Dear Aunt Nettie,

I started my own newsgroup, alt.brain.dead, and no one is posting to it. How can I increase traffic on it so it gets picked up by all the really cool news servers?

-- Flatlined in Fargo

Well, what you need right off is a new name, something that sets you apart from the common herd. Brain.dead could refer to any number of things: Reform Party candidates, performance artists, government employees or fans of the Weekly World News.

Naming things right is so important. Why, back when I was a youngster "horseless carriage" almost caught on as a name for a car. You can imagine how awkward it would have gotten in a few years when trucks were invented and we would have had to start calling them "oxless Conestoga wagons." And then what about motorcycles? They wouldn't have been named at all, and today Harley-Davidson would probably be a line of men's suits.

I recall a lad whose whole life was ruined because he couldn't find the right name for something. Back in Redbone we all got a kick out of how hard little Georgie Intel worked on that electrical invention of his. We'd see him on the front porch of his shanty every day, melting sand down into thin little sheets, then scratching in lines with his late mother's diamond ring, then filling the lines with copper, sanding it down, adding another layer of melted sand, over and over and over. He had some blame fool idea that if he got enough of these things stacked up he be able to put electricity in one end and numbers would come out the other. Then you could train the numbers to do typing or arithmetic or whatever. There was a lot of inbreeding in that family.

After a couple of years he had quite a pile of these gadgets and he wanted to start selling them, but he couldn't figure out for the life of him what to call them. He wasted so much of his time trying to figure out a catchy name that he was passed over again and again for promotions on his real job with the railroad. As a matter of fact, he never even made it to the full conductor position, and spent the rest of his days as a semi-conductor....

Dear Aunt Nettie

How much pressure can an Epson Perfection 636U scanner take? I want to scan my butt for posterity.

--Gluteus from Glendale

Dear Gluteus,

Lordamighty! And I thought I had heard it all when Emmylou, Big Jake's youngest, sent in the photocopy of her upper deck when she applied to that Hooters place as a waitress. Of course the only copy machine was in the post office over in Catbox, and she had to pick the day when all the Baptists come in to pick up their mail. Worse yet, she couldn't get the exposure right and had to keep feeding in the dimes and squiggling this way and that. I don't recall if she ever got the job, but she sure was popular with the menfolk after that. They tell me that Horace, the junior assistant postmaster over in Catbox, eloped with the Xerox machine later that afternoon and hasn't been seen since.

But to answer your question, I couldn't find anything online, so I called old Doc Witherspoon over at the Gonad & Pustule Clinic for a second opinion.  He wasn't sure either, but suggested that you take two assprints and call him in the morning.

7-3-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

I'm often distressed by the length of time it takes me to connect to a particular web site.  Is there any kind of software or hardware that I can use that will give me priority?

 - Impatient in Idaho

Dear Impatient:

I’ve had really good luck by plugging my modem briefly into a 120-volt wall socket while I’m waiting. This kind of fries anyone else who’s trying to reach the same site, although you may get some nasty mail from your service provider, and sometimes from the Pentagon. But I say if they can’t play hardball, they don’t belong on the Internet!

Dear Aunt Nettie:

What do you think of Al Gore's claim to have invented the Internet? Obviously you are living proof that it existed long before he ever did.

Tipper in Tulsa 

Dear Tipper,

Well, dearie, just remember it's an election year, and menfolk will claim the darndest things if they think it will get them voted into office. Dicky Nixon claimed to have invented the tape backup, Jimmy Carter claimed he invented the IBM PC Jr "Peanut," and Ronnie Reagan claimed he had no clear recollection, but that he might have invented the memory chip.

And speaking of politicians and memories, back in Redbone when I was a girl we used to love to listen to Old Hephzibah. She had been the housekeeper for Georgie Washington way back when. She would tell us all the goings-on that never made it into the history books. It seems that Georgie had a flourishing hemp trade that he used as a tax deduction because he sold it to make rope for the Navy. And of course the Navy was only interested in the main part of the plant, so Georgie, thrifty little fella that he was, would save the leaves, which he would dry out and set aside in case the British tried to blockade tobacco as part of the war effort.

