the best revenge isn’t moving on and pretending not to care. if you really want to disconcert people, stick your fingernails in and bring out your insides. leave them there on the table. no one wants to see you cry. that’s why you should do it. 

Warning: This is a rant!

I’m reading this romance book and it’s bad. Granted, I’m only 16% into the book, but I’m truly hating it. The book is bad in that hard to explain way, where the writing is bad. It’s not the grammar or editing, but just the writing. I’m not going to say the name of the book, but here’s a screenshot of 1 page of it from my iPhone kindle. But first context.

The main character is 18 and she dreams of independence and wants to go to college with dreams of a Ph.D. But when she’s sold off by her father into an arranged marriage, she just accepts it. Her father is a U.S. senator (the most believable part of the whole situation) and he’s marrying her off to a rich family so that family can back his next campaign. Her new fiancé is only 26, and he’s handsome, so that’s fine. Her father could have married her off to an old bad of dirt, but he didn’t. She met her fiancé at her 18th birthday party, he was her birthday present (no joke). The scene below happens 3 months later, at their second meeting — their wedding day.

Now, I often find romance novels to be problematic because of all the genres out there, romance seems to be one where many bad writers make their names. The main character is compelling and her story has a lot of potential, but I have to keep rolling my eyes to the back of my head because of how badly this writer keeps butchering the story and characters. It’s bad.

I’ve read really well done books about dominant men and the women who love them. Books where the idea of, “you married him and so he owns your body now,” runs rampant. I’ve accepted a lot of sketchy writing from authors in the name of a good and well told story, but this one is just so bad. My whole mantra while reading this has been, “she’s only 18, she probably doesn’t know any better.” ‍♀️

It seems to me that this author only knew what they wanted these characters to do, not how to actually write them doing it. So, things are just thrown at the reader and we’re expected to process it and it’s problematic implications and move on. The section that I highlighted above, that statement is incredibly sexist and demeaning to women, but it is said in the book with no modifiers and no push back. How can someone who just wants to break free from her father and go college just unquestionably accept that ridiculous advice. And even worst, this is the 1st book in a trilogy and I, for the life of me, don’t know how that is possible.

This is where I’m always unsure what to do next with these types of books. Do I keep reading in hopes that it gets better? Or do I just stop the torture, but never know what happened to these characters? This is the dilemma that these types of books place readers in. At it’s the dilemma they place me in, and it really sucks.

When you ask a fellow spoonie how to get your doctor to send you for an upright MRI because of concerning symptoms that are being ignored (asked because this person has my condition, has had an upright MRI, and subsequent spinal fusion because the upright finally showed the full picture), and they say you shouldn’t dictate your care and should trust your doctors and just let them steer your care If I do that, I will literally get no care. My doctors do the bare minimum, and aren’t interested in trying to look deeper to find out why I feel like shit constantly. And I see people in my position all the time.

No hate to those of you with good insurance, good doctors, and an actual treatment plan prescribed by your doc, but some of us have doctors that ignore symptoms, don’t bother to even read your records, and generally treat you like a fraud. I have been have severe migraines with neck pain and pressure in the base of my skull like you would not believe (and then my fucking eye started protruding during one), and my supine MRI showed nothing, likely because, as many zebras know, supine MRIs can hide instability.

FIGHT FOR THE TESTS YOU NEED. if your doctors aren’t listening, but you can’t just pick up and find another doctor, ADVOCATE for yourself, don’t let them tell you that your concerns are invalid, and DON’T let them ignore your symptoms. Doctors don’t know everything, as much as they want you to think they do. I had a doctor, who had practiced for like 20 years, tell me that EDS was treated with steroids. This man clearly A. Hadn’t bothered to look over any of my paperwork, because I specifically stated my condition and that steroids were not good for people like me and B. Clearly hadn’t continued his education since his med school graduation. If high school teachers have to do continued education, doctors can read some fucking updated studies.

DOCTORS WORK FOR YOU. You pay them, sometimes hundreds of doctors if your specialist doesn’t take insurance like mine, because they are supposed to do everything they can to find out what’s wrong. If they ignore it, yell about it. I know I fucking will.

Help! My Child Is Doing An Oppression On My Constitutional Rights!

Carolyn Hax, Washington Post,23 January 22:

Dear Carolyn: My daughter is a beautiful ballet dancer. She is an adult. She gets very angry if I send pictures or short videos to friends and family.

We allowed her to leave high school to follow her dream. We fully funded her dance education and living expenses. People ask me for recent pictures. She has forbidden me to send anything.

Do I have any freedom of speech? She posts on social media so it’s in the public domain, as are her performances. It’s just me that’s not allowed to share. - Proud Mom Who Can’t Share Her Joy

Dear Proud Mom,

One can only imagine a mother’s profound heartbreak at discovering her beautiful young daughter hates the United States Constitution and all of its glorious protections, such as your personal and specific right to share information about her with strangers against her express wishes.

Certainly if your daughter were less attractive, or perhaps a shitty dancer, her unpatriotic loathing for your hard-won American freedoms would be tolerable, understandable, or even excusable — but knowing that a pretty and talented person has so eschewed the entitlements secured for us by our brave servicemembers, well! America isn’t the only country on earth with a vast network of military bases operating on the soil of other sovereign nations so that you can’t send your barista 400 photos of your grown-ass child.

But putting aside your daughter’s revulsion for American values, does she not understand that child-bearing and -rearing is a transactional relationship in which parents are entitled to do anything they want forever, as long as they pay for some shit? What is a mother’s love if not the ability to steamroll another person’s boundaries forever without apology no matter what because they have to like it or else they hate you and want you to be sad on purpose?

