliza Has Fleas
Dear Miss Eliza,
Lets say that I was to tell you about my friend "Buddy." Buddy has fleas. It’s not my fault. I’ve told him about all kinds of treatments, and every sort of flea prevention known to man, but he just won’t listen to me. Plus he still has fleas, so when I’m around him, I spend all my time killing them. Suggestions?
Flea Ring Circus
Dear Flea Ringer,
As I see it, your problem is three fold:
How to kill the current flea infestation.
This will immediately pose your second problem:
What to do with all those dead fleas.
And once you solve that problem:
How do I keep the fleas from coming back.So lets take this in steps:
How to Kill the Current Infestation:Anyone who’s watched even one iota of day time soaps knows there’s only one sure fire way to get away with genocide of fleas. And that is to let them watch television. You see television watching comes in stages: Brain rot, tooth rot, body rot. And since fleas have neither brains nor teeth to rot, television will skip right to body rot.
What to Do With Those Dead Fleas:Since this is genocide, you aren’t going to want to leave traces of evidence for the UN, the EPA, the ASPCA, the CIA, or the NCAA to find the next time they try sniffing through your trash. You’re going to have to be a little inventive. Food is always a good choice. Stuff them in your mother-in-law’s lobster. Those things have so much gunk in them anyway, she’ll never notice.
Also a good idea, craft projects. Knit a nice blanket for Buddy out of all those carcasses. This will have the added bonus of being a warning sign to a new generation of fleas.
How to Keep Them From Coming Back:
Well new generations of fleas are products of old generations of fleas, correct? So what you want to do is stop those old generations of fleas from reproducing. (Warning to Catholics: you may find this offensive.) What you are looking for is a contraceptive. That’s right. Buddy needs a condom. (I’d recommend the pill, but a condom will not only solve baby flea problems, but will also protect against STD’s.)
And so, as my Paddy used to say, "no rubber, no rub ‘er."
- Miss Eliza
Dear Miss Eliza's Energy Cost Alternatives
Dear Miss Eliza,
I’m feeling the high energy costs this winter, and I’m looking for some tips on how to deal with them. Ideas?
Poorie McPoor
Dear Poorie,
The most important thing to remember about heat is that it is all in your mind. The temperature you are feeling is the temperature that that your brain is interpreting from body signals. A little brain surgery ought to take care of the whole problem. You get your brain to tell you that you feel cozy and warm no matter how frozen those boogers feel in your nose.
Sure brain surgery may seem like a rather drastic and expensive method of dealing with high oil prices. But think of all the money you’ll not spend on heating oil for the REST OF YOUR LIFE.
And if over the course of life you find yourself living with someone unfortunate enough not to have thought of brain surgery, you can play out this scenario.
You: "What do you mean it’s cold in here? I’m fine."
Him: "Fine? It’s 50 degrees. I can’t feel my toes."
You: "Whatever. If you want to pay for the heat, go right ahead. But don’t ask me to pitch in."
Him: "Fine. Whatever you say, Scrooge."And think of all the extra lottery tickets you could buy with that oil money. You could increase the probability of winning by 1000% or more easily. Which means in all likelihood that not only will you save a fortune on heating your home, but you’ll also be insanely closer to winning another fortune on top of that.
Doesn’t get better than that my friend. Brain surgery can solve all your problems.
Miss Eliza
Dear Readers,
So let’s say you’re lying in bed tonight and you find you can’t sleep because there’s this nag in the back of your head who won’t let up. For the sake of your sanity (which is dependant upon the amount of sleep you get) put that nag to bed. Dash off a letter to Dear Miss Eliza, and sleep in peace, knowing that the answer is well within my knowledge base.
The next time this happens to you, send it to me at selizawalden@yahoo.com, or post it right here in the comments section. And rest easy.
- Miss Eliza
Dear Miss Eliza: Happy Holiday
Dear Miss Eliza,
I ate too much food for dinner today and now my belly won’t move. Any digestion tips?
- One Stuffed TurduckenDear Stuffed,
Happy Thanksgiving! This calls for what they call the Hair of the Dog treatment. Look at it this way. You’re on a roll. Keep on going. If you stop to pay attention to your body, you’re going to notice that you exploded half an hour ago. And no one wants to notice something like that, you least of all. Like my Paddy always used to say, “Dear Lord, thank you for this tasty morsel and my overwhelming ignorance of my bodily functions.” He was one verbose man, my Paddy.
And he’s right. Ignorance isn’t just bliss, it’s the only way to make sure that you don’t feel guilty about those starving children in Amsterdam.
So have another slice of pie, top it with whipped cream. Sip a nice hot toddy. Peel off a little turkey skin. Stuff that stuffing right down your pipe. And then do it all over again.