Now one day Jimmy Madison and Tommy Jefferson and Georgie W were sweating over the Declaration of Independence when they ran out of smoking mixture. Well, George W obliging handed around some of his hemp-leaf collection and they got right back to work again. Except that TJ kept calling it the Declaration of Underpants now, which the other two thought was the funniest thing they had ever heard. When they got their breath back they loaded up their pipes again and Jimmy Madison said to remember to leave enough room at the bottom for ol' Johnny Handjob to sign his name, and that set them off again. They wiped their eyes and loaded up their pipes and set back down to work with only an occasional giggle to distract them.

Then George 'Dubya took his wooden teeth out and pretended he was holding a conversation with Georgie the Third of England, clacking the teeth and talking out of the side of his mouth whenever the king was supposed to answer, and that had Jimmy and TJ right down on the floor, rolling round with the dogs. TJ said that if 'Dubya didn't stop it he was going to declarate HIS underpants, and that had 'Dubya right down on the floor too.

After a while they got up and dusted themselves off and loaded up their pipes and swore that they were going to finish the job by sundown. Then 'Dubya asked Jimmy Madison to read back what they'd managed to get down so far, and Jimmy put on his glasses and read "We hold thefe truthf to be felf-evident," and they just HOWLED!

It was fortunate that Martha came home at that moment and chased them out to clear their heads, or the history of this country might have been much, much different....

What was the first e-commerce Internet site?

-- Businessman in Boise

I'm proud to say that it was right in my little Ozark hamlet of Redbone, Arkansas that the first e-commerce site was set up. One of the early dabblers in the Internet back in those days was the town optician, Cyrix Osborne III. His business had been falling off since he started offering magnetized frames as a cure for headaches. He was a big fan of animal magnetism: something drew him to the better-looking livestock immediately after sundown.

Ahem.

Anyway, his magnetized frames weren't worth a hoot for headaches, but what they did do was cross your eyes so badly you were lucky you could get from pillar to post without tripping over a hog trough. After staggering around like a bunch of wall-eyed pike for a couple of weeks, we all went down to his shop and got our money back from the old lens crafter.

Stuck with a lot of useless inventory, he got the bright idea of setting up shop as an Internet Strabismus Provider, or ISP as we called them back in my day. It was his hope that crossed eyes would catch on among the city folks just like beauty marks and pierced ears had. Alas for him, it never happened, and his Web site became an object of ridicule. He died a broken man. (Apparently one of the rams had a jealous streak.) His only lasting legacy was that his pioneering e-commerce effort added an expression to our language: to this day we refer to something as "a site for sore eyes."

Dear Aunt Nettie:

I recently received e-mail with the following (and I quote):

;-)

<|:-\

*<|8-(

>=<(:-)-8><(((=

;-p~~~~~~~~

What on earth do these things mean????


Befuddled in Bethesda

Of course, if he isn't your beau and you both share the same gender points, you might want to have a blacksmith standing by.

Dear Aunt Nettie, 

What's your opinion of the USA vs. Microsoft case? Do you have any thoughts for Mr. Gates and his minions?

--Litigious in Lynchburg

Well, I plumb keep away from legal foofaraw. I personally believe that the only good lawyer is a contradiction in terms.

As for Mr Gates, he seems to be a nice enough boy. I went to school with his great-grandfather Hiram, you know. Back in Redbone the Gateses had a lot of influence. Hiram's father owned the hardware store. After a while people began noticing a funny thing about the hardware he sold, though. Turned out that in order to drive a Gates nail, you had to use a Gates hammer. Same thing with screws and nuts and bolts. Only Gates-supplied screwdrivers and wrenches would work correctly. And as soon as you got a bolt tightened down it would freeze up and you couldn't get it loose again without buying a wrench upgrade. It was a dreadful state of affairs.

