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Dear Aunt Nettie:
Why don't sugar daddies like middle aged chubby divorcees with 4 kids? I want a sugar daddy in the worst way!
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Dear Craving:
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Dear Aunt Nettie:
The Sugar Daddy Web site was most helpful. However, could you get me one more well-endowed than an inch wide and 2¼ inches long? That's just sad!
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Dear Craving:
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Dear Aunt Nettie:
A buddy of mine called me a hippo crate because I went out drinking after signing the pledge at my church. I can't figure out what hippo crates have to do with anything. Was he putting me down or what?
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Dear Puzzled:
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Dear Aunt Nettie:
When is poverty going to be in style?
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Dear Indigent:
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Dear Aunt Nettie:
Do you prefer bacon and eggs or cereal for breakfast?
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Dear Hungry:
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Dear Aunt Nettie:
My kids think I'm insane. My ex husband thinks I'm insane. My psychiatrist just thinks I need to be medicated. Which one is right?
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Dear Unhinged:
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Dear Aunt Nettie: I recently read the following in my favorite on-line news source. |
Dear Researching: "Dr. Ulriche von Boom," eh? Sounds like one of those crazed Nazi experimenters you see on late-night movies. I have a feeling that the good doctor may be responsible for some of the infections she writes about, but this is of course merely the ramblings of a deluded old woman and would not stand up in court, a phrase I am forced to insert at the urgings of my attorney. Number of residents: Let's see. There's a big chalk board in the lobby that lists how many people have not died yet. In this wing there are 82, according to that board. There are other wings, with appointments and amenities based on the ability to pay. I dread to think what the cheapest domiciles are like, although I suspect those crazed Nazi experimenters would feel right at home. However, these are merely the ramblings of a deluded, etc, etc. The grand total here is something like 425, according to my sources. Duration of stay: The average stay depends on the quality of health care the residents receive. With maximum health care attention the stay can be as little as two weeks before death ensues, although with inadequate, cursory health care attention some residents have been known to linger for decades. Cause of my latest infection: None of your damned business. Fortunately liberal doses of alcohol effected a cure. Surrogates: The management of LDRU prides itself on hiring only the finest surrogates for competent employees. We are known as the employer of last resort in these parts. At one point the owners had an arrangement with an outfit in Haiti to supply contract labor. They were the oddest crew you ever saw. Some of them never blinked, and others smelled a bit overripe, if you know what I mean. They didn't last very long. One day the cook inadvertently added some salt to their rations and they all began moaning and yearning for their homes, which were apparently underground, to hear them tell it. I think it must be how they build low-income projects in Haiti. Anyway, this Baron guy came to get them and haul them back, and was he ever annoyed! He kept threatening to sick the law on the Boleslaw Twins who run this place. Or was it the loa...?
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 10-9-2002 Foxing the Crow A fox and a crow happened to meet in the forest, and, after a discussion of the day's events, the crow offered to take the fox to dinner. He led the fox a merry chase through the woods until, exhausted and thirsty, the fox arrived at the base of a tall tree which was covered with wild grape vines bursting with sugary ripeness. There he had to sit and watch the crow stuff himself while remarking on the wonderful flavor of the grapes and urging the fox to join him, laughing loudly as the poor beast tried to jump high enough to reach the luscious fruit. Eventually the crow, completely glutted and stuporous, lost his balance and fell from the tree, where he was snatched up by the fox and eaten. Moral: It is sometimes better to eat crow than complain about sour grapes.
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Dear Aunt Nettie: What do you do to prevent rocking on your cats' tails? |
Dear Felonerous: I believe that the cats here at LDRU-- Humperdinck, PopsicleToes, SlapShot, Murfreesboro, Lucifer, Spawn of Sheol, Nightstalker, Asmodeus, T2, Shoggoth and The Nameless Evil One are all Manx cats, which, as you may know, are tailless by nature. On the other hand they may not be Manx cats at all, but have suffered from too many rockers already....
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Dear Aunt Nettie: Who was
the first president to throw out the first ball of the season at a
baseball game?
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Dear Fan: It was the 13th President of the USA, Millard "Lefty" Fillmore. Due to his over-enthusiastic pitching he was forced to wear a truss for the rest of his life.
