So long as the world remains batty, I will be a poor prospect for advice columning. If people had simple etiquette questions, sure, I could dig through a copy of Emily Post and tell you where the tuning fork goes (right over the buttered ketchup plate) and everyone would feel more polite. But just as the brave clerks and restaurant servers of the world must handle baffling, sub-sentient requests that end up on NotAlwaysRight.com like “don’t make me glow after the x-ray,” advice columnists must also field questions that would not be asked in a better world:
Dear Prudence handles this compassionately – “I think this is one of those things that’s best being your little secret,” she says, without even mentioning that Roger Federer had his nose at the French Open, so the writer doesn’t have the exact same nose, but merely an identical one, and what kind of clown spends time comparing their noses to tennis stars who are on the rebound after spending much of the last year battling nagging injuries and trying to hold off a surging Rafa Nadal, and a nose? Honestly? A NOSE? WHY NOT SAY YOU HAVE THE EXACT SAME SPLEEN AS MARISKA HARGITAY? OR THE BUTT OF DENNIS RODMAN? WHAT KIND OF SICK LOON TELLS PEOPLE THEY HAVE THE EXACT SAME NOSE AS ROGER FEDERER? FOR GOD’S SAKE SON YOU’RE MAKING AN ASS OF YOURSELF FOR ALL ETERNITY!!!
Thus proving that I could, nor should, be an advice columnist. On the other hand, I doubt that Emily Yoffe, as charming and talented as she is, could write as lovingly about Mr. T as I. We all have our place in this world.