Mrs Gates ran the soft-goods shop in town. There, too, it seemed that only a Gates needle would work on Gates fabric, and then only if you were using Gates thread. The quality of the goods was very poor, too: it seemed like every day Maw was running back to town for a patch, and a lot of times Mrs Gates would claim that the best solution was to either unstitch the entire garment and restart it, or buy a brand new bolt of cloth. This upset a lot of the womenfolk.

It got worse after the Gateses took over the feed store. Instead of just buying one kind of corn for all the livestock, you had to buy different kinds for each, even though Mr Gates would say he was firmly behind open-species alimentation. And you couldn't feed younger animals with fodder meant for older ones because it wasn't backwards-comestible, as Mr Gates took the time to explain.

Finally the family went too far. They bought the town cemetery, then tried to force everyone to use their interment standards, and pay to have the graves guarded by a special breed of dog he had developed, the Interment Bowser. This particularly riled the Gores two farms over, since Mr Gore claimed he had invented interment in the first place, and that no funeral would be complete without the town funeral band playing one of his Al Gore rhythms at the service.

There was so much bad blood that eventually the law had to step in and insist that the family be broken up. Mr Gates got to keep the hardware side of the business and Mrs Gates got the ready-to-wear side. As for interment, well, to this day everyone complains about how slow the process is, and everyone agrees that a motorized system would be better, but no one on the interment planning commission can agree as to whether a diesel or a cable motor is faster.

Dear Aunt Nettie, 

My boyfriend Sam would rather hang with his friends down at the bowling alley than spend time here with me. I just got a new computer, so I'm hoping that that you might have some ideas about how I can use the Internet to keep him home at night.

--Home Alone in Hogan's Arroyo

Well, now, let's just think this through a spell.... Right now your man is spending time with his men friends at a bowling alley, a man kind of place without much competition from the opposite gender. Now consider what happens if you lure him into dallying on the Internet. Before long he's going to discover that Britney person's Web site, and from there it will be Swimsuit Illustrated, then tag-team Jello wrestling, then any of the sixty thousand sites dedicated to pictures of women who look like they should be employed by the dairy industry.


After that it's a slippery slope down to sites that encourage carnal relations with swine and new uses for vacuum cleaner attachments. Your hard drive will be filled with pictures of young Danish things doing Johnny-on-a-pony with gents who look like they should be modeling for NASA projectiles. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know what's going to happen to your relationship at that point.


No, if I were you I'd let sleeping dogs lie. And you should get yourself away from the computer and out of the house more, too. Take up a hobby that combines exercise and socializing and consuming lots of beer. Like bowling. When you start sharing your man's interests you'll both be better for it. As they say, "The Family that Bowls Together, Ball...." Oh, lordy, I've forgotten the rest of it. Something about improved conjugal relations, I believe....

7-9-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

I was gonna ask a serious question until I saw that sexy webmaster award at the bottom of the page.... There has to be something wrong with an old lady that thinks that guy is sexy....

Taking her questions elsewhere, I am,

--No Crone in North Carolina

Now, youngster, you have a lot to learn about menfolk and their ways.  Because this is a family publication I will have to be discrete, but I think you'll get the message if you read between the lines.

One of the first things you learn about men in their sunset years is that long after their staff can no longer fly the flag, they still carry on about their love lives. One old fool here in the Home claims he gets a lewinsky every night from Britney, the little blonde candystriper, when everyone knows he's been Dole'd for decades. And since they don't let him have cigars he has no way on earth of satisfying such a hot little number. He's all prose and no panatela, if you get my drift.

But men being men, even if they can't rise to the occasion, they can still be a cheap thrill if you play your cards right. You might consider spiking their Geritol to get them in the mood, then go on and on about the lovers you've had until they've got to do SOMETHING to convince you they're a stud and not a gelding.