One wonders where your daughter could possibly have picked up such a distaste for your enthusiastic, unconditional lovingkindness. There is but one way to take pride in another person’s achievements, and that is to send one’s own private photos of that person to anyone who asks. How could you ever experience a single solitary moment’s joy if your friends and family discover that your daughter has her own means of managing her personal and public information in the service of a career that is hers and hers alone? What if they begin to see your daughter as an autonomous person with whom they are free to communicate sans mother-interlocutor? What if you had to find your own interests and personality and live your life independently of your identity as a dance mom? The unthinkable horrors abound.

Of course, getting into petty interpersonal squabbles about whether your daughter is allowed to set boundaries with you — she isn’t, obviously, but here we are — will be a fool’s errand. Instead, you’re better suited to retaining quality legal representation in order to regain the freedom of speech that your daughter has denied you. There are any number of fine constitutional scholars out there who would be happy to assist you.

Help! Pornography!

Ellie,4 October 2021:

When I was 20 and dating a guy, 23, I was flattered that he wanted to be “exclusive.” I agreed, and he immediately introduced me to his parents, who were overjoyed. I sensed that they wanted him to “settle down.”  Meanwhile, I’d borrowed a book of his, and when I later opened it, I found several pornographic photos tucked between pages.

I told him that I found porn disgusting, and ended our relationship. When some of your female readers write about a partner’s hours-long addiction to porn, I wonder why they stay together. Porn is an isolating habit, removes romance from relationships, and focuses instead on strangers’ bodies. — Still Disgusted

Dear Still Disgusted,

It is a pleasure to hear from one of the world’s foremost experts on relationships and pornography! You once briefly dated a man who kept naughty photographs in a book, which means you know everything there is to know about the vast spectrum of human romantic and sexual desire. Your experience with one person when you were twenty years old is fully demonstrative of several universal truths: pornography is always bad all the time, women hate pornography and men love pornography, and pornography makes everyone who consumes or creates it unable to love or have fulfilling connections with other human beings. It is bad enough when pornography addiction lasts entire minutes; to think that someone could be addicted to pornography for hours is an almost unthinkable horror.

Certainly it was pornography that ended an otherwise stellar relationship which you walked away from after a single pronouncement about the moral degeneration of this foul and repulsive man, wholly irredeemable as he was. Pornography alone crushed your happily-ever-after; it definitely could not have been your immediate assumption that a couple of pictures stuck in a book couldn’t possibly have any other explanation besides your paramour being hopelessly addicted to pornography such that he would forever and always be unable to provide for you the connection and support you require. Yes, pornography is the sole culprit here.

You are better than other women because you dumped this man. Other women are objectively bad and stupid if they think they feel differently about sex or relationships than you do, and you are objectively good and smart because of the way you feel about sex and relationships. Humans are all the same and everybody should only ever have sex or be in relationships according to your personal dicatates, that way everyone will be as healthy, happy, and fulfilled as you so clearly are.

Help! Should I Tell My Employee I Know When He’s Going To Die?

Ask A Manager, 24 August 2018:

I know this is a bizarre question. I just woke up from an incredibly vivid dream in which a fortune teller told me that one of my favorite/best employees was going to die on September 25, 2024. I’m not sure I even believe in psychic dreams, but it felt so vivid and certain that, were this just a friend or someone I worked closely with, I would tell them about my dream. But when I consider telling my employee about it, I just kind of imagine the letter that they could write you from their perspective: “Dear Alison, did my boss just low-key threaten my life?” I shouldn’t tell my employee, right? I do actually kind of want to warn him.

PS: I promise to update on September 26, 2024 and let you know what’s up.

Dear Dreamer,

You must let him know! Your employee will be flattered that his boss was dreaming about him!

As the saying goes: when life gives you lemons/psychic premonitions about the demise of your favorite employee, you must make lemonade/tell them all about it. Dreams are famously literal, and the one you’ve had here is obviously and only about your employee’s death.

Imagine how bad you’ll feel when this guy shuffles off the mortal coil in a couple of years and you never gave him a heads up to let him know that hey, if he’s going finally to do that exclusive backstage-at-the-Corn-Palace tour he’s been dreaming of, there is literally no time like the present! Do you want to live with that kind of guilt on your conscience until your boss is greeted with a nighttime premonition and fails to apprise you of the time and date certain on which you will pass on to your eternal reward? Do unto others as you would have them do to you, which is to say, have a lot of conversations at work about death!

Help! I’ve Been Murdered!

Care and Feeding, Slate,14 December 2021:

Dear Care and Feeding,

My brother and his daughter came to stay with me and my husband over Thanksgiving. They live a few hours away, so it’s always a joy to be able to get together again. My niece, “Ivy,” is 8, and my brother shares custody of Ivy with his ex. I know this might seem minor to some people, but I’m really irritated by a passive-aggressive comment that Ivy made about me at my house. I have a framed picture of me at my high school graduation in my living room, amongst other pictures of me and my husband. Ivy pointed to that picture before dinner and asked who that is in the picture. I explained that it was me. She then said, “Oh, you look so different there!”

I know what that means. That means, “You are old and ugly.” I graduated about twenty years ago, and it stung to have that rubbed in my face. After dinner, when my husband and I were alone, I brought up the comment and how rude and hurtful it was. My husband said that I was beautiful and not to overthink it or discuss with my brother. That being said, if she’s saying this to her own aunt, what is she saying to other people? I mentioned to my brother that I was hurt by Ivy underhandedly insulting my appearance, to which he said that he didn’t see it as an insult. He said he was going to give his daughter the benefit of the doubt. I told him that he needs to teach Ivy better manners. I just want someone to acknowledge my feelings and stop gaslighting me. I’m also worried that this passive-aggressive behavior is going to become a pattern for Ivy, and she’ll end up hurting a lot of other people around her. What else can I do to deal with this situation —Passive Aggressed

Dear Passive Aggressed,

There are the great injustices of the world — bigotry, oppression — and then there is what you have suffered at the hands of this vicious child: something unfathomably worse. It sounds like no one has taken a moment to check in with you to make sure you’re doing okay, that you have the support and resources you need to navigate this difficult time, and to remind you in every waking moment that you’re the youngest, most beautiful person on this merciless and cruel planet. I am really sorry that your community is not offering you the support you deserve. No one as young and beautiful as you are should have to go through what you’re going through.

