Advice Column for July 23, 2003

Dear Readers! Boy, am I glad that I said I quit writing my advice column. I got so many fewer questions to answer this week! Anyhow, here they are. Send me email at ray (at) achewood (dot) com if you have a problem you’d like me to help with (but NOT anything about suicide! Damn you people who don’t listen!).

NO SUBMISSIONS FROM READERS UNDER 18 YEARS OF AGE – NEW RULE

I'm considering getting a handgun, and I was wondering if there's anything you'd recommend. I considered getting a Beretta 92FS or a Czech CZ-75, but I'd like something a little rarer (and I don't really like the CZ-75's lack of a firing pin block). I'd really like a Beretta 93R, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to legally acquire one... so instead I've been thinking along the lines of an HK USP .45 ACP or maybe a Browning HP-P .40. I refuse to buy any model of Glock, and I don't care much for revolvers (notable exceptions are the Taurus Raging Bull and the AGL Arms .45LC Python Custom). Size and weight aren't really limitations to me (I'm 6' 2" and weigh 239 pounds, no one would notice a piece in a small-of-back or upper waist holster), but I would prefer a high caliber, nothing less then .40 or 10mm (unless HK gets around to finishing the MP7-PDW and they're authorized for civilian use, then I'll happily revoke that, ditto for the FAL P90). Any ideas?
Gun Happy, Middle of Nowhere

PS - Don't you call your gun Tic-Tac? What make and model is it?

Man, this was like reading some article out of the American Journal of Random Gun Names (not a very good publication — I think I picked up a copy in Lyle’s bathroom once). Were you just hitting the keyboard blindly or are all of those numbers actual guns? All I could figure out is that you hate some kind of gun named “Glock.” How come? Isn’t that the one Bruce Willis uses in Die Hard? Is it a pretty bad gun?

Anyhow, Tic Tac is the cutest little gun. She’s got a genuine abalone inlay on the handle, and a beautiful silver plating that I keep real polished with a mixture of Wright’s, a little Brasso and lavender water. I call her Tic Tac because she is so small and cute. She is a vintage Victorian ladies’ pistol, the kind prostitutes would carry to protect themselves.

I think I'm attracted to the wrong type of girl. I usually go for the virginal, pure, "what's sex?" kind of chicks, but as you can imagine I wind up fairly blue-balled. I've tried to date other kinds of girls (I even went out with a stripper!), but I find myself not interested in them as much as the chaste and innocent ones. I just can't help it! Any ideas?
Frustrated in Philly

Dear Philly,

This could be a lot of things, but I’m going to go with my hunch: you’re not attracted to the wrong type of girl, you’re attracted to the wrong type of sex. Are you trying to relive your first clumsy sexual experience and make up for shooting all over her stuffed animals the second you got out of your pants? Ten bucks says that your subconscious mind is still trying to compensate for a bukakke’d-up Snoopy.

I am not of drinking age, but I have been getting trashed at least fifty-two times a year for perhaps four years now. So far I am perfectly happy with this, except that I think I'm starting to get dumb. I can't remember shit (like my zip code), I don't get jokes, I have trouble finding my shoes a little too often, etc. Basically I am turning into a senile old person, except I am nineteen. What the hell? I used to be such a smart girl.

Is this probably due to my steady regimen of alcohol abuse? I drink a lot of bourbon, if that counts for anything.
Teenage Geezer in Chicago

Dear Teenage Geezer,

There we go again, blaming all our problems on alcohol. What I’m guessing is that you probably do not eat a good diet full of vegetables and lots of seafood. Ideas and molecules bounce off your brain because you aren’t feeding it! Also, you do not get enough good sleep, because you always try to mess around with stuff like computers and games late at night even though you have to work early in the morning (my guess). Personally, I shoot for ten to twelve hours of “Beauty Time” and immediately eat lots of calamari as soon as I wake up. I have my maid bring it in as I’m stirring, all crispy as hell, so I can eat it in bed with this rad mango-ancho infusion dip that I bought from Bobby Flay’s website. Get that action going, and you’ll jump out of bed feeling like a genius!

AN IMPORTANT STATEMENT: Ray reminds his underage readers not to drink booze, and to snuggle down with some crispy calamari and Bobby Flay mango sauce instead.