And believe me, once they take out their store teeth and get down to business, it's not half bad. And if you really get lucky, something might come up unexpectedly.

Dear Aunt Nettie,

How did you make purchases on-line in the days before credit cards?

--Fiduciary in Flagstaff

Now, what on earth makes you think we didn't have credit cards? Land sakes, it should be obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together that we had to think out the payment methods before we turned e-commerce loose on the world.

Oh, I'd be the first to admit that it was clumsy at first. One of the ladies in town would see the latest Paris fashions on GodeysLadysBook.com and decide to download the pattern to be the envy of her neighbors. It was a tiresome task, as the early keyboards had only one key, and all electricity-mail (e-mail, as we called it) had to be sent and received in "packets" using bindery code which has been discussed elsewhere. First a packet of ones was sent and a packet of zeros was received, then the process was reversed, and so on and so forth until all the packets had been exchanged. Then all the ladies in town would get together on a Saturday night for error-correction and assembly, painstakingly attaching the zeros and the ones in the proper order until the dress pattern was complete.

The menfolk, of course had nothing to do with this. They would sit on the front porch discussing whose hard drive was bigger and who had gotten Barb wired after the hoedown at the ice cream sociable.

Oh, yes-- about credit and payments online: no one wanted to give out their credit information over an insecure line, where it might be copied by the town gravedigger, "R.I.P" Hatcher and his family down in the valley. The Interment Hatchers were a nuisance back in those days, constantly trying to Hatch into other people's affairs. They were in their glory when the party line was introduced later. In spite of their family line of work, they spent most of their time digging up dirt on people.

Anyway, to keep them from swiping our credit info, little Phil Zimmerman thought up what he called Pubic Key Encryption. For that he was sent to the home for wayward boys until his spelling improved and he remembered to put in the L. With PKE (or PGP as we called it, referring to young Phillip's gratuitous penalization), the payment information was sent according to a grid-- the credit card-- that randomly matched letters and numbers until the correct pattern was achieved. The random numbers and letters were picked out of a basket and called out to the waiting crowd: "B-14... I-26... N-41... G-56...," for example. Once the correct combination had been sent and acknowledged, payment would be made. As I recall, on China Night Maw sometimes even won a gravy boat or other useful household item.

Dear Aunt Nettie,

Why on earth do they call them FLOPPY disks? They seem turgid enough for me. 

-- Rigid in Rochester

Well, now, here's another case where one tiny slip-up in spelling happens to catch on and a brandy-new word is created. Back in Redbone where I grew up, the teacher in our one-room schoolhouse, Miss Nomer, used to collect examples of words like these. She had whole closets full before they hauled her off to looney bin.

As for the origin of this particular word, you have to realize that, to the female of the species, computer science students are not exactly stud muffins, as my great-something-granddaughter calls them. They seem to ignore the temptations of the flesh, no matter how they're provoked. As a matter of fact the sorority girls and the other flappers and hot tricks used to label all computer jockeys with the same contemptuous term.

However, somewhere along the line the "c" got replaced with an "s."

7-12-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

I am concerned that I have some people in my lab who may be spending too much time working at their computers. Some use PCs with 17 inch monitors and my supervisor uses her laptop. Can spending too much time looking at a computer monitor cause toxic effects? Is it safer to look at the lap top than the 17 inch monitor in the lab?

--Nystagmic in Nashville 

Well, now, a lot depends on who you listen to. There are some people who say monitors are absolutely harmless, but they tend to be monitor manufacturers. There are others who say you'll go blind or insane after less than an hour of using one, but they tend to be the types that want us to go back to living on roots and berries, and who haven't fully accepted fire yet.

As usual the truth lies someplace in between. Lots of studies have shown that there's some effect on the brain from the kind of magneto-electronic discharges that monitors put out. Birds who spend a lot of time on TV antennas tend to migrate at the wrong time of year and in the wrong direction, sometimes straight down. Whales and dolphins who have appeared in National Geographic TV specials tend to lose all sense of direction and believe their summer breeding grounds are in Kansas. And of course the Monitor Lizard is on the endangered species list.