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Dear Aunt Nettie: I have to do a stupid paper on
Christopher Columbus for his stupid holiday. What can I possibly say that
hasn't been said a thousand times before?
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Dear Bored:
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Dear Aunt Nettie: I have a stickler of a question for
you: How were the height and width of modern American battleships
originally determined? |
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Dear Nautical: The method was based on an old, old naval architecture tradition dating from the days of Roman triremes. You see, the designers would call in military haruspices devoted to Mars, the god of war. These would perform the proper rituals and sacrifices, and, by examining the entrails of the sacrificial animals, determine which sizes and armaments would be acceptable to the gods and assure victory in battle. This sometimes led to embarrassing blunders. A deformed pancreas in a sacrificial bull once led the haruspices to suggest the placement of an immense steam-driven drill on the prow of a battleship. The idea was that holes could be drilled into the hulls of enemy warships, promptly sinking them. Alas, when the idea was put to the test it was discovered that the huge drill bits either broke due to the heaving of the seas or were dulled by the armor plating of the enemy ships. The drill-bearing ship was mothballed and the responsible haruspices were hauled before a military tribunal and sentenced to be executed, for, as the presiding judge ruled, neither they nor their ships augered well....
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Dear Aunt Nettie: How do you deal with telemarketers?
It seems like every time I pick up the phone somebody is trying to sell me
something. It frustrates me no end. |
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Dear Stymied: I use a combination of tactics. An answering machine screens all my calls here at LDRU, and I only pick up the ones that are from friends and co-conspirators. However, not all telemarketers are the evil spawn of Satan, especially here in the Ozarks. Local vendors are a source of great amusement. Here's a word-for word transcript of a call from the local newspaper solicitor. "Hello?" "... Uh, wait a minnit. Who is this, 'cause I cain't read the wrapper, on account of I'm not wearing my glasses? Oh, wait, here they are.... It's Nettie, who I'm lookin' for, accordin' to the printed wrapper I got before me. She home? Oh, you her? Well, that's good. And the last name is... I cain't pernounce that. How you pernounce that? Oh. Sure don't look like the way she sounds. Well this is Freida Rahce? You, know, my husbin delivers the news-paper? Well, it says here on the card you sent in that you want to just take the Sunday paper? Not the daily one? [background mumbling] Shut up, Homer, I'm tellin' her! Lemme talk! That there's Homer, he's my husbin, what actually drives the Ford we use to de-liver with? Okay, so iffen you want's to take just the Sunday paper, then you got to pay the pay the de-livery driver direct. That's Homer? Homer, my husbin? "The purpose of this'ere telephone call is to tell you that, since you only wants to take the Sunday paper you got to send the check to me, an' not to the news-paper, as we don't get paid by the news-paper iffen you do it that way? No, Homer, the blue one... In the cabinet over the sink. That's it. So you got to send the check to me, an' not to the news-paper? [background mumbling] Shut up, Homer, I was jes' gonna tell her! Yes, and you got to be sure to mail the check to us so's it gets here by the first of the month? [mutter] I jus' TOLD her, Homer! An' you got to send it to ...that's Freida F-R-E-I-D-A Rahce, like rahce and beans, you know? You don't send it to Homer, 'cause I handle the bookkeeping chores and Homer, when he gets his hands on spending cash he's like as not to go off on a drunk, which means I'm the one who got to deliver the papers, and I got to use the Buick as the Ford has a stick shift and I can't drive one of those. Of course the Buick's no prize either, since the side winder's broke out and the barn cats sleep in it durn cold spells, so it smells like cat pee unless you spray the seats with some sheep dip afore you get in. "You got a pencil? Okay, you got to send it to Freida Rahce, Rural Route Box Number 3, Corndog, Arkansas. You don't need no zippy code 'cause everybody knows where we live-- we do a crawfish boil for the neighbors twice a year-- an' besides, the post office letter carrier is my son Lester? The one who went foolish in Viet-nam and they shipped home in a rubber box? That's him. The guv'mint got him this nice job [mumble] I JES' TOL' HER, HOMER! ... with the post office when they let him out of the funny farm in Little Rock, and he's as happy as a pig in a pertater patch deliverin' the mail, he is. An' almost nobody complains if he don't get the right mail in the right box, 'cause they know he ain't right in the head no more. Oh an' you got to mail it in aheadatime so's it gets here by the first of the month? You do that? An' you got the ad-dress right? Well, it been a pure joy taking to you. Thankee. God bless. Bye-bye." I don't actually read the paper any more. I just sign up for it in the hopes that Freida will call....