Now monotony may kick in after a while, so you’ll need to shake things up. Pour some of that gravy on your apple pie and mash those cranberries right into the peas. Have you tried a pumpkin pie sandwich? Tuna turkey surprise. The surprise is that it doesn’t have any tuna in it. Get it?
At some point you’ll need an Alice’s Restaurant break. And when your break is over, you’re gonna want to be unconscious. It really helps in situations like this. Hopefully after all that tryptophan unconsciousness will follow naturally, but if you’re a freak, and not ready for a little shut eye after Alice’s Restaurant, I’m sorry to say that you’re beyond help.
And go to bed early because you’ll need to be up at the crack of midnight to get in like for dawn-buster sales tomorrow morning. Enjoy!
- Miss Eliza
Dear Miss Eliza and the Passive Aggressive Revenge
Dear Miss Eliza,
My brother and I just had a pretty bad fight and he called me some rather nasty names. I’m not the kind of person to let something like that go very easily, but I also don’t want to get into another huge confrontation over it. Is there any nice passive aggressive type way I can exact some revenge on him without him knowing?
A miffed Eliza
Dear miffed,
I’d like to take a moment to introduce you to the wonderful world of spam. Did you know it was invented to exact revenge on an ex boyfriend? Did you know that ex boyfriend was King Solomon who went on to write a very famous little ditty about a woman scorned? It’s true.
And while he may not be an ex, spam is just the level of passive aggression you’re going for here.
Now you could go the route of putting him on a penis enhancement list, but I find the old fashioned forward to be much more endearing. You have the daily jokes, or the money making scams that Microsoft is offering today, but I find the hardest to resist, and the most time consuming, are the surveys. So I’ll get you started. And since I can’t get past one of these without answering it myself, it will also be a chance for you to get to know more about me.
Name: Dear Miss Eliza
Age: seven, although you’d never know it to look at my diction
Home town: Ever since I heard "you’re not from around here, are you?" in my very own home town, I haven’t been sure how to answer this question.
Favorite drink: But I’ve barely scratched the surface of drinks. How should I know?
Favorite book: You know you don’t want to get me started on that one. It turns me into a real bore.
Favorite word: non sequitur, zaftig
Favorite swear: it’s also a nice movie quote. "God damn son of a bitching mother fuckin’ shithead!"
Favorite State quarter: I’m a fan of irony. I’m going w/ New Hampshire
Do you sleep with a stuffed animal? My mattress is actually made out of stuffed animals. It was an arts and crafts project they had at that place where all the walls were padded.
UFO’s fact or fiction? Look at the people around you. Do you really think they came up with central heating all by themselves?
Finish this sentence, "Mary had a little…" pink elephant.
Does sunscreen cause cancer? I don’t plan on living long enough to find out.
If you were cooking dinner for a date, what would you make? Well, with my kitchen looking like this I’ d have to go with chocolate covered ramen with orange slices in a nice tomato baste.
Someone walks up to you and says, "The crows are flying east today. How do you reply?" No sir, they aren’t moving at all. It’s us that are headed west.
Longest relationship: I met Dick and Jane when I was about 5. But Spot was always way nicer to me than they were.
Best feature: my afro. No, I meant MY afro.
What do people like best about you? That I only hit them when they aren’t paying attention.
Who did you vote for? Richard Nixon. He just looks so noble.
Who is your worst enemy? Those giants that look just like windmills.
Who is your best friend? Sancho Panza
How do you like your meat cooked? With a little orange juice and served with gravy.
Who is most likely to respond to this survey? Kilgore
Who is least likely to respond to it? Zaphod
So that should take care of the first day’s forward. You’ll want to keep coming up with others. Get him in touch with some foreign investment banks, maybe a send-this-to-10-people-or-die type thing. And don’t forget the good old fashioned pie in the face accidentally on purpose. He’ll never see it coming (As long as you try it when he’s sleeping.)
- Miss Eliza
Dear Miss Eliza: Time Management
Dear Miss Eliza,I am in ninth grade, and I have so much work, it seems like there is never enough time to get it done, between work, school, and friends, I feel like I cant get enough done, and at the rate I'm going I might never graduate. help!sincerely,*John doe
Dear John,
Did you know that a "rate" is a change in something divided by a change in time? If not, give yourself four years, you’ll have it figured out.
So if this is the definition of a rate, you can make yourself more efficient by increasing your change-in-something, or decreasing your change-in-time. The change-in-time thing could be a bit difficult, but you could find a way to hop on a photon (that’s a light particle) and taking it for a little ride. Did you know that time doesn’t pass when you’re traveling at light speed.
More feasible though, would be an increase in your change-in-something. What you want to do is get your brain circuits working at full speed. The average ninth grader’s brain speed is a tiny fraction of its possible speed. The most common algorithm says one divided by ten times ten, fifteen times and followed by a % sign is how much of your potential speed you've already tapped into. You'll want to fix that. So here are some exercises for upping your brain efficiency:
-Play chess.