With humans, persistent exposure to what scientists call the "wacky rays" emitted by a computer monitor can seriously affect behavior. As a public service, I'm taking it upon myself to post the Ten Warning Signs of Excessive Computer Monitor Exposure, furnished to me by those fine people at the Luddite Institute of Technology's School of Perpetual Motion Studies:

1. You wonder why nobody else brings raw turnips for lunch.
2. You start a petition to have underwear in the vending machines.
3. Every time someone is paged you jump up and say, "Yes, Lord, I'm ready!"
4. You wonder why you can't find Pez thorazine dispensers.
5. You're thinking of moving because all the closets are filled with noodles.
6. Most of the phone calls you get are from dead people or cartoon characters.
7. Your biggest fear is falling into the sun.
8. Your shopping list includes "gravity" and "plutonium."
9. On your tax forms you list your country of origin as the Planet Kumquat.
10. You wonder why dogs are so much better conversationalists than people.

Now, please note that these conditions apply only to users of full-size monitors of the "CRT" type (Corrosive Radiation Transmitter). People who use laptops or notebooks or those weenie handheld things are immune. Apparently the "LCD" screens (Lethal Carcinogen Discharger) cause terminal cancer of the eyeballs long before there's any effect on the higher mental faculties.

7-13-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

While surfing the INTERNET, I have begun getting some STRANGE messages ACCUSING me of performing ILLEGAL operations. I am a STAUNCH Right-To-Lifer and I am APPALLED that anyone could even THINK I would have ANYTHING to do with the UNGODLY minions of SATAN. I have tried PRAYING over my computer, and have even called in a CATHOLIC priest for EXORCISM, but to NO avail.

CAN YOU HELP????

--Possessed in Pasadena

Dear Aunt Nettie:

My question is about all this zipping and unzipping that seems to happen to my computer. I am a very shy person, and it just doesn't seem polite to unzip a gentleman without knowing him very well indeed for quite a while. Am I too old-fashioned for computing?

-- Bashful in Baltimore

It's certainly a sign of the decadence of our times, isn't it? Time was a young woman would no more think of unzipping a stranger than she would consider skinny-dipping in the public horse trough at high noon. Why, when I was a girl a woman wouldn't even think of taking off a man's coat until they had had several children together.

Be that as it may, times have changed and we must change with them, I suppose. Just be sure to check for viruses beforehand. And trust no one with *.exe files-- it may look like fun on TV, but always remember that it only takes a touch of the finger and they're unpacked and installed without so much as a by-your-leave.

Dear Aunt Nettie:

Lately, I have been listening to country music about 45% of the time and downloading classical music from Napster after midnight. This is really bothering my friends and I wonder if it will run its own course in July.

Tuneful in Tuscaloosa 

Now, I read this forward and backward and couldn't make head or tail of it, or even if it was a question at all. You aren't one of those Stanford brats yanking an old lady's chain again, are you? I'll give you the benefit of the doubt this time, but cross my ornery side, sonny, and you'll wish you'd been born into a different species.

Listening to such different kinds of music and wondering if the effect will pass in July obviously pinpoints you as a Gemini, and I've taken the liberty to cast a horoscope for your sign. Most Gemini are identical twins as the name implies, with the same musical tastes and tendency to part their hair on the same side. However there's a rare sort known as the Fraternal Gemini, in which each side of the person is struggling for dominance. Do you find yourself wearing different shoes on either foot, or not being certain if you're right-handed or left? Do you have different favorite colors, which sends you out of the house in the morning looking like a poster child for color blindness? Do you have half a mustache? All these are telltale signs.

Fortunately the differences peak in June and tend to fade away in July. By August you should be your normal dull self again.