And yet you still manage to have nothing but loving concern for this wicked child! You are an angel and a saint! (And so young and beautiful!) You could have retreated away, alone, to lick the raw, gaping wounds this worthless brat inflicted upon you with her foul disparagements, but instead you wish to improve her, and, more admirably, to protect others from suffering as you have from her malicious pronouncements.

That the people you’re closest to have chosen to gaslight you in this matter rather than agree that there is no possible way that a human being, especially not one as young and beautiful as you are, could look differently today than they did twenty years ago really speaks volumes about how much sway you’re going to be able to have in terms of silencing awful Ivy’s callous and cold-blooded observations about the passage of time out of the goodness of your own heart because you care so much about her future and other people’s wellbeing.

Perhaps you can give Ivy a taste of her own medicine by showing her a picture of the way she looked twenty years ago, and ask her if shenotices anything different! That ought to shut the little scamp up!

Help! My Wife Won’t Throw Out Her Wedding Ring!

Social Q’s, New York Times, 21 October 2021:

My wife and I are both on our second marriages. We’ve been married for 23 years. Recently, she showed me her wedding band from her first marriage. I asked her to get rid of it. She refused. She said it’s part of her history. This bothers me: The ring was given to her by another man with whom she exchanged vows and to whom she was married for six years. Your thoughts? — Honoring the Past?

Dear Honoring the Past,

That your wife of 23 years recently showed you a wedding band from a man she was married to decades ago is clear evidence that she is actively engaging in a sordid affair about which she is desperately trying to hide the evidence, and you are lucky to have discovered it now through your extreme cunning and wile, which is to say, because she showed it to you of her own volition because it is not a big deal whatsoever.

Worse, your putative “wife” is lording over you the shocking revelation that she existed on planet Earth before you came along — something you could never have known purely by virtue of the fact that you are her second husband. Who was she married to before this abrupt and traumatic reveal? Why, her imagined prince charming — you, of course! Obviously she has only and ever been married either to you or to the hope that she would find you, personally, somehow.

It is cruel indeed for your secretive wife to suddenly divulge out of nowhere and with no compunction whatsoever, that she, a formerly married woman who was completely open about her prior relationships, had in fact been formerly married to a real-life human man rather than preserving for you specifically her womanly gifts, as you had every right to believe up until the specific moment when, because you had never seen it before and thus it could not exist purely because she told you it had happened and we all know how women do be making these things up, her previous marriage. Your cruel wife has casually revealed to you the horrifying evidence of her desecration of the marriage vows which she had not made to you because you were not her husband, and this insult shall not stand!

This ring is only part of her “history” if your wife is allowed to believe that the sorry play of her life had worth and value and meaning before you made your entrance onstage. That’s no platform on which to build a relationship; the only way to know if your marriage is secure is to abandon her for her infidelity to you, a man she has been married to nearly three times longer than the man who gave her that ring all those decades ago. If she takes you back, you will only know it’s real if she throws away the ring over which she exchanged vows with a total stranger lo those 23 years ago.

Help! I Could Keep My Brother Alive, But I Don’t Like His Wife!

Carolyn Hax, Washington Post,1 November 2021:

Dear Carolyn: What do I owe my siblings, if anything? My husband has been fortunate enough to make a lot of money, and we agreed long ago that it was for us and our adult sons, not our (many) deadbeat relatives.

My older brother pretty much raised me and helped my husband when starting out. Brother had a severe stroke three years ago, and Second Wife claims they have gone through all their savings and are now $140,000 in debt with all the costs. She is trying to guilt me into helping them. I do not feel this is appropriate.

She did quit her job to take care of him, but they were improvident and did not buy long-term care insurance. I ask her why she does not put him in a home or hire a full-time aide and she says they can’t afford it.

Brother’s adult children tell me Second Wife is horrible, which is why they choose not to help, either. Second Wife had the nerve to ask me to help buy Brother an oxygen concentrator. It is expensive: $2,500. I think this is pushing it. She comes off as bitter, so we said no.

Now she tells me she will have to launch a GoFundMe, because otherwise they will lose their house. This will be extremely embarrassing to my husband and me, because we are prominent in the community. What do you advise? — Family

Dear Family,

While your problem has, on the surface, a very obvious solution — let the brother who raised you and gave your now-wealthy family its start in the world die a slow, desperate death in poverty because you don’t like his wife’s attitude — families are complicated. Sometimes it’s not as easy as getting what you want from someone financially and emotionally and then abandoning them forever because you don’t care whether they live or die — because then the neighbors might talk! What a pickle.

Of course your brother should be forced to forego the medical care he needs because you don’t like his wife. That much is clear. It’s not about the money — you’d never miss a dime — but you think your brother’s wife sucks, so it’s just really not worth ensuring he has the medical care and housing he needs. Anyone in your shoes would make the same calculation without a second thought.

However, things get sticky when we start thinking about what really matters: how embarrassing it will look to people you aren’t related to, who you’ve never met and have no responsibility toward, if it comes out that your brother is an irresponsible poor who didn’t even get long-term health insurance before deciding to have a stroke in a country with an exploitative, unjust, discriminatory, and deliberately impenetrable medical system that drives millions of people into unimaginable debt every year.

It would be a kindness if the man who raised you and seeded your family’s vast financial success could just suffer in silence and die in the streets with his bad wife and leave you out of it. That’s an outcome you could be proud of — the kind of comfortable, happy little family story you’d be fine sharing with a few intimate friends at the club. But for your sister-in-law to publicly humiliate you by trying to stay alive and housed in order to fund your brother’s medical care, when she knows you simply can’t help him because you hate her! That is impudence of the highest order, and your brother’s wife is only creating for everyone a self-perpetuating cycle wherein she quits her job to care for her husband and has to beg other people for money to stay alive, and you have to keep not giving her money because you hate her because she’s so poor and embarrassing! The one and only solution in this situation is so simple — she shuts up, he dies! — and yet, this self-absorbed couple just can’t bring themselves to take the necessary steps.