-Eat books. Did you know that knowledge is contained in books in the form of calories? So when you eat a book, you’re increasing your knowledge base at a much higher rate than osmosis. (Osmosis doesn’t work as well as they like to insinuate, in the end you end up leaking as much as you gain.)
-Play outside.
-When you’re referring to the third person singular with an undefined antecedent, use the word "she" instead of "he" It takes a little extra effort, and effort is all about pumping up those other brainwaves.
-Learn to crochet.
-Argue with people. But don’t argue something like a thesis. And don’t take it seriously. And don’t argue with someone who takes it seriously either. Even so, it’s an argument, not a debate, and try to keep the difference in mind.
-Don’t watch TV. Write it instead.
-More vegetables, less gravy.
-Re-decorate your bedroom uysing nothing but pasta and papier mache.
-Buy a graphing calculator and learn how to do all its functions by hand so that you don’t need it. -Hike the Appalachian trail, or at least a portion of it, and mentally explore the idea of what that means. And don’t take too much water. It gets in the way of valuable hallucinations.
-Speaking of hallucinations, spend a little time being schizophrenic. It can really help your career.
-Get in touch with Hunter S. Thompson in a séance.
So that list should take you about 4 years to get through. By that time you’ll be ready to get back to your schoolwork, and then it’ll make much more sense.
- Miss Eliza
Dear Miss Eliza Hiccups... Excuse Me
Dear Miss Eliza,
I always get the hiccups in the middle of class, and they’re always a lot louder and more noticeable than anyone else’s. In fact I think I might be the only one who ever gets the hiccups in class. And all the other kids start looking around to find out where it’s coming from, and chuckling about it. Then the teacher gets sort of annoyed because no one’s paying attention to her anymore, and I’m al embarrassed and feel bad and everything. So Miss Eliza, got any good cures for the hiccups?
- Hic
Dear Hic,
Did I ever tell you about the time I had the hiccups at work and had to page someone over the intercom? That was fun. You’ve gotta try it.
Every old wife that ever existed came up with her very own cure for the hiccups. My paddy used to tell me that for his mama, 13 shots of vodka was the magic number. Worked like an oar in a frog pond, was the way he always put it. Then there’s the old hypnosis where you kindly explain to your innards exactly how they’re supposed to be doing their job. But I’ve had a lot of hiccups in my days and I’ve tried a lot of cures (my favorite was when they said I should listen to Yellow Submarine while laying under my bed to promote sneezing), but without fail they worked about as well as a fad diet.
And then one day I saw this infomercial that changed my life. It was one of those kitchen gadget ones, I think the thing was called an
Elecro-Multi-Wizbanger. It cooked any meal for you in 15 seconds. Now I wasn’t too into that, but the little
Spritz-O-Matic that they’d throw in free really caught my attention.
It was this really tasty hair spray for your mouth that was supposed to boost your olfactory stimulators, and your house would smell like you’d been baking all day. Or at least that’s what the hair spray was supposed to tell your nose that your house smelled like.
So maybe it didn’t work quite like they said it would. Whenever I tried it, I konked right out. Normally I’d wake up two days later in a hospital bed. Unless nobody found me, and then I’d wake up two days later lying on my kitchen floor with a gash in my head and smelling like cat. So this one time I had a bad case of the hiccups and I went to my bathroom cabinet for the inhaler that my doctor had said that his great aunt always used to cure her hiccups. But I was a little dazed, and must have grabbed the wrong bottle because next thing I knew, I’m being spoon fed Jell-O and watching The Price Is Right.
But MY HICCUPS WERE GONE.
So you gotta try this stuff. I think you can still only get it from the TV, but it’s only
8 easy installments of $39.99 and you get this dinner zapper thing too. And that’s not a bad deal when you consider it’s a surefire way to fix what ails you.
- Miss Eliza
Dear Miss Eliza: How to Nourish Your Religion
Dear Miss Eliza,
I just got back from a trip to southeast Asia. While I was there, I had something of a religious experience, a John Smith moment, so to speak, and now I’m feeling the spiritual tug that begins the journey of inventing a new religion. Now some would say it was just a bout with bad shellfish, but that vision of the merman rising out of the sea to discuss matters vital to humanity really affected my psyche. I now understand that all humans are connected by the bond of our inner Clam, who guides us towards a life more in tune with our natural state of sea salt.
But I digress. How do I go about founding a religion?
- All clammed upDear clammy,
Can I call you clammy? Good. Well, you are on the right track. Any religion worth its salt (pardon the pun, it just slipped out) starts with a crazy person. Crazy people hallucinate. But crazy people aren’t always ok with being crazy. (It happens.) These are the types that refer to said hallucinations as "visions."
