I used to run another site. We had a regular feature where readers would sends us letters and I would answer them publicly. These are some of my favorites.

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I’m a big fan of dog racing but can never pick the right dog. Do you have having any tips for picking a sure winner?

Davin,

Respero, AZ

 If Bugs Bunny has taught me anything (and it has taught me many thing) it is this: that the race will unfold in the fashion which allows for the most amusing name interactions. I picture the call going as such.

Announcer: Drunken mother stumbles out of the gate…Grandfathers Hug is within an inch of Bad Touch and keeping close… Repressed Memory pushing hard for the lead.

Announcer: Baldspot giving way to Daddies New Camero… Ill-conceived making a pass on School Girls Folly on the rail… Eloquent Stranger driving  Drunken Mother hard into the wall…Peeping Neighbor comes out of nowhere to inject some drama into the race.

Announcer: Baldspot is receding…Daddies New Camero is running out of gas late…Schools Girls Folly is overtaken by Bad Touch in an aggressive move…Statutory forcing his way through the pack…Oh my lord, Grandfathers Hug has just exploded past