Of course, a healthy percentage of Fraternal Gemini are boy/girl combinations, which is much trickier. If you find yourself looking for lace jockey shorts, or considering if a WonderBra might make you more popular with the captain of the football team, it might be a good idea to stay out of barrooms during the critical months....

7-16-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

Why won't men read instruction manuals?


Yours very truly,
 
--Furious in Fargo

This all boils down to the fact that most menfolk feel that they've been endowed by the Creator with the ability to "figger things out." Men are also not generally known as readers-- they get most of their life's knowledge by watching Monday Night Football.

I've known men with no more sense than God gave a green apple who actually believed they could fix a TV by sheer inspiration. Even when the only thing wrong with it was that they forgot to plug it in. Cousin Lester reduced a 1939 Pontiac to scrap metal just trying to replace a headlight. Of course he had his brother Chester's help, which was the blind leading the beheaded.

Most women make the mistake of flagging down a man when they have car trouble. Your basic male will immediately open the hood and look inside with this wise and knowing stare, even if he couldn't tell a carburetor from a cucumber at high noon. He'll then suggest you "crank it over" while he fiddles with things he's never seen before. If you're lucky, he'll stop at that point. If he picks up any kind of tool, the only safe thing to do is slam the hood on his hands, then take his car to go for help. Many car manufacturers will void the warranty on a vehicle if it's tinkered with by one of these helpful types.

The safest thing to do under these conditions is to flag down another female. Chances are she's got a cellular telephone and can call for a legitimate mechanic. Then you can go off to lunch together, and maybe shop some.

Dear Aunt Nettie:

What good is a Web search engine that returns 324,909,188 "matches" to my key word?

Overwhelmed in Okefenokee

7-18-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

How long does it take a story or rumor to become an Urban Legend?

--Tabloider in Trenton

It depends on the nature of the tale. The really juicy ones, like fake virus warnings, spread like wildfire. And people are born suckers for anything that promises them a bundle of money for doing nothing.

Why, not so long ago I made up this preposterous story about Walt Disney, Jr. working with Bill Gates to give everybody who forwarded an e-mail $5,000 and a free trip to Disney world. I sent it out anonymously to three people, then I took a nap. By the time I woke up I was getting copies back from places like Bangladesh and Djibouti! It had been translated into 114 languages and converted into almost as many forms of currency. Some creative types had even embellished the original to make it look more authentic, including a photo of Walt Disney, Jr., even though there is no such person, and Bill Gates, who I suspect isn't completely real either.

Try it yourself. Make up the wildest e-mail you can think of, add some important names and refer to a large amount of money and send it on. Be sure to add "This Is Not A Hoax" to the top and lots of exclamation points to guarantee authenticity.

I'd do it myself, but I'm making up a batch of $200 Neiman-Marcus chocolate chip cookies to send to that poor little Shergold fellow. 

7-19-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

What do you think of web cams, and would you be willing to let the wired world view your every move?

Exhibitionist in Exeter

I think they're plain silly. Why, years ago the only people who were watched all the time were in institutions for the seriously deranged, along with the other people who *thought* they were being watched all the time. By Russians or the FBI or pixies from Jupiter.

Frankly, people just aren't that interesting. I hear they have a program on television now where an odd group gets to live in a house with cameras on all the time. What on earth were the television people thinking of? You wouldn't give any of these people the time of day if you met them in the street, yet you're supposed to spend your free time watching them on the boob tube? Land sakes, what is this world coming to?

7-20-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie,

What's wrong with SPAM?

--UUNetted in Utah

Dear Aunt Nettie,

How can I keep the cats off my monitor?