So now that you've established that you have a good foundation for starting a religion (since you are crazy and it would appear that you're determined to ignore that fact) the next most important part: followers. Crazy people like to tell themselves, "Well, if other people believe me then I can’t be that insane, can I?" But think about it. You talked to a merman about salt. Who’s going to buy that? In today's cynical climate, no one. Which is why much groundwork needs to be laid in the general population before you take your vision public. You’re going to need to make them dumber. The less a person thinks, the easier suspension of disbelief becomes.
So, good techniques for stupidification? Remember the following:
The television is your friend. It informs your future congregations that not thinking is a perfectly acceptable state to live a life in. In fact, it encourages and teaches the masses how to go through life without using a single brain cell. But TV primed brains are going to need to get their opinions and values and lifestyles from somewhere and you will be able to provide that service for them.Go go gadget doodad. Those fun inventions that people come up with to make life easier and more convenient? They’re your friends. Cell phones and remote controls and atomic colliders and bottled water are all working to make life more efficient and less thoughtful. Invest in a gizmo inventing type company. It will be worth it in the long run.
Do some research into ADD. It will show you how to hold people’s attention.Give people coffee.Convert someone famous. I would advise you to get Paris Hilton under your wing. Who doesn’t want to be like Paris Hilton? Famous followers will also get you free press on the celebrity hungry press junket, you know US Weekly and E! and People Magazine etc. (Speaking of which, buff up a little, a sexiest man alive nomination could really do a lot for your cause.)Hmmm, now that I think about it, the world is probably about ripe for a clam based religion. All you need is a snazzy name. How about the Universal Chowderians?
- Miss Eliza
Dear Miss Eliza for the Sleep Deprived
Dear Miss Eliza
So I'm an east coast football fan who has to wake up early in the morning to get ready for work. I enjoy watching the Sunday and Monday night football games and then the highlight shows on ESPN, but I'm always wrecked the next day. How do I make it through the next day on only 4 hours of sleep and not end up crashing on the drive to work or crashing in my cube?
Sleepy in South FloridaDear Sleepy,
Thank you for your high octaned, jet engine propelled question.
Why do you think McDonalds is open for breakfast? Once upon a time they established that poor east coast football fans desperately need some place to crash that isn’t going to get them fired or dead. And so they unveiled the Breakfast menu as a philanthropic gesture to those in need.
How it works is this: You go in, you buy your sandwich and you use the password: "crop circle." Then you take your sandwich into the Playland and dive bomb into the house of balls. This causes a fluctuation of spacetime sending the rest of the world off on a gravitational ripple that travels at the speed of light. And since they’re traveling at lightspeed, time is not passing, but you aren’t traveling at lightspeed, therefore time is passing at its normal pace, giving you plenty of time for a few hours of passed out while the rest of the world stands frozen.
Eventually the world ripples back and you are well rested and on your way to work. With the bonus of a McDonalds breakfast sandwich.
If that’s all too complicated, then you’re going to want some place to crash. And since you specifically requested that this some place not be the drive to work or your cube, then you might want to take a little detour driving to work on Monday so that you’re on the drive to not work. This is presumably a perfectly good place to crash. I’d suggest a figurative crash as opposed to a literal one, the figurative is healthier for you and your vehicle. Might I suggest a mattress store? You go in, you find some amazing mattress in a far corner where no one ever shops, and tuck yourself in.
On the other hand, you find the right department store, and they’ll provide you with in-house bed set, pillows, mattress and even a teddy bear if you’re of the cuddling type. And if anyone asks questions, you’re a secret shopper. Get out a notepad and start rating their service.
One more option: get yourself promoted to a corner office with a pullout couch and a TV. Under the right circumstances, you could really pull this off. Then, when everyone comes in and finds you asleep on your couch on Monday morning they’ll assume it’s because you’ve worked yourself to sleep all weekend, and they’ll leave you alone.
So I hope that this has been of some assistance. And good luck to the home team… what is it, the Dolphins?
Miss Eliza
Dear Readers,
Well it looks as though this blog has reached several fun milestones in the last month. For example, it had a birthday! I tuned one. This means, I can stand without support, and I’m about ready to try walking. I hope you’ve got your camera ready.
I’ve already got the first word thing taken care of. For those of you that are interested it was "pickle."
You will also be interested to note that this is the 100th post, and it only took me over a year to get there. I have always been a wee bit behind the curve, but someone has to do it, right?
And you’ll be happy to note that with this post, Miss Eliza has turned… 29… again. A lady doesn’t reveal her true age until she turns 100 and can therefore be called wise. Being Miss Eliza, the keeper of all wisdom, I hold back the truth out of a tiny sense of normalcy and decorum.
So here’s to birthday cake! And thanks for shopping with Dear Miss Eliza. Please come again, soon.