I like Martinis. I always use Bombay Sapphire gin. What I do is chill my glass in the freezer, get out some dry vermouth, coat the inside of my shaker, put some ice in, add my 50 mL of gin, stir it clockwise, strain it into the waiting glass, twist a lemon zest to get some lemon oil on top and balance the lemon peel on the side. What do you think of this? Some people say olives, other say lemons. Some people have questioned my gin selection. What's your view on the Martini debacle Ray?
C, Kitchener, Ontario

Dear Reader,

If I have to answer one more question about martinis, I’m going to shoot a gun up my own butt.

In about a month it is my lady's birthday. I would like to make part of my gift a tasty and somewhat fancy meal. The problem is that I am not incredibly gifted with kitchen wares, if you get my meaning. However, I have some professional help in this area, and am not too worried about preparation. The real problem is the menu. I'm wanting to make it a fairly exotic meal, because one of the things my lady likes to do is sample foods from all over the world. Do you have any favorite foods that have origins [in] countries other than the United States (Thai is great, but she already cooks Thai and I want this to be different than our regular habits)? I know, this is another boring food question, but I figured I would ask.
Rusty Tin Chef, Denver

Dear Rusty,

There is no such thing as a dumb question about food (except, “WHY IN HELL WE ALL OUTTA FRITOES?!?!,” [sic] which is a question I once woke up to find written in shaving gel on my bathroom mirror, apparently by me, in a drunken rage). Anyhow, I love answering food questions. As you know, I actually have some good background in this area, as I like to lie around on my bed and read FoodTV cookbooks while I’m deciding what I want for dinner. Plus, I have dined all over the world and there is perhaps no ethnic cuisine which I find displeasing.

Let’s see here...ethnic...I would go with Egg Rolls. You can find some chicken ones at Trader Joe’s that you just bake in the oven for like thirty minutes. Their shrimp ones taste kinda nasty, but they are a little cheaper if that is a concern. A little white rice from a Chinese restaurant, some soy sauce...voila! (Actually, I think you could probably just get the egg rolls from the restaurant at the same time! Double whammy! Maybe order some bbq pork fried rice, too, for a midnight snack after she falls asleep!)

Hope you get some trim, chochacho! (fake Mexican word)

My husband and I are best friends. We do most everything together, including hang out with the same group of people. I've always been a kind of tomboy, so I'm practically one of "the guys" and that's all good and well. But one of our friends is getting married soon and they're going to throw him a bachelor party. And suddenly, I feel really really left out. I'm dreading the night of the party. I'm, of course, not invited. So I'm sure I'll just sit somewhere alone while they go out and have a blast. I know I'm being selfish, but it just doesn't seem fair. Any suggestions for something I can do one night to keep my mind off the fun I'm missing out on? Keep in mind that all of my friends will be at the party...so I'm on my own.
-Anonymous

Dear Anonymous,

Maybe you can entertain yourself by wearing a diaper, you big whiny crybaby! Boo hoo hoo! Oh, I’m so sad! Man, my heart really goes out to you. What an ordeal! How to survive being alone for seven hours?!

Jesus, you are some kind of clingy-ass broad. No wonder you make your man be your “best friend.” The dude probably doesn’t even have a peter anymore! Did he give it to you in a box on your wedding day? Did you eat it during the ceremony?

PS: Why don’t you have any female friends?! That is a sure sign that a chick is messed up. Maybe if you had some female contact in your life you wouldn’t think you were a boy.

Are these real questions?
Anonymous, Internet

Dear Anonymous,

Now, wouldn’t it be real weird of me to make up all these problems, just to turn around and answer them? What would be the point in that? I have never made up an advice column letter. Some of my responses haven’t been so good, but sometimes I’m just not that interested.

Cool.

I've been dating this girl for a while, and she's really great in bed, a great conversationalist, ect. [sic] The only problem is, she's goth, so she always wants me to put on fishnets and go to gothic clubs with her, and anytime I put on music all she wants to listen to is Android Lust or Tori Amos or whatever. I like this girl a lot, but it's really embarrassing having a dinner party with The Cure in the background. What should I do, Ray?
R.M., NY

Dear R.M.,

Yeah, yeah, I’ve looked into this Goth thing before. I never wore any kind of black tights or painted a fake blood scratch on my cheek, but I did buy this “Bauhaus” CD and talk to some Goth kids down at Starbuck’s. Basically, it seems that the Goth phase tends to naturally end in the late teens. This is because Goths get tired of constantly being told that they "look like idiots" and "are annoying" and “can’t work the Drive-Thru if they keep dressing like ‘Dracula’s Knob-wipe.’”

I mean, come on! Does “Goth-ism” really stand for anything, or is it just a way of separating yourself from society by buying into a neatly packaged subculture which ironically purports to be based on higher consciousness?