There’s nothing you can do here, since funding your brother’s medical care as the most minimum thanks for his support at the most crucial times in your own life will only help him live a longer and more comfortable life without his wife having to make a big public show of their poverty at you. Some people really can’t see past their own self-interest! An upside: if your in-laws go forth with their crowdfunding plan, you will see your own visibility in the community grow in some interesting new ways.

Help! My Wife Wrote a Book When She Should Have Been Caring For Our Newborn and Supporting Our Family, Which She Was Actually Also Doing!

Dear Prudence, Slate,23 November 2021:

Q. My wife wrote a secret book: My wife is an accomplished author who also holds down a fulltime job in an unrelated field, mostly for the benefits. When we had our first child last year, we agreed that she would pause her writing career—something had to go with a new baby at home.

Except, it turns out she didn’t pause it. She got a great idea for a new novel, wrote it secretly during her lunch break at work, and sold it for $100,000. I feel so many things right now; it’s hard to be mad at someone when they casually tell you your son’s college education is now paid for, and her lunch hour is technically hers to do as she wishes. But she went against our deal! She could have been home an hour earlier every night this year if she hadn’t done this project, and when I think back on all the times she’s been tired or grumpy in the past year, I now blame the book (even though it could have just been caring for a newborn). How do I trust her to keep to her word? How should I feel right now?

Dear My Wife Wrote A Secret Book,

I think there’s only one thing a person can feel when their wife had a baby, worked a full time job, and wrote a novel on her lunch break that she later sold for a six-figure advance such that it never fucking affected you for a single moment until it became the subject of your whole family’s wild financial success: absolutely fucking enraged at her unbelievably rude self-centeredness!

Whothe entire fuck did this bitch think she was, being a parent while setting the entire family up for an easy, debt-free college send-off while being a creative fucking genius, when she could have just as easily not done any of that because she owes you every last fucking minute of her whole-ass life? She could have preserved the most precious thing in the world — a promise she made that she in no way broke by doing a thing you didn’t even notice she was doing — or, she could have stifled a great idea so that you and she and your child could be saddled with life-long debt!

Honestly, the gall.

Women are getting mighty uppity these days; many, like your wife apparently, believe they can “have it all” by spending every waking moment trying to hold the whole world’s shit together and funding it, besides! When what they really should be doing is keeping their good fucking ideas to themselves and sitting down, shutting up, and making sure no one else has a nice time, ever. You owe it to yourself and your child to make sure the poor example your wife has set is never repeated again, lest people give you every last gift they have to offer so that you never worry for a single dang moment about anything ever.

The truth is, you can’t trust your brilliant, creative, awful, and bad wife to keep her word! She may get entirely out of pocket and do some further absolute perversity such as

• writing more novels that keep your family in financial comfort indefinitely
• doing so while not at all interfering with you or any of your dip-ass nonsense
• making sure everybody has enough to eat and a place to live
• being smart and cool as hell
• even if it’s hard and stressful and makes her occasionally grumpy and tired

Just generally a list of the worst shit women can do, especially when they are moms of newborns and should be full of vim and vigor like all new parents everywhere! Definitely divorce this untrustworthy intellectual slag so that you can find out what life is like without her, and with someone more reliable instead.

Help! Cheating On My Wife for Thirty Straight Years Has Been A Real Drag!

Ask Amy, Washington Post,25 January 2021:

Dear Amy: I’ve been married for 30 years. Most of this time, I’ve been unhappy. I’ve experienced love in the past. Before my marriage I had my heart broken twice. I just could not allow myself to go through that pain again. Therefore, I married a woman who was a good person, knowing that if she ever left, my heart would not be broken. This has caused me to have a number of affairs. I’m not proud of that. When I was single, I had never cheated on any of my girlfriends, but began cheating on my wife after two years of marriage. The biggest reason I never left my wife was that I could not bear the thought of not seeing my young kids daily (who are now adults), and also the financial struggles divorce would bring.

I now struggle with a different heartache and ask myself — is this the way I want to spend my remaining years? — Unhappy Husband

Dear Unhappy Husband,

It’s about time somebody thought about youandyour needs for once! And how lucky that — wow! — it’s you! You’re the one putting your needs first! Amazing! Good for you for taking on the burdensome yoke of finally putting yourself first after so many years of fucking people over for your own benefit.

You’ve spent the last 30 years lying bald-faced to a “good person” about the nature of your feelings and your relationship and your intentions, which is an eminently reasonable thing to do after experiencing a couple of break-ups, a highly unusual experience that was exquisitely and only painful for you specifically and especially because you are the most sensitive and caring preciousheart whose feelings must be preserved and honored above all others, so fuck ‘em! Nobody else has ever experienced romantic dissatisfaction and just gotten the fuck over it instead of turning their entire life into a house of lying-ass sad bastard cards, no indeed, you did the right and normal thing there with that one and can’t be blamed one iota for it. And my goodness, to think of all the time you had to spend explaining your loveless marriage and uniquely broken heart to all those people you slept with behind your wife’s back! That must have been really difficult for you.

After three decades of doing whatever the fuck you want irrespective of the harm done to the people who you’re ostensibly supposed to love and respect most in the world, it’s no wonder you’re thinking about what comes next. Thirty years is a long time to pull the same predictable, boring-ass stunts over and over again because you don’t want to take responsibility for your own actions!