- Miss Eliza
Dear Miss Eliza on Ritalin
Dear Miss Eliza,
So there’s this attention deficit thing that’s sweeping the nation, right? The kids have it, now they’re finding the parents have it? You might even call it an epidemic. So I’m wondering, right? Why two billion dollars towards the avian flu and not ADD?
Still smelling the roses
Dear Smelly,
See here’s the thing. Since everyone has ADD (except you and me) you can’t really call it a disorder anymore. The New and Improved shorter attention span is now the average, and not the exception. So why spend two billion dollars correcting a problem that isn't even a problem anymore because it's normal?
But since this is the trial generation, we’re still suffering from growing pains. Well, I say we, but what I actually mean is the universe hasn’t adapted to the new specifications yet. And time is still pretty miffed at us for not fully appreciating it… it’s a long story.
But the point is, that since people are just fine and it’s the universe that’s out of touch with reality, there’s no amount of money that you can throw at this problem to get it fixed. So the administration decided that perhaps it would be better off spending money on its favorite national pastime, creating terror and panic in the hearts of its constituents.
I hope that sheds a bit of light on the subject.
Miss Eliza
Dear Miss Eliza,
I’m writing to you today because I want to spread public knowledge about a growing problem: that of people writing in books. I had a terrible experience with this myself recently, I found a spoiler written in the early pages of All the Kings Men. I found this book at a second hand store. I’m sure the note scribbler never thought that his book would be passed into the unsuspecting hands of someone like myself. Who ever thinks that the books in his librarywill someday be in someone else's posession? But it can happen. It can even happen to you, so please for the love of posterity, tell your readers not to write in books.
Ignorance is blissDear Ignorance,
Thank you for your note of caution, and I’m sorry about that spoiler. It was my fault. I teased George for years about how he could never see anything coming in literature, and ever since then he’s been on an enormous quest for symbolism, and for some reason, can’t find any better place to comment on it than in the book.
I can assure you though, that he had no intention of it falling into your virgin hands. But some how in the divorce, his wife ended up with half his library, and that woman never had any appreciation for the signs of intellect. You know how it is.
Suffice it to say, I’ll never let it happen again. Spoilers are traumatic and evil and unnecessary. It is good to have these reminders right before our eyes.
Miss Eliza
Dear Reader,
Well, let’s pretend that I was a smelly bum slouched on the sidewalk with a coffee cup in my hand. Do you just step over me saying, "If I give her a question, she’ll only use it to buy liquor." Or do you smile pityingly and drop a scrap of paper into my desperate grasp? I guess what I’m saying is that I am metaphorically begging you to send me a question. And you have no idea how bad I feel about playing the guilt card.
So to ease my pain, you have two choices. Post a question for Miss Eliza in the comments section of this blog, or dash it off in an e-mail to selizawalden@yahoo.com
Thank you and good night.
Miss Eliza
Dear Miss Eliza and the African Banker
Dear Miss Eliza,
I am the manager of the bill and exchange department of an African development bank. We recently discovered an abandoned sum of fifteen million five hundred thousand US dollars in an account that belongs to one of our foreign customers who died along with his entire family in November 2001 in airplane crash.
Wwe have been expecting his next of kin to come over and claim his money but unfortunately we learnt that all his relations died in the plane crash as well, leaving nobody behind to claim the money. Therefore I decided to make this proposal to you and release the money to you as the next of kin.
To enable the immediate transfer of this fund to you, you must apply first to the bank as relation or next of kin of the deceased indicating your bank name, your bank account number, your private telephone and fax number for easy and effective communication and location wherein the money will be remitted. Upon receipt of your reply, I will help you to fill the text of application and secretly submit it to the bank on your behalf.
I will not fail to bring to your attention that this transaction is hitch-free and that you should not entertain any atom of fear as all required arrangements have been made for the transfer. You should contact me immediately as soon as you receive this letter.
Yours faithfully,
MR ALIU KAJA.Dear Mr. Aliu Kaja,
My darling, it was the greatest pleasure to hear from you after all this time. I was beginning to think that weekend in Fresno was just another sexually infused con job, brought off by a masterful Don Juan. But now, reading your lovely words has renewed my confidence in the bond between us, and I am ready willing and able to follow you to the ends of the earth playing Clyde to your Bonny.
At least I would be if it weren’t for one little hitch, as you so eloquently named it.
I have been cheating on you. Yes, with all these offers of enormous riches waiting for me all across the globe, I have been a greedy little fake advice columnist, and have been claiming dead people’s money left and right. The sad truth is that at this point my name is extremely well known as a fraudulent next of kin in every bill and exchange department of every African development bank in the world. I’ve been put out to pasture.
I’m sorry that I must deliver this news in my column, I know it has to be a shock to you. But I’m also positive that with time and a good therapist you will learn to put my shameful behavior to rest, and love me for the deviant, retired, multibillionaire that I am.