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Dear Aunt Nettie: I wonder if you can help me come up
with a really creative name for my new life insurance business? Unlike
similar companies who merely use actuarial tables to determine longevity,
I plan to use a new algorithm based on Darwinian concepts of
survivability. But I need a name that will express this, and so far
neither I nor an ad agency I hired have been able to come up with a real
stunner, as my grandpa used to say. Any suggestions? |
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Dear Nameless: Darwinian, eh? Given what you're selling, I think that "Accidental Life" would be the perfect name. It's a shame that more businesses don't seek out really descriptive, creative names. I can only think of a handful in this area: "Lowe & Behold" -- A church supply group. "Bummer, Dude & Company" -- Financial services for Generation X investors. "Society for the Prevention" -- Which sells police and security gear. "Tree Blind Mike's" -- He builds custom hunting shelters. "Pedalphiles" -- A sport biking outfit. "Luckstruckin' Barrel" -- Portable lottery equipment suppliers. But I think the best business name I ever heard was for Jack Kevorkian's sky-diving school, "Jumping to Conclusions." He even had the perfect motto: "You Only Go Around Once." Real shame they had to lock him up....
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Dear Aunt Nettie: I recently had a chance to play with
one of those Sony Aibo robot dogs. It's certainly amazing what they can
do. Have you ever seen one? What did you think? |
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Dear Robotic: I've mentioned Redbone's leadership in early robotic animal development. These newer prosthetic pets used to be expensive and rare, but nowadays everyone is producing ripoffs of them. A visitor to the Home here brought along a Ronco Dogmatic®, which is a low-end model. Yes, it runs and jumps and retrieves and barks, but poor craftsmanship and faulty logic circuit boards have given it some nasty habits. After it left my room I found a suspicious pile of AAA batteries in one corner, and the cleaning person had a devil of a time getting the acid stains out of the carpet. I also think my computer picked up a virus from the thing....
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Dear Aunt Nettie: In your long years of using the
Internet, what if anything have you learned about people who live in
different geographical areas other than your own? |
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Dear Roamer: What I have learned can be summed up in 10 essential points: 1. Oklahoma is entirely populated by space aliens. 2. Republicans in Florida are more dangerous than the crocodiles. 3. Half the people in California are to the left of Fidel Castro; the rest are to the right of Oliver North. 4. Kansas technically doesn't exist. It was invented to fill the big hole in the middle of the country. 5. There are intelligent, tool-using woodchucks in Minnesota. 6. Inside every fat man is an anorexic lesbian North Dakotan struggling to get out. 7. In Pennsylvania there's a $15 bounty on fleeing New Jerseyites. 8. People in Iowa really, really wish their state had a longer name, but negotiations to trade with Rhode Island broke down over the question of Atlantic seaboard fishing rights. 9. 100% of the State of Colorado voted for Saddam Hussein. 10. Sodomy is not only legal in Nebraska, it's the Official State Pastime, right after Cow-Chip Spitting.
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Dear Aunt Nettie: I am from Tennessee and my life is
like a Jerry Springer episode. My 40-year-old ex husband ran off with my
17-year-old sister and left me with 4 kids and a trailer payment. What
should I do? |
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Dear Miscast: I agree that you would make an excellent guest on Mr. Springer's show. The link to the form that will let you apply for a guest appearance is here: http://talkshows.about.com/library/weekly/aa040102a.htm.
