Dear Captain Obvious: I’ve set a course for making my balls disappear! I’m at my girlfriend’s beck and call, always poised to spring into action whenever she has a whim that needs immediate satisfaction. My one and ONLY mission in this life and the next, is to spin like a whirling dervish as I go about my mission loving every last drop out of her. As you can imagine I’m quite happy, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I do wonder from time to time what it would be like to have a hobby or actual friends. Love Sponge.
Dear Love Sponge: I had a friend once—highly overrated—hobbies too, actually. Look at it this way: most people strive to make a difference in this world. Some may be fighting world hunger while others are working on a cure for cancer. Noble causes? Sure. Does it mean the life you devote to color co-coordinating your girlfriend’s underwear drawer is not worth living? Absolutely not! Will it be reassuring when you have that inevitable existential meltdown? Nope.
Dear Captain Obvious: I awoke this morning to the clanging of metal as my mother opened my cage and laid a handful of cheerios at the door to coax me out. As always it was frightening being on the outside: the bright lights, the pristine furniture, the old lady with the bug eyes who kept petting my head and referring to herself as my grandmother. I hate these people, why can’t they just leave me alone? Baby Frankenstein.
Dear B.F.: In a town where babies are desperately yearned for until the time of their birth, it’s best to reconcile yourself to the fact that it will be this way until you grow up to be sour and disenfranchised. If you want to be left alone try biting the hand that feeds you. With a bit of luck you’ll warrant an early deployment to Swiss boarding school.
Dear Captain Obvious: My aunt’s recent illness has forced me to retire and take care of her. My previous employers, whom I’ve devoted my life to serving, has saw fit to give me a memento—an old clock I used to dust and wind up each day I spent in their miserable home. Gee, muchas gracias, idiotas! This clock will come in handy when I set my alarm to go postal on your ass. Ticked Off.
Dear Ticked Off: Haven’t you heard that everything old is new again? I think it’s wonderful that your ex-employers are doing their part to save the environment by taking trash out of their house and giving them away as gifts. If you could look past your own selfish sense of entitlement and quit your whinnying you might appreciate the goodness of their deed.
Dear Captain Obvious: I’ve got to be living in the only town in America that doesn’t have a freakin’ Starbucks! Whenever I want coffee—which is approximately every 2 hours and 47 minutes—I have to mix with the natives at a local coffee shop called Crimson Lights where every beverage served comes with a generous side order of drama. Two days ago I witnessed a patron being wheeled out on a gurney after drinking the house blend. I have half a mind to report them to the Board Of Health, but have no alternative for caffeine in the event they are shut down. Torn.
Dear Torn: I too have sampled the overpriced yet delicious, watered-down offerings of a Crimson Lights cup of coffee and still live to tell the tale. I think you can be sure that this is an isolated case that does not warrant such hasty recourse. People in this town depend heavily on their caffeine fix, if you do something foolish to interfere with that I guarantee that things will end badly. I’ll hold on to your envelope, with its printed return address, just incase you decide not to take my advice.
Dear Captain Obvious: These past few weeks have been a cavalcade of misfortune for me. My husband divorced me and blackmailed me out of my millions, I got fired from my job and I’ve been relegated to sleep in a dog’s house just so I can be near my third dead husband’s ancestral home. This morning after the mutt finally came out of the bathroom I locked the door behind me and collapsed into a sobbing heap. Even my own kids want nothing to do with me. Should I just end it now? Depressed.
Dear Depressed: Suicide is never the answer for a shitty life. But if you feel that strongly find the nearest rock and crawl under it. Peep out occasionally to see if anyone misses you. If no one comes knocking you are probably the blight on humanity that you suspect you are in which case it’s probably a good idea to terminate your staggeringly pointless existence.
Dear Captain Obvious: After leaving a trail of slime in my wake to grease the path so that a woman I work with could slip and fall into bed with me, I took a wrong turn and somehow ended up on Friend Street. How could this have happened? I came out with my charismatic guns blazing, I smiled, and I puffed out my smooth, hairless chest all to no avail. I don’t get it. Could I be losing my touch? Mr. Smooth.
Dear Mr. Smooth: This woman obviously doesn’t know what she’s missing but don’t throw in the towel yet. Have you tried creating an excuse to be in the same room with her every time she turns around? How about being a firm shoulder for her to cry on in time of personal crises? On her next business trip find a way to end up in the same hotel she’s staying in, accidentally “bump” into her, invite her out to dinner to talk shop and let the chips fall where they may. Some women are notoriously less inhibited in towns where no one knows them. As a certified creep you owe it to yourself and creeps around the world to keep pursuing her until she either slaps you with a restraining order or goes into the witness protection program.
Dear Captain Obvious: My mom just found out that the diamonds she had stashed away in the Cayman Islands as collateral are fakes. Since they were real when she deposited them we’ve concluded that they’ve been switched. I picked up the phone to call a private investigator whom I hired months ago to tail her husband (he was always a step ahead of our schemes) to see if he could be the culprit but every time I try to pull him aside to get a report he tells me he’s too busy working on a case no one is actually paying him for. I’ll pause a moment and let this sink in. What do you think I should do? Son-of-a-bitch.
Dear S.O.B.: That’s what happens in a town where there’s only one of everything; our city is doomed to be characterized by its lack of economic competition for goods and services, therefore, guaranteeing that we eat the same food, drink the same coffee, marry the same people and have the same conversations over and over again until we scream in agony, die and are quickly forgotten. So, you could sue him and entertain the town with another stunningly pointless court battle or you can wait patiently to forget this gross negligence and re-hire him for the same job in another month or so.
Originally published: Jun-8-2008