Perhaps some day we will cross paths once more, but if not, remember this. We’ll always have Fresno.
- Miss Eliza
Dear Miss Eliza: How to Delare the Undeclared Major
Dear Miss Eliza,
I’ve been on college for ** cough, cough ** years now, and it looks like they finally expect me to pick a major. But I’m only 24 years old! How can they think that I’m ready to know what I want to be when I grow up? How can they be so sure that I ever intend to grow up at all? But that’s beside the point. I’m just looking for advice on what to major in when I don’t know what to do?
Undeclared the Undergrad
Dear Undeclared,
Fortunately for you, the inventors of college set up a nice little catch all for people just like you. Let me tell you a little story.
Once upon a time, the father of the modern American university, Samuel Adams, saw the need for a program for drifters and lollygaggers, who found their way to college purely by convention.
"They’re pouring in by the thousands," he said to himself one September. "The poor lost sheep, they too need a place to feel accepted and loved. I will create for them a special department that caters to their specific talents: procrastination, aimlessness, an lack of structure. I hereby declare the existence of English major."
And the little lost sheep rejoiced. For the English major allowed them to focus on the true reason for being where they were, the College Experience. Which for those of you who have not yet learned, has nothing to do with learning.
And for prolonging this College Experience, the drifters thanked Mr. Adams, with the only tribute that a businessman understands: they bought his product.
And from thence forward, upperclassmen had their own undeclared major, and college hasn’t been the same ever since. I mean, look at it, it has given rise to an entire generation of people just like you. And as a result, English departments all over the country have been expanding exponentially. Why do you think Bush wants to go back to the moon? Because he wants to put a university there, dedicated to the study of English. You see, space is becoming so limited on our own planet that English departments don’t even have enough paper to dole out to the students. They are reverting to the favored Greek mode of story telling, oral communication.
I am digressing. Undeclared, I apologize. The point is that a person like you should not in fact fear the future… well, the near future anyway, your future beyond college may be a bit bleak, but you don’t need to worry about that, after all, it might never happen.
- Miss Eliza
Dear Miss Eliza: The Pet Issue
Dear Miss Eliza,
My daughter is ten years old and lately she’s been trying to convince me that we need to get a dog. She’s already got 5 fish and a guinea pig, and I end up doing all the taking care of them. I don’t really have the desire to take care of a dog, too. What’s the best way to tell her no?
Pellet mom in Park CityDear Pellet mom,
Now, she’s just ten, so I’m assuming she hasn’t taken health class yet? What do they do in health class these days, do they have the cool dolls they give out to tell the kids that they aren’t responsible enough to have sex? Remember back in the day? When they used to have to baby-sit eggs? I think that should work in this situation.
I mean you could give her some kind of animatronic dog and have her take care of that for two weeks, but paying for the dog, could take all her Christmas present money. Eggs are much cheaper. They’re also more expendable.
So give her an egg, and tell her the deal. Every day she has to walk it, clean up after it, scratch behind its ears, and feed it. And if she fails to do any of the above, it will prove that she’s not ready to tale responsibility for a dog. And there’s your loop hole.
It takes several forms, for example, eggs are inanimate objects, therefore they can’t eat, so by definition, you can’t feed them. Which means that if her egg was a dog, it would have starved. Which shows, she’ not ready for a pet.
Along, this same reasoning, eggs don’t have ears to scratch behind, so you’ve got another out right there.
And needless to say, an egg is pretty breakable, so you might not even need to get out on the technicality in the first place.
Extrapolating the scenario a few years, this will also be a good way to draw the line on:
Dating
Raising her allowance
Paying for college
Underage drinking
Sarcasm
Junk food
Cell phone usageOr to promote good habits such as:
Laundry
Hygene
Homework
Respect for grandparents
Doing the dishesIn other words, egg therapy is magic. Use the power wisely.
- Miss Eliza
Dear Miss Eliza Fixes the Love Sick
Dear Miss Eliza,
I like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain, but I still haven’t been able to find that special someone. So I’ve been getting cynical about the whole idea of songs about love, and have begun a boycott against love songs.
As you can guess, there’s not much left for me to listen to. But that’s not going to stop me, listening to crap that I don’t believe in is a terrible statement about my character and my morals. But I have been getting more sad lately. What can I do to curtail this?
the depressive, moral cynic
Dear depressive,
You’re getting it all mixed up. You aren’t sad because you have no girl and no music, you have no girl and no music because you’re sad. As in SAD. As in Seasonal Affective Disorder. As in, there’s less sun lately, because it leaves earlier, and this decrease in sun exposure very commonly causes depression, which in your case has led to a love song boycott.