If that ain’t it, I don’t know what the hell it is. You kids and your stuff you do, I swear.

Any advice on cat vomit? I live with two great cats. One cat vomits every once in a while, about every week or so. The vomit consists of any combination of food, saliva, plants, colored liquid (bile?), hairballs. The vet says she's healthy, and to use the hairball control food. We've used that food for years now, we tried that grass to chew on (she eats it, sometimes throws it up), chicken-flavored hairball-control paste stuff. The other cat never vomits; but he gets way curious and close-up-sniffy when she's heaving. She has to continually move to maintain her personal space, so the vomit ends up all around sometimes. It's sort of funny. I don't mind the vomiting b/c it hardly ever leaves a stain anywhere. I just want this cat to be comfortable. Thanks for your time, Ray.
K in PA

Dear K.,

Yeah, man, that don’t sound like too cool of a scene if you ask me. A vomiting cat being chased by kind of a “refluxophile” cat. I’m not gonna do the obvious thing and just go on talkin’ about bulimia, ‘cause that’s a cop out. But seriously, have you checked your liquor cabinet? It’s no trouble for a cat to open a bottle, and if your cat is a pretty bad binge drinker then yeah she’ll urp pretty often. Especially if she is smokin’ weed and stuff. Did you leave your weed out? I don’t know that you did, but it is one idea which came to mind.

One of my friends is (a)totally hung up on this chick who sorta sucks and (b) making life harder for himself. The girl is very hot and funny in some situations, but sucks to hang out with. He is acting all jaded and like he doesn't even want to be having fun. So he doesn't. The girl digs him and (as i said before) he her, but she is cold dating another guy. Instead of saying "if you dig me, date me," he is trying to be just friends with the girl while digging her. This adds to his general air of disillusionment and anger at/frustration with his rich, white, suburban life. the point i am trying to make is that he has no reason to be angry which could not be solved by just lightening up. maybe i am wrong. please help.
yours, M.

Dear M.,

Tell you what, M: If you promise not to give a shit about all that lame stuff, then that will make two of us.

=RAY= $ =RAY= $ =RAY= $ =RAY=

Ray, I need some advice regarding homemade alcohol. It all started a while back when some neglected cider fermented in the fridge, leaving me intrigued and inspired. Since then I've been thinking about making my own moonshine. However, I have come to a dilemma, that being whether I should make fermented beverages or try my hand at distilling. I'm more inclined towards liquor, but building a still is a daunting task and I don't know if I'm up for that kind of dedication yet. Any advice or anecdotes would be much appreciated.
Shining on under the harvest moon, The White Hat

Dear White Hat,

Hold on, does your name mean that you like racism? Is this a Klan thing? Man, get the hell out of my advice column.

Being a worldly dude having done some travelling around Europe, I was wondering what you made of the place? Which countries are awesome and which are rubbish and quite frankly insane?
JM

Dear JM.,

I thought Germany was pretty cool. The ladies were real beautiful (if you’re not careful, your hand will get caught in one of their high-ridin’ intentionally exposed thongs) and you can drink beer EVERYWHERE, at all times of the day, and everyone thinks that it’s just great if you do that. I swear, I think I saw an elementary school teacher leading a field trip around the Berlin Zoo, and every single kid was holding a cold little can of Krombacher Pils (the teacher was holding a larger can of Krombacher Pils, and her thong rode high). On the news that night, German President Dr. Jurgen Helgemann sipped thoughtfully from a large bottle of Warsteiner as he addressed legislation which would keep German women from wearing their thongs over their shoulders in the manner of suspenders.

Also, you can smoke everywhere, even in like microchip factories and places where they make glass eyes for babies.

Spain was cool. That country is basically just one huge nude beach. I would have had wood pretty much the whole time but when you’re there, in that culture, you somehow don’t get wood. You’re just totally cool with everything, and wood only happens at the right time. Man, I love Europe. (You can also drink and smoke everywhere in Spain, including in a lab where donated blood is being purified, or in a room through which single Stem Cells are being carried on large gurneys atop a single ice cube.) Oh, and get this! Everyone in Spain passes out at noon but then rallies and stays up until dawn! Even the doctors, I think!

Confidential to the guy with explosive diarrhea: quit writing to me! I don’t care!

* A Gentle Reminder (“Disclaimer”): This is advice from a cartoon cat, and should not be taken seriously. We are not responsible for anything you do based on what Ray says, or otherwise. Do not commit suicide or otherwise interrupt the lives of others. Continue on with your life as though you had never read this column. Erase your browser history.