--Felined in Frisco

Cats are born hams, and the little dears just love to see themselves on the screen, don't they? As soon as you buy one of those sneaky little WebCams to decorate the cheerleaders' changing room, it seems that all you get back are pictures of your cats. It's very frustrating. I know that here at the Home there's a major problem with cats on the monitors of all the security cameras. As soon as that little red light comes on, Humperdinck and PopsicleToes and SlapShot and Murfreesboro and all the other resident cats can't wait to show off. The other day, just after the medication was handed around, I watched half a dozen of them doing the theme from "Oklahoma." And right smack in the middle of the second chorus somebody managed to make off with three iron lungs and the root beer machine.

7-22-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

What do you think about spell-checkers in word processing programs? I hope they're not going to turn American schoolchildren into lunkheads who can't spell their way out of a paper bag.

Grammatical in Gainesville

7-23-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

What was the first Search Engine? What is your favorite Search Engine? Will it locate missing socks?

Lost in Louisville

7-24-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

When I grow up I want to be an explorer. Is there any place that hasn't been found yet?

--Adventurer in Albuquerque

7-25-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

How have you lived so long? And why?

--Philosophical in Philadelphia 

Dear Philosopher:

As to *how* I've lived this long, I attribute it entirely to beer and junk food. Beer, as everyone knows, is nature's perfect food, made from the finest malted barley, pure spring water and only the choicest hops, as it says right there on the label. I believe it's the hops that keeps people going. They put lots of hops in beer to preserve it, and it has the same effect on human beings. Look what happens when some whippersnapper of a doctor takes an old person's beer away, supposedly for their health. In two weeks they're stone dead. Or at least wishing they were.

My great-great-grandfather attributed his longevity entirely to beer and Carter's Little Liver Pills, a patent medicine that was popular back before there was a Food & Drug Administration. Nobody knew exactly what was in them, but they must have worked. When he died in the hospital of acute beer deprivation they had to beat his liver to death with a stick before they could bury him.

Of course, when you get beyond a certain age you need some kind of beer supplement to boost the effect of the hops. That's where the junk food comes in. Check the labels in the grocery store until you find a product that's got 100% of your minimum daily requirement of preservatives. My current favorite is Cheetos®, which are made out of pure compressed air, only the choicest preservatives and the finest malted day-glo highway paint. I figure I should live forever.

As to *why* I've lived this long, I have no clue. I asked the doctor that once and he said it was because I had good jeans. The very idea! Either he was making fun of an old lady or they're teaching some kind of voodoo in medical school these days.

7-26-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

This is something that really bothers me and I don't know what to do about it. This happens every time I buy a loaf of bread at the grocery store. I try to be really careful but no matter what, by the time I get home I end up with a crushed loaf and bread that has no better use than bread pudding. I don't even want to begin to tell you about my problems with eggs.

What can I do?

--Breadless in Ballard 

7-27-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

How does weather affect the Internet?

--Misty in Murfreesboro

7-28-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

Last night I dreamed about snakes, the Washington Monument, a banana , 2 cucumbers, the Eiffel Tower and Richard Nixon. What does this MEAN???

--Short Fat Fanny from San Fernando 

7-29-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

I am thinking about ordering my drugs on-line. Do you have any experience with on-line pharmacies?

--Victorio in Vegas

7-30-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

My son has vowed that he will never put me in a nursing home when I ascend into the Golden Years. I'm not sure I WANT this, however, because I'm afraid that living with him might cramp my style. What's life like at Living Dead R' Us, and do they take reservations?

PS: Why do they call them "The Golden Years" anyway?

Jaded in Johnson City 

Dear Jaded:

It helps if your style is already cramped before you get here. Let's face it, dearie, any place that's listed in the Yellow Pages as "Warehouses-- Other" and has a full page ad describing its "Pre-Burial Maintenance Services" isn't going to be the Royal Hilton, if you get my drift. The only reason they call it a "Home," is because "Last Stop Before the Boneyard" takes up too much space on the building signage.