Now that your wife has fulfilled her purpose here on earth by giving you the children and the companionship you required to keep you grounded amid the long string of clandestine affairs you had no choice but to have because somebody made you feel sad once and you are a sad man with sad man feelings, it is time to think of the future. Consider spending your remaining years alone, perhaps at sea. Or under it.

Help! I’m Not Allowed To Use Racial Slurs!

Social Q’s, The New York Times,21 January 2021:

As a Christian, I find it hurtful when I hear the Lord’s name used as swear words. If I used sexist, racist, anti-Semitic or homophobic language as curse words, I might be garroted. So, it’s hard for me to understand why such swearing is acceptable when it comes to Christ. But the idea of confronting people about this makes me uneasy. Is there a better way to communicate my hurt? — DAINA

Dear Daina,

Perhaps we mere mortals are not meant to know why the all-powerful eternal being worshipped by you specifically is so incredibly pissy about the use of His name, being as He is all powerful and eternal and surely burdened with shit vastly more important than whether the kid behind the counter at Blockbuster mutters “Christ Almighty” under his breath when you pay for your rental in loose change. The Lord, as they say, moves in mysterious ways!

But to the crux (sorry!!!!!) of the matter: why are people allowed to do a cuss at Jesus, a cruel attack on a defenseless baby/the immortal Son of God and our Holy Redeemer and the Lamb of Vengeance who literally has the ability to damn humans to an eternity of unimaginable torment, but you can’t unleash a barrage of violent slurs on people whenever the mood strikes? How can it be that just anybody can string the words “god” and “damn” together, doing immeasurable harm to a helpless Supreme Creator who might, at any moment, begin unleashing a series of plagues upon the world to usher in Armageddon and put a final end to humanity as we know it like the good and loving sky-Parent He is, but you can’t verbally abuse people such that they fear for their safety and wellbeing?

I mean, where’s the justice in that? Nobody is allowed to use sexist, racist, anti-Semitic, or homophobic curse words these days without suffering horrible consequences, such as being invited to direct Lethal Weapon Five,while everyone is allowed to say mean things about your particular religion of choice, for example, authors are having their books ripped from the shelves of public schools if they even vaguely hint at the idea that people other than white, heterosexual, cisgender, Christian Americans exist. So your worldview definitely tracks with reality there!

Certainly what Jesus had in mind when He commanded us to love our neighbors was for good Christians such as yourself to release a battery of offensive slurs against our fellow community members in order to balance the scales of power, at last, in favor of the Almighty God The Creator of Heaven and Earth.

Help! People Are Using Nicknames For Each Other!

Dear Abby, 8 October 2021:

DEAR ABBY: My husband and I have been happily married for 10 years. This is a second marriage for both of us. We don’t have children together, but my husband has grown daughters in their 50s from a previous marriage. Generally, we have good relationships with each other.

My problem is, my husband still calls – and refers to – his daughters by their childhood nicknames, “Peanut” and “Poopsie.” They reciprocate by calling him by silly names instead of “Dad” or “Father.” Seeing these adult women reverting to childhood drives me up a wall. They talk and act like little girls and use baby talk with each other, too.

I have shared with my husband more than once that this “innocent” nickname game keeps his daughters stuck in old childhood patterns, while keeping other family members out of the conversation. How would you suggest I handle this? – FEELING LIKE AN OUTSIDER

Dear Feeling Like An Outsider,

One thing people do a lot when they get older is give up harmless and emotionally significant life-long habits because somebody else finds them mildly irritating, so that bodes very well for your situation here!

It’s always healthy to spend your time and energy being angry at people who are doing something that doesn’t have anything the fuck to do with you, affects you not at all, and is absolutely not about you in any possible way.

You should handle this as you already have done, by chastising grown-ass people for the way they talk to each other. That is definitely a mature thing to do, demonstrates that you are the only true adult in the room, and does not at all mimic any old childhood patterns whatsoever.

Continue to “share” your thoughts about how your husband and his daughters communicate, whenever you want and ideally with increasing frequency. They’ll likely be incredibly receptive to your suggestions and appreciate your valuable input. The most likely outcome is that they will thank you profusely for your kind corrections and wish to include you more fully in their lives. You will no longer be an outsider in this particular family, that’s for certain.

Help! My Employee Thinks She Deserves Pay In Exchange For Labor!

Ask A Manager, 19 October 2021:

I’m not comfortable with one of my new staff members and how overconfident she is. Her work is great and she needed very little training but she’s got very big britches.

“Jane” has only been with us for two months. Just today she asked for a meeting with me and our payroll manager. It turns out payroll made an error entering her direct deposit information that resulted in Jane not getting paid, not once but two times.

Our company requires potential candidates to complete sample assignments during the interview process and we pay them an hourly contractor rate. It turns out she didn’t get paid for her assignment period, or for the next full pay cycle. The payroll employee apologized directly to Jane in an email, because it was their error in entering her information and not following up/fixing it that resulted in Jane not getting paid. Jane was able to show emails back and forth where she checked in with the payroll employee and asked if it was fixed, which they confirmed it was. Today was payday and Jane didn’t get paid. She checked with the employee again and they acknowledged that they “thought” it was fixed. It’s upsetting for Jane, I understand, but I think she was out of line about the whole thing. People make mistakes.

Neither payroll nor I knew anything about it until today. We both apologized and assured her the issue would be handled. After that, she looked at me and the payroll manager and said, “I appreciate your apology, but I need you both to understand that this can’t happen again. This has put me under financial strain and I can’t continue to work for COMPANY if this isn’t corrected today.” The payroll manager was heavily in agreement, but I was speechless that she’d speak to management like that.

Payroll handled the whole thing and cut her a check with the okay from HR. Jane had referenced that not being paid put her in financial hardship and unable to pay bills, so HR allowed the use of the employee hardship fund and gave her $500 in gift cards so she can get groceries and gas and catch up on bills. I’m just kind of floored that she’s getting gift cards after speaking to her superiors like that. I’m also uncomfortable because why is our company responsible for her fiscal irresponsibility? Her personal finances or debts are not the company’s responsibility. I just don’t think it’s the company’s responsibility to give her more than what she’s earned (the extra $500 from the employee emergency relief fund) to fix things for her if she overspent or didn’t prioritize her bills or save smartly. We also don’t know if she is actually experiencing a financial hardship or just claiming she was.

