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Three letters to "Judge" John Hodgeman
Note - he's more of a humor columnist than an advice columnist most of the time, but that's what makes him my hands-down fave. In these letters he actually gives some trenchant advice.
1. Emily writes: I have a dispute with my husband, Leonard, over bedsheets. I say the end of the top sheet with the wider hem should be up near the pillows. He routinely places it in any other direction and then falls asleep, so I can’t fix it. This forces me to sleep with a wrong-way sheet, which haunts me. Please order him to do it right.
This all depends on what kind of Leonard you married. I suspect that he knows how to make the bed properly, as I equally suspect that you would not marry a fool. But this leads me to the darker suspicion: that Leonard is doing it wrong on purpose in hopes that you’ll eventually bar him from even trying. I’ll make the order you request, but let me know if he comes up with new ways of getting it wrong. If you find him making a blanket fort or curling up inside the fitted sheet in the middle of the bare mattress, claiming, “It all looks the same when you’re sleeping,” we’ll both know what kind of Leonard he is.
Link one
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2. James writes: My partner, Allie, refuses to accept the possibility that our cat, Bookitty, ate two of our pet guppies. The four guppies — Turbo, Wobbles, Kickflip and Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville — were adopted for my 29th birthday. A few months later, Kickflip went missing, followed shortly by Turbo! I contend that it is at least possible that our cat ate them. Allie believes the other two guppies did it.
I’m no guppy expert. I don’t even know if “Fabian” at guppyexpert.com is a guppy expert. But enough poking around there suggests that male guppies can indeed get bitey when crowded. Does this exonerate Bookitty? Not really. But even if you had video evidence of Bookitty gleefully slurping Turbo and Kickflip down the hatch, Heathcliff style, the true murderer is you. Wobbles and J.B.M. might be monsters. But they need you to help them live as much as they need cute names. Consult a real guppy expert about tank size. (And get a camera on them. I don’t trust Bookitty either.)
Link two
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3. Sean writes: My partner and I have an argument about the novel “Cujo.” She thinks the idea of being trapped in a car by a dog is terrifying. I haven’t read the book, but I’m familiar with the overall scenario, and I don’t think it would be a big deal. Has Stephen King ever met a dog before? At some point it will fall asleep!
The tragedy of “Cujo” is that Cujo is a good dog who makes one bad decision (chasing a rabbit into a cave of rabid bats), loses his mind and ends up hurting the people he loves — just like you! In your blind desire to win a dumb fight, you ran to a national newspaper to madly proclaim: “I am great at literally judging a book by its cover!” When all you had to do was read “Cujo.” It’s very quick and, I think, King’s most affecting novel. You may disagree. But until then I envy your first experience of it, and I hope the ending destroys you as much as it did me, as that is what you deserve.
Link three
1. Emily writes: I have a dispute with my husband, Leonard, over bedsheets. I say the end of the top sheet with the wider hem should be up near the pillows. He routinely places it in any other direction and then falls asleep, so I can’t fix it. This forces me to sleep with a wrong-way sheet, which haunts me. Please order him to do it right.
This all depends on what kind of Leonard you married. I suspect that he knows how to make the bed properly, as I equally suspect that you would not marry a fool. But this leads me to the darker suspicion: that Leonard is doing it wrong on purpose in hopes that you’ll eventually bar him from even trying. I’ll make the order you request, but let me know if he comes up with new ways of getting it wrong. If you find him making a blanket fort or curling up inside the fitted sheet in the middle of the bare mattress, claiming, “It all looks the same when you’re sleeping,” we’ll both know what kind of Leonard he is.
Link one
2. James writes: My partner, Allie, refuses to accept the possibility that our cat, Bookitty, ate two of our pet guppies. The four guppies — Turbo, Wobbles, Kickflip and Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville — were adopted for my 29th birthday. A few months later, Kickflip went missing, followed shortly by Turbo! I contend that it is at least possible that our cat ate them. Allie believes the other two guppies did it.
I’m no guppy expert. I don’t even know if “Fabian” at guppyexpert.com is a guppy expert. But enough poking around there suggests that male guppies can indeed get bitey when crowded. Does this exonerate Bookitty? Not really. But even if you had video evidence of Bookitty gleefully slurping Turbo and Kickflip down the hatch, Heathcliff style, the true murderer is you. Wobbles and J.B.M. might be monsters. But they need you to help them live as much as they need cute names. Consult a real guppy expert about tank size. (And get a camera on them. I don’t trust Bookitty either.)
Link two
3. Sean writes: My partner and I have an argument about the novel “Cujo.” She thinks the idea of being trapped in a car by a dog is terrifying. I haven’t read the book, but I’m familiar with the overall scenario, and I don’t think it would be a big deal. Has Stephen King ever met a dog before? At some point it will fall asleep!
The tragedy of “Cujo” is that Cujo is a good dog who makes one bad decision (chasing a rabbit into a cave of rabid bats), loses his mind and ends up hurting the people he loves — just like you! In your blind desire to win a dumb fight, you ran to a national newspaper to madly proclaim: “I am great at literally judging a book by its cover!” When all you had to do was read “Cujo.” It’s very quick and, I think, King’s most affecting novel. You may disagree. But until then I envy your first experience of it, and I hope the ending destroys you as much as it did me, as that is what you deserve.
Link three
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(In the process of answering my own question, I learned this: https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/margaritaville.pdf)
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