The lack of meaningful conversation is the worst part. By the time most of the residents wash up here, they're pretty far gone in the communication department. They're either stuck in 1938, or they keep repeating the same stories over and over again, or they talk nonstop about their ailments or they hold animated conversations with mops and bedpans. Thank the Lord for the OFF switch on hearing aids! If you just smile and nod at people, they'll talk to you all day, and you can make up stories in your head about what their mouths are saying, the way Woody Allen did with that Nipponese film.

The high point of the day is dinnertime, when we're treated to such classic gourmet meals as yak lung and ort surprise. There has to be a connection between the complete absence of rats around here and the number of times they serve "rabbit stew" in a week.

After that is either a movie with a title like "Why You Should Revise Your Will to Include our Board of Directors," or some kind of other entertainment. A few years ago they had this nice doctor fellow who came by to offer everyone deep-breathing therapy with his little black tanks and face mask. It must have worked-- there were a lot fewer people at sick call the next day. 

My only contact with the real world is through the Internet, and I can never thank Nephew¹³ Gizmo for installing one of his hand-me-down computers and getting me hitched up to the Web and e-mail. Gizmo's what I believe they call a "nerd." Any 16-year-old who prefers to hang around here at Alzheimer's Alley rather than cruise the malls looking for Britney clones is seriously whacked. But he's a nice enough kid, although he does go on about how much hacking he does-- something young men would never admit to in years past.

Time for supper. Two of the German Shepherds from Security are missing and all of a sudden we're having saddle of mutton. Makes you wonder.

As for the "Golden Years," I believe it's mostly attributable to kidney failure.

7-31-2000

Dear Aunt Nettie:

I am looking for some information on how to detonate a bomb on the other end of a phone line. Say, for instance, I want to blow up a certain telephonic order entry system recently initiated by a company I do business with. Is there a safe way to get diesel fuel and fertilizer through a fiber optic telephone line?

I was going to ask that nice Kaczynski kid, but he seems to have moved his cabin.

--Motivated in Montana

Dear Motivated:

I'm afraid there's no practical way to send a "Montana Cocktail" through a phone line, especially since you've got US Worst as a phone company. Or "Quashed" as they're calling themselves now. My suggestion is to fight phone robots with savage cunning. Avoid the telephone ordering system and go straight for the jugular: call the company's main 1-800 number.

Now, your first hurdle is getting past the receptionist. All companies these days are required by law to hire receptionists from third-world non-English-speaking countries. This is probably the first time they've used a telephone, and they have no clear idea of what the company they work for does. The trick here is to invent your own incomprehensible accent, then keep politely exchanging non-information until the receptionist breaks down and simply connects you to anybody, just to get rid of you. Now you've got your foot in the door, as it were.

When the next person picks up the call, start reading your order, beginning in the middle. When you're interrupted, indignantly ask why you were transferred from the order desk and demand to be reconnected. With any luck, this will transfer you to somebody who actually works in the order department. Verify this, then mention to them that their telephone order system is down and the voice message said to call this number and place the order. Immediately you've got them on the defensive, see? Start reading your order from the beginning. When you're finished, ask them to read it back to you. Correct their mistakes in an exasperated voice. Ask them to spell out every other word. The idea here is to break their spirit completely, while taking up as much of their day as possible.

When you're sure they have all the details right, tell them that you're expecting overnight free delivery to compensate you for your inconvenience. Then ask to be transferred to their Human Resources Director and report the person you just talked to as a sexual deviate. Then asked to be transferred to the president of the company and tell his or her executive assistant that you're from the FBI and that their HR Director is wanted in four states for urban terrorism and mayhem. Ask them if there are any large trucks parked near the building, and if the person says Yes, suggest that they evacuate the premises until the bomb squad arrives.

The next time you call I bet you'll be treated a lot different. Assuming they're still in business.

2004
JANUARY
FEBRUARY
MARCH
APRIL
MAY
JUNE
JULY  
AUGUST
SEPTEMBER
OCTOBER
NOVEMBER
DECEMBER

MUSEUM OF
DEPRESSIONIST ART

GALLERY OF
THE UNIDENTIFIABLE