HR allowed her paid time to go to the bank today and deposit her check. I told our HR person that while it’s not okay Jane didn’t get paid, the way she approached it was uncalled for. HR told me, “She’s right, it can’t happen again and it shouldn’t have happened at all.” I’m getting tired of the respect gap I’m seeing with younger staff. I think Jane would be better suited in a different department. I’m not comfortable having her on my team since it’s obvious she doesn’t understand she’s entry-level and not in charge. Should I wait a while before suggesting she transfer to a different department?

Dear Employer,

You raise a number of important issues, not least among them: why do we work? Do we work because the vast majority of us are helpless to escape a fundamentally exploitative global capitalist system that requires us to exchange our time and skills and labor for money or else simply fuck off and die? Or do we work because we must get taken down a peg or two before we get too uppity to be useful to our social and economic betters?

I’m being rhetorical, of course! The correct answer is the latter, obviously. Work is not something people should or even usually do for a paycheck, which is what makes this situation so bizarre! Work is something people do because it’s the right thing to do, because it is intrinsically good for its own sake, which is to say: because it literally enriches and empowers only the most worthy in order to further distance otherwise useless, entitled grunts like your employee from getting anywhere close to laying even the barest finger, even a pinky finger, on the means of production. There’s nothing more purely and altruistically satisfying than working, especially when we know that our labor serves to strengthen the boot upon our own necks! A strong boot means a happy worker! Huzzah!

And what you have here, letter writer, is not a happy worker — what you have here is a worker who believes work and pay are related, and that they are entitled to reimbursement for their work merely because that is the immutable and binding nature of the laws where you live. I can’t think of a better example of one being too big for one’s britches than this little grabby-gabby wiseass with the gall to demand payment for services rendered per an expressly agreed-upon prior contract between all parties.

It’s a real shame that the law requires people to be paid for their labor regardless of whether they bring a sufficiently sunny attitude to the workplace, and there’s certainly nothing sunny about being clear and direct that you cannot continue to work for free indefinitely with a spring in your step and a song in your heart! What kind of sourpuss can’t show a bit of cheer in the office, even if the lights are off at home and they can’t afford groceries or other basic essentials because of the repeated incompetence of an employer who holds their very survival in their hands? That’s not the kind of can-do attitude that gets people ahead in this world!

Of course, by “people” we mean young people, who will never succeed as long as they remain universally and frightfully presumptuous. Everyone your age and older has unimpeachable comportment in every situation, whereas people who are younger than you are disrespectful smart-alecks — and it’s frankly disturbing that your HR department conceded so quickly to your employee’s unreasonable fixation on receiving money that she was legally entitled to! What’s next, avocado toast and $5 lattes on demand???? A living wage???? Health insurance???? For an entry-level employee who’s so poor with money management that she complains about going months without pay????

Only people who suffer in silence at length out of sheer and absolute terror at offending those who hold control over their financial wellbeing deserve to be paid money for food and shelter, and they can take their paychecks whenever your company damn well gets around to it, and thank you for the pleasure! Why wait to transfer this employee out of your department — surely you’re not afraid of offending this selfish peon? Cut her loose, along with anyone else she might have influenced with her money-grubbing ways, and ensure that you are surrounded only with the worshipful lackeys you deserve!

Help! A Teen Disagrees With Me!

Dear Abby, 23 September 2021:

DEAR ABBY: I am cleaning out my closet and have decided to sell my wedding dress from 21 years ago. I love the dress; it’s beautiful. But it’s a very large box to store. My 16-year-old daughter has made it clear to me she will never marry. It was difficult for me to accept, as she’s my only daughter. The thing is, she wants to try my dress on. I don’t want her to because she doesn’t agree with the sanctity of marriage or the commitment of it, and I don’t want my wedding dress tried on by anyone who feels this way about marriage. It means more than playing dress-up, and I believe it should be worn only by someone who respects it. Am I wrong? Does my daughter have a right to have hurt feelings over this? – NOT A GAME OF DRESS-UP

Dear Not A Game Of Dress-Up,

Madam, you must defend the holy and precious institution of marriage at all costs lest one single teenager wearing a dress decimate the blessed sacrament! You hold the fates of marriages the world over in your hands, and you mustn’t let your daughter obliterate billions of lives by applying cloth to her body. You and your unassailable principles are the only thing protecting an all-too-vulnerable world from the end of the very concept of marriage as we know it!

Not only does your daughter not have a right to experience hurt feelings over this, but she really owes you and every other person who has been married, considered marriage, or who vaguely believes in marriage as a concept a major apology. Why, marriage is not a game of dress-up! Marriage is primarily and historically a business and financial arrangement built to reinforce the patriarchy by legally regulating and mandating heterosexual relationships for the purpose of increasing wealth and property by treating women like interchangeable broodmares whose sole value rests in their reproductive capacities, and making men think they’re worthless if they don’t make gobs of money and spend their evenings grunting with the boys over brandy and cigars. Ah, romance! That your daughter would take an ill view of such a beloved and honored custom is genuinely mystifying.

We can be sure, of course, that your daughter will never marry, nor will she ever change her mind about marrying under any circumstances whatsoever. Teenage declarations are contractually binding, and grand proclamations about future life plans by 16-year-olds in particular are known for their consistency and longevity. And yet you must seek to change her mind, otherwise you may be obligated to support her in indefinite spinsterhood should she fail to match with a master who can provide her with food and housing in exchange for heirs.