Good luck! |
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Dear Aunt Nettie: Why didn't 3-D movies ever become a
standard format? They're cool! |
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Dear Stereoptical: It was Marilyn Monroe who was responsible for the death of the 3-D format. After seeing Guy Madison and Vera Miles in the 1953 movie, "The Charge at Feather River" which was in both Technicolor and 3-D, she was determined that her next movie was going to be shot in that medium. The only part open to her was the role of She-eyahoo, the wild girl of the Amazon in "Kiss of the Panther Temptress." Marilyn gave the role her best shot, even though it had no speaking part for her. Her costume was daring for the time, little better than strategically placed leaves and vines. Now, the problem was that during the shoot the daily rushes were viewed on a 2-D screen, it being difficult to coordinate loosely patched together film strips in 3-D. The film's final edit was done the same way and for the same reason. So no one got to see the full effect until the premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in October of 1954. Marilyn was on the arm of Joe DiMaggio, baseball legend and her new husband. All the glitterati of Hollywood was there for the opening. Well, the 3-D glasses were distributed (many Hollywood moguls had their own prescription version in the latest tortoiseshell frames), the velvet curtains drew aside, and "Kiss of the Panther Temptress" was screened for the very first time in living color and three vivid dimensions. All went well at first, with the audience ooooh'ing and ahhh'ing as tropical birds appeared to fly through the theater and the spears of the natives seemed to embed themselves in the seats in front of you. At precisely 17 minutes and 33 seconds into the movie Miss Monroe made her appearance, and pandemonium broke out. You see, what no one had figured on was that Marilyn's ample upper body endowments got too close to the movie cameras during her close-ups. This had the effect of making her barely covered mammary assets seem to loom over the audience like huge pink dirigibles each time she moved toward the camera. People shrunk down in their seats so as not to be crushed by this illusion of pneumatic pulchritude. Then, at a critical moment, and what was apparently a chilly day on the Amazon sound stage, the starlet leaned forward over the sleeping leader of the expedition, and complete panic broke out as the theater was suddenly filled with 44DD meeting 3-D. There were many injuries caused by the mass stampede from the theater. The young Woody Allen, who was working as an usher that night, blamed his lifelong fear of large women on that moment. In his autobiography, "We Needed the Eggs," he says,"...[for] years afterward I had to avoid any gatherings where these literal Amazons might appear. I recall one time I found myself sitting on a sofa and Mamie Van Doren leaned over to ask me my name. They had to give me oxygen." So that's the story of the decline and fall of 3-D. I understand Joe DiMaggio hunted down every existing print and had them burned along with the negatives. Still, he could never shake the stigma of the movie, which led to an early divorce from Marilyn and a considerable investment in psychiatric care before he was able to go near a hot-air balloon again.
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Dear Aunt Nettie: I have a dum homwork assinemint you
can help me with. I have to find out when and where did the first traffic
light appear? Can you do it for me? |
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Dear Distracted: I'll be happy to, as supporting the insupportable has always been one of the primary motivators in my life. The first light was reported in Cranston, Rhode Island, in 1877. Although it was seen by several reputable witnesses, authorities dismissed it as a mass delusion. The second sighting, in Wilberforce, Ohio, involved three traffic lights in formation, which remained long enough to attract a crowd, including the Chief of Police, before moving down Main Street at high speed in a westward direction towards Xenia. The famous "Chicago Loop Lights" were a formation that appeared, seemingly at every street corner, over a six-block area. Although witnessed by thousands and photographed, it was dismissed by the Undersecretary of the Army as swamp gas. By 1900 there were reports from several areas of the country that people had been abducted by the lights and used for strange experiments involving traffic control....
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Dear Aunt Nettie: I have been told that for Americans,
nothing is sacred when it comes to comedy. Would you care to comment on
this? |
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Dear Bummed: I think this little ditty may prove your point better than anything I can say. First, think of that classic '70s song "American Woman" by the Guess Who and follow the bouncing ball: Pow! Washington sniper Stay away from me Washington sniper Mister, let me be Don't set your cross-hairs on my front door I don't want to see your bullets no more I got better ways of gettin' to Heaven Than gettin' picked off at the 7-Eleven Now sniper Stay away Washington sniper Listen what I say Don't come cocking your rifle 'round here I'm a chartered accountant, not a 12-point deer Don't wanna get shot between the eyes When I order my Big Mac and supersize fries Now sniper Get away Washington sniper Listen what I say Pow! Washington sniper I said get way Washington sniper Listen what I say Today I bought Kevlar underwear It's hot and itchy and makes me swear And in case of a fatal head shot I wear this humungous cast-iron pot I hope the police they catch your ass Before the next time I stop for gas. Washington sniper Get away from me Washington sniper Mama let me be....