The answer is simple. Sell your house and buy one in Alaska. This will be a great place to spend your summers, and will make sure you get lots of vitamin D. But this is going to leave your winters wide open because you’re not going to want to spend them in complete darkness, that would make things worse. So find yourself a job somewhere on the opposite end of the Earth. If you don’t know where that is, check a map:
http://go.hrw.com/atlas/norm_htm/world.htmAnd what do you find? That’s right, Antarctica. You become a researcher. There’s plenty of ice down there to study. I know, why don't you do some reasearch into whether that climate affects how ice crystals respond to your attitude? For that matter, you could look into rock formations. There are a couple of rocks down there, is what I hear.
Now, if you aren’t quite qualified to be a geologist, no big thing, you just go back to school. Go for the Ph.D. for good measure, that should take care of it. And I bet you can get a nice summer job up north with those kinds of credentials, too.
Oh, and if you need a reference, to get into school or something, I’d be happy to give one. I give really good compliments, and I only charge a minimal fee.
- Miss Eliza
Dear Miss Eliza: Datebook recipes
Dear Miss Eliza,
I need to learn better time management skills. Any ideas?
Scatterbrained in Scarborough
Dear Scatterbrained,
Do you know the one spot in your house that has the most extra space lying around? I do. It’s the "greens" compartment in your refrigerator. And the best part is that it’s even intended for storing things.
Now, you may wonder, "but Dear Miss Eliza, what on earth am I supposed to store in this bin?"
Well, as my Paddy used to say, "There’s nothing like a nice crisp thought." And he was right. Now think about the temperature of your brain. Roughly 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, right? Nothing stays crisp at 98.6, the idea is absurd. So what would happen if you took all those thoughts you weren’t using at the moment, and stuck them someplace cool and dry. They would be crisper right? Which is exactly what the greens compartment is for. Why do you think they say "Crisper" on them?
Plus, keeping excess brain activity in an external source is going to allow the things that are actually in your brain at any given moment, to be processed in a much more timely fashion. And isn’t timely the name of the game in time management?
That’s what I thought.
Miss Eliza
Dear Miss Eliza,
So, I’ve got this skiing habit that’s been getting pretty expensive lately. Is there any way you know to cut costs in this area?
ski bunny in a holeDear ski bunny,
Second hand shops are the way to go. If I can find a used winter coat at Goodwill for $10, why shouldn’t I be able to find a used lift ticket for next to nothing. Not to mention, I’ve never, ever seen a lift line when I was in Goodwill. Or in any other thrift shop, now that you mention it... which I believe that you did... but I may be mistaken.
But why pay for a lift ticket in the first place? If you’re not using the lift, you shouldn’t need to pay for its ticket. You just hike up sometime during foliage season, and hang out for a couple months, until you get enough powder to get you down.
Choice three: ski in your sleep. It’s just as good, but you only have to spend dream currency, and that’s equivalent to Monopoly money. (I take that back. You still have to buy a Monopoly game to get Monopoly money. And those things are not cheap.) In fact, one could argue that in a dream one feels much more powerful emotions, therefore the rush from your dream run will be extensively better than the physical one that you'd have to actually pay for. Not to mention, in your dream you can fly. On the slopes you can only fall with style. (That's not an origional. Where did I get that quote from. Anyone?)
Well, I hope that helps, ski bunny. If all else fails, there’s always rehab.
- Miss Eliza
Dear Miss Eliza: When Your Belt Just Won't Hold It
Dear Miss Eliza,
I’m in the middle of a diet that’s been working well enough to take 1.75 inches off my midsection. As pleased as I am with this result, it’s left me in a jam. You see, I’m half way between two notches in my belts now. And I don’t want to go out and buy new ones because I have every intention of losing more weight, and then my old belts will fit again. Any suggestions?
Just a little crackDear Just,
This is a commonly traveled query that you have posed here. Let me tell you a story about another such sojourner. His name was Ben.
Well, once upon a time when Ben was in middle school, he was picked on every day because he was, as his teacher put it, chubby. Of course, he was called much worse things by the nincompoop children who picked on him, but that’s not the point. Now Ben never told his mother about the abuse, but she found out during a parent teacher conference, and put Ben on a diet. Soon he was suffering from your exact malady, only he was unfortunate enough to still be wearing briefs, and the tauntings grew worse.
Summer swallowed that school year and Ben retreated with his new nickname "briefboy" ringing in his brain. And wondering what on earth he should do about it. And then he sat down across from his father one morning and slipped on some orange juice his mother had spilled. He grabbed on to the first thing he could touch, his father’s tie. I’ll spare you the messy details, suffice it to say that the garish pattern on the tie was familiar, but not immediately recognizable. Until his next trip to the department store.
Where he found… that pattern… on a pair of men’s underwear. And it wasn’t a pair of briefs. And then he decided, what if I capitalize on my weakness?