The best way to convince your daughter that marriage is desirable is to tell her that her filthy, offensive body will desecrate a piece of clothing you’ve kept shoved in a box in the back of your closet for over twenty years unless the little hussy straightens out her attitude. If that doesn’t have her beating a path to the altar with the closest available male, the next best way to respect and honor marriage as an institution is to sell your wedding dress for cash.

Help! I’m Making A Weirdly Big Deal Out Of A Thing That I Think Is No Big Deal So Why Does It Have To Be Such A Big Deal, It’s Honestly Not That Big Of A Deal, So Everyone Should Just Do What I Say Because Why Do They Care About This So Much Like It’s Some Kind Of Big Deal, It’s Functionally Meaningless, That’s Why I Must Have My Way Or Else, Stop Overreacting!!!!!

Care And Feeding, Slate,31 October 2021:

Dear Care and Feeding,

My tween has requested they/them pronouns and a new name. We are changing our habits on the pronouns, but we haven’t gone along with the name change. Though their first name is stereotypically feminine, we more often use the shorter stereotypically masculine form (think Samantha to Sam). Their middle name is gender ambiguous. These names were chosen with much love following a family/cultural naming tradition. While we are supportive of using any version of these given names to reflect our child’s gender, we aren’t on board with a name change. We will not call Sam(antha) Simon, Stevie or Susie. Is this so wrong?

—What’s in a Name?

Dear What’s In A Name?

I can’t think of any family tradition more important than making sure children know that they are beholden to the whims of their parents forever, and that they must never be allowed to assert themselves or self-advocate in any way that does not entirely comport with their parents’ personal preferences. After all, it was your child’s decision to be born to you personally, and now here they come tap-dancing into the world as a full-on independent human as if they didn’t specifically ask Baby Jesus to assign them to you! They had every opportunity to choose to be born to any other family on earth, but they didn’t, and so now they’ve thereby agreed to have every part of their identity dictated by you, indefinitely and without even the mildest opposition.

The last thing you want is your child growing up to be a self-assured, independent human who knows their own mind and can ensure that their needs are met on planet earth! That’s not what parenting is all about! You lovingly gave them a name and you will lovingly use it at them no matter how much they hate it, lovingly!

Anyway, you said it yourself: what’s in a name?? It’s such a tiny, piddly thing — since it doesn’t matter at all, and it’s practically not even worth caring about not even a little bit, and it really is just wholly inconsequential, it’s genuinely just downright silly that anyone cares all that much about what they’re called, like truly, who could even be bothered? Not you, that’s for sure! That’s why you can only call your kid one of two names that you came up with a decade ago and nothing else ever no matter what!

What could be more loving than honoring your child’s name and pronouns? Why, forcing your child to use the name you gave them because your personal preference is more important than your child having the core of their identity respected by the most important people in their life, of course! Nothing wrong with that! Stay strong in your convictions, and you will enjoy many great opportunities to call your child by the name you gave them in the coming years — to their voicemail, to their email “spam” folder, and in text messages to phone numbers they no longer use.

Help! My Daddy Didn’t Fight Hitler So That My Children Could Refuse To Give Me Grandkids!

Carolyn Hax, Washington Post,10 October 2021:

For years, my oldest son and his girl friend said that they would never get married; she was against it. Then, five years ago, she relented and they got married. They are now in their mid-30s and, by all accounts, seem happily married. They are financially secure: they both have steady, well-paying jobs, neither has student debt on their advanced degrees, they own a rental property outright, they have a manageable mortgage on their home in a safe neighborhood, and they drive late-model cars. In short, as Friar Lawrence would say, “a pack of blessings light upon thy back.”

Indeed, my son and his wife have worked hard over the years, but my wife and I (and my daughter-in-law’s parents), have also made much of their current “success” and happiness possible though our ongoing support. But there is a rub: our daughter-in-law steadfastly refuses to consider having children – and our son stands by her decision.

They like children – she is a pediatric physical therapist and he has a teaching degree. So, an aversion children is not part of the decision. Her reason — or the reason that they are standing behind — is climate change. In her opinion, it would be the height of cruelty to bring a child into a world that faces such an apocalyptic and nihilistic future.

I will grant you that climate change does pose challenges. And I will further grant you that our country faces other major problems that will be difficult to solve. But there is an existential question here – what have my and my wife’s life amounted to, if we have not inculcated a basic will to survive to the next generation?

To make matters more complicated, they channel all of their time and energy into biking, hiking, rock-climbing, kayaking, etc. We have two younger children (late 20s) who are not married. We despair that they will make the same life-style choices – especially under the influence of their older sibling.

To many observers, it would seem that our kids have been spoiled by their parents. And on some level, that is true. But the urge to face an uncertain future and procreate in the face of adversity is supposed to be part of the human condition.

Every generation faces some dire threat. My father’s generation was handed a M 1 and told to go shoot Hitler. My generation learned to “duck and cover”; under our school desks to avoid nuclear annilation. How can climate change be justified as being so much worse and insurmountable than that? Any advice?

Dear Any Advice?,

You make a number of excellent points in your letter, but none is as compelling as your closing rationale.

Your father’s generation was handed an M1 and told to go shoot Hitler, therefore your your son and his wife are obligated to use their time, money, and bodies to provide a grandchild for you or else your life and everything you’ve ever said or done is utterly meaningless.

That makes perfect sense! Sounds like you can take this right back to your wonderful son and his asshole wife and they’ll happily accommodate your eminently reasonable demands with no objections whatsoever. Thanks for writing in with an easy one! All best!

Help! A Person I Don’t Live With Is Messy!

Carolyn Hax, Washington Post,21 October 2021:

Dear Carolyn: My girlfriend of five years and I are splitting up; it’s completely amicable. We realized we both want different things long-term, so we will be moving out of our shared apartment within the next month. She will probably be living with a roommate. Should I suggest that she work on her tendency to be messy, and if so, how? By messy, I mean she regularly leaves things throughout the apartment rather than putting them away or disposing of them. It bothered me a lot at first, but I learned to just clean up the small things myself or remind her when it got out of hand. It’s possible that whomever she lives with next won’t be as easygoing, but would saying anything at this point be helpful or sound like bitterness?