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Dear Aunt Nettie: I want to do a school report on
Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, the inventor of the guillotine, that neat machine
for executing criminals. However I can't find any books about him in
English. Has anyone ever made a movie about him? |
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Dear Topless: As a matter of fact a quick search of the Blockbuster and Hollywood Video sites have revealed that a movie about his life and social contributions was made in 1952 which may give you all the information you need. Here's the entry from IMDb: "Three-Hundred and Sixty Degrees of Separation" French b/w subtitled (1952) NR Jean Picard, Genevieve Bouchette, Tomas Bouchier, Pierre Le Gai Historical drama about the struggles of the young Joseph Guillotin (Picard) in perfecting his execution machine and having it accepted as the Official Extinction Device of the French Revolution. His long-suffering mother (Bouchette) is forced to explain the disappearance of neighborhood children by claiming it is ultimately for the greater good of the State. The crusty but kind butcher and free-lance razor stropper Ferdinand (Bouchier) adds a light touch to his role, and the fiasco of the beheading of the pastor's pig is laugh-out-loud funny, even to American audiences. Pierre Le Gai has a brief but memorable appearance as the mime Syphilis who warms up the audiences before the actual executions begin. Jean-Claude Boivin has a cameo (his last) as the drunken old tumbrel driver, Jacques. Dated but enjoyable for French film fans. **½
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A Public Service Message From Aunt
Nettie |
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Dear Aunt Nettie: I appreciated your
caution to your
readers regarding the return to Standard Time. However, as Earth's
resident Time Lord, I feel obligated to point out that if we set our
clocks BACK an hour, it would be temporally unlikely that we would be
LATE. Early, perhaps, certainly. Or something very much like it....
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Sir and/or Madam: |
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To whom it may concern: |
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Dear Aunt Nettie: What would be your idea of a perfect
Halloween day? |
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Dear Disguised: Well, let's see... Half-dawn would turn the moors the purple of a old bruise against the gun-metal gray of the skies. In the distance tornadoes would churn through decaying meadows overrun with furze and stonewort. At sea there would be immense waterspouts, casting salt spray and spindrift across the ancient, seaweed- draped rocks at the base of the tall cliff where my crazed Gothic masterwork of a house would stand, dead black, seeming to cling to the edge of the cliff. The wind that whistled through the tombstones in the nearby abandoned churchyard would sound like a million damned souls in mournful chorus. From time to time the winds, which would ever cease, day or night, would cause the bell in the ruined church to sound a single leaden note, a funereal tocsin that would wander and reverberate through the moss-hung blasted oaks like a madman amok in Dante's wood of the suicides. At noon the skies would darken to the color of miser's soul as ominous thunderheads built far out above the tormented seas until, in a furious blind rage, they would charge the granite cliffs like sable warhorses, driven mad by bursting shells and incendiary mines, and whose riders were corpses. Lightning would strike again and again at the odd, twisted lightning rods that edged the roof, but they would merely glow with an unhealthy light before feeding the dreadful energy into buried chambers far below. By late afternoon a hyperborean chill would be felt as the winds swung through the compass before settling on due north, as indicated by the intricately-twisted skeletal hand that graced the weathervane and marked the changes with uncanny movements, as Death would beckon the soul-weary. Sleet would drive against the sides of the house, and I would watch it through the many-colored panes of the great circular window, tortuously framed in cypress and holly, against which fiends are powerless. From time to time the odder-colored panes, some of a ghastly un-color dizzying and repellent to earthly senses, would reveal stranger landscapes, where fire fell in place of ice, and others where unmentionable creatures were sacrificed to unspeakable gods. The last light of day would spill across the moors like blood from a flayed corpse, then night would settle in again, comforting night, filled with the alarms of rock-ruined ships and the mindless cries of lost trick-or-treaters, battened upon by horrors in whose clutches the living would envy the dead. Far, far away the moon would rise out of the sea like a leprous eye, gazing blind and baleful over the dead lands below. I would sip my absinthe and reflect on the decline of mankind as the darkness moved all around me...
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