He went back to school in the fall. It was high school now, and the stakes were longer, pointier and therefore deadlier. He had taken a gamble. Would it pay off? When he left the house that morning, he received a pained look from his mother, and his little sister had choked on her rice krispies. His tension mounted.
There was silence in the hallway as the sea of faces flooded with blank stares. One boy stepped in front of him, a smirk on his face. Ben could see the retort working its way out the vocal chords, he beat it with his own one liner.
"You must be wondering what the deal is. See, I got this new job this summer as an underwear model. They’re paying me the big bucks to show off the latest fashions in boxer-ware. You like?"
And you know how it turned out. The boxers came out of the closet and a movement was born.
Now I don’t know if you want to go with the boxer root, but I think it’s time we got a look at some new oh-my-pants-are-falling-down fashion. I leave it in your capable waistline. Good luck.
Miss Eliza
Dear Readers,
Are you ever in the middle of your shower, lathering up and humming to yourself only to stop and ask yourself some ridiculous question? Why not take note of those questions, and pass them along to me, where they can be safely (and entertainingly) disposed of? I have much experience with question-care, and I’ll even do it for you pro-bono. Just stick your question in my comments section, or pop it into an e-mail with selizawalden@yahoo.com in the To: space. And the best part is, you don’t even need a lawyer.Miss Eliza
Dear Miss Eliza and the Halloween horde
Dear Miss Eliza,
My kids brought home 20 lbs of candy after Halloween. Somehow, letting them eat that much junk weighs on my motherly wisdom. I’m afraid they’re going to expand to the size of parade balloons, but weigh a whole lot more. Is there some way to get around this childhood obesity that’s looming on my doorstep?
- Mom of Barney and BoboDear Mom,
Of course there’s an answer to your dilemma, I’m just glad that you caught it this early in their impressionable lives. Five years down the road, the only advice I would have been able to give would be liposuction.
The way things stand right now though, you have another good option. Here’s a good rule of thumb for Halloween candy. Eat it all in one day. This is called a binge. One day binges allow you to get the issue (in this instance candy) way out of your system. You eat yourself to some insane distance on the other side of the saturation line, and immediately after midnight you turn back into a pumpkin.
It is common knowledge that your children absorb less calories from a binge than they would from nibbling on their stash over the course of the whole year. I believe the actually percentage would be 15%, as in your body will accept 15% of the proffered calories, and expel the rest.
Of course, 20 lbs is an awful lot of candy to eat in one day. What if they don’t make it all the way through? Well, candy makes a very nice smell when it burns. But be sure you tell your children what their candy has to look forward to in the future. Otherwise, you would be a dishonest and terrible mother.
Good luck.
- Miss Eliza
Dear Miss Eliza: What to buy the Picky someone on your list
Dear Miss Eliza,
My mother is a hard one to please. NO matter what I get her for Christmas or her birthday or Mother’s day or just to say, "Thanks for being my mom," she never, ever likes it.
Sure, she’ll pretend to like it for a few seconds after she unwraps it, but it’s a fake kind of liking it, you know what I mean? So with Christmas coming up soon, I just don’t know what to do. Any ideas what you give someone who doesn’t like anything you give them?
- Giftwrapping a void
Dear Giftwrapping,
Did you ever see that birthday card shaped like a pickle? You open it up and it says, "I bet you didn’t expect to get a paper pickle for your birthday," (Plagiarism note: Obviously I should be crediting the maker of this card, but I don’t know who it was. Suffice it to say I didn’t come up with it myself.) ? Well the greeting card can teach a valuable gift giving philosophy: If something is worth failing, it’s worth failing well.
There’s no right answer for what to get your mother for Christmas. There are only answers that fail the approval test. What you want to give her is a gift that says, "Mom, I know this isn’t good enough, but I love you enough to have come to grips with that fact. Please to understand what kind of a position you’ve put me in. It’s a real pickle."
So how do you go about picking the perfectly wrong present? Rule 1. Don’t waste a lot of money. Money should be spent on doing things right, like building a new school or eating good food. A good rule of thumb about how much to spend to do something wrong: How much change did you find the last time you scoured the sofa cushions? Subtract all the quarters from that. Quarters are invaluable.
Rule 2. Even the wrong present should make a statement. (see gift giving philosophy above) What do you want to tell your mother? "Mom, you need to learn to better disguise your disapproval." Or, "I try so hard, why can’t you love me?" And then there’s my personal favorite, "You know what’s fun? Using orange juice to season a turkey." Each of these things can be conveyed with a simple item clothed in wrapping paper and decorated with a bow.
From your letter, I get the feeling that you’re trying to tell your mother, "I just don’t understand you." To show this in a present, I’d start her off with the paper pickle card, and inside jot down a web address like http://www.iqtest.com/ and that ought to take care of it.
- Miss Eliza