Dear Completely Amicable,

It is incredibly refreshing to see genuine altruism in action. In our cancel-culture society these days we are so hung up on criticizing each other — picking at strangers for the smallest offenses, demanding people we barely know conform to our narrow views of the way humans should treat each other. But not you. You just want your ex-girlfriend’s possible next roommate to live their best life — free from your filthy ex’s foul detritus. Because you’re a swell person who would hate it, just hate it, by golly, if your loathsome ex-girlfriend ends up with her next domestic keeper without being properly trained. It’s very kind of you to be concerned for her next roommate, if they exist, but honestly, your concern for your ex’s wellbeing is nothing short of admirable under these circumstances.

And hey, good for you for getting ahead of the curve. You’re not even sure if your ex-girlfriend is going to have a roommate in a few weeks, but you’re already looking out for them! That’s just downright neighborly! And this person isn’t even your neighbor! They may never be your neighbor! They may not now or ever even exist! But that’s just how neighborly you are! You’re making sure a non-existent person’s home isn’t strewn willy-nilly with your former lover’s revolting old junk mail! If that’s not a fast-track to sainthood, I don’t know what is.

One thing that women in particular don’t get enough of is feedback about the way they live their lives from people they’re not fucking or dating or involved with in literally any way. Certainly people love unsolicited advice of all kinds, but they especially appreciate hearing about their shortcomings from former partners who they specifically and intentionally wish to no longer be associated with.

After silently suffering for years, stuck with no recourse in a home with this slimy bitch’s day-old coffee mugs, the least you can do as a kind parting gift is to chide her, a grown adult, about her living habits as she’s dragging her record collection down the stairs. She’ll be comforted by the fact that, like all the things you’ve done to go above and beyond for her — such as pick up a few things she left behind in the den — you’re doing her a great kindness with this final reminder that she’s a slimy hosebeast guaranteed to offend anyone who crosses her path. Imagine how grateful your ex-girlfriend will feel, as she peels out of your driveway blasting “Since You’ve Been Gone” at top volume, that she got to spend a short part of her mortal life on this earth with an actual angel!

Letting your ex know that she’ll be despised and resented by the next person she shacks up with if she doesn’t get her act together is a friendly and helpful favor to do for her.

Help! May I Disgust People For My Own Personal Convenience?

Miss Manners, Washington Post,9 October 2021:

Dear Miss Manners: Is it rude to clip your nails at your work desk? I work in a cubicle and usually notice that my nails are getting longer while typing on a keyboard. I find it handy to just take care of them then and there.

Dear Clippy,

As long as you find it handy (I see what you did there!) to attend to your personal hygiene amid coworkers who are by definition forced to choose between their livelihoods and witnessing you divest yourself of what are genuinely some of the filthiest parts of any human body, I can see no problem here! If your coworkers don’t want to listen to the clickity-snip of your germ talons as the debris flies around the office, they can simply quit their jobs and hope their families don’t starve. Your personal convenience takes precedence over other people’s desire not to be subjected to your manicurial effluvia while just trying to make it to happy hour without losing their goddamned minds! Trim with shear abandon!

Help! How Do I Shake Down This Grieving Woman For $147?

Social Q’s, New York Times,21 January 2021:

Several months ago, our friend and neighbor flew across the country to be with her ailing mother. Unfortunately, her mother passed away during the visit. So, our neighbor telephoned and asked us to ship some clothes that would be appropriate for a funeral by overnight mail. (We’d exchanged house keys for emergency use.) She said she would reimburse us for the shipping cost. My wife selected the clothes, and I took them to UPS and paid $147 to ship them. But, apparently, the thought of reimbursing us hasn’t occurred to her since she returned home. Should I remind her, or write off her debt? — MIFFED

Dear MIFFED,

Some people really are just so far up their own asses with their own shit, aren’t they? Selfishly thinking of no one but themselves, with no thought for what other people may be going through!

Take yourself, for example! You’ve gone without 147 of your own dollars for months — yes, several! — just trying to power through one day at a time, looking for that $147, and finding again and again that it isn’t there. When you pick up the phone to call your $147, no one answers! Sometimes you see a funny internet post that you’d love to share with your $147, and the grief hits you, again, like a ton of bricks: $147 is not there to live, laugh, and love with you over another great Minions meme. Time comes for us all, but did it have to take $147 so soon, when $147 was in its prime? Just waiting to be spent on — well, the possibilities are endless: a new pair of loafers, some new Roomba brushes, or a really great sushi dinner for two. Gone too soon, $147. RIP.

Your neighbor, on the other hand, could have spared a single solitary care for your loss, had she wanted to do so amid the mild inconvenience of losing one’s parent during cross-country travel in the middle of a global pandemic. Instead, she carelessly got wrapped up in her own drama, as if the incidental nuisance of her mother’s death could possibly have taken precedence over ensuring your reimbursement as soon as humanly possible. And over something as piddly as some random black clothing! It’s not as though funerals are matters of life and death; anyone with the barest sense of human decency and an average level of competence could have Venmo’d your money back to you while they were booking a funeral home, picking out a means of pastoral conveyance for their mother’s remains into the afterlife, selecting flower arrangements, wrangling family members locally and afar, determining whether and how much catering would be necessary for a wake and post-funeral gathering, and confronting the mortal anguish of saying goodbye to a loved one for the very last time.

Do please remind your neighbor of that time her mother died; she’s likely forgotten the entire experience! Grief does strange things to people, and if she has any sense of proportion whatsoever, she’ll likely be completely mortified to receive your detailed invoice.

Cynthis has bad 100% pro 10/10 guarantee advice for y’all. He should write a self-help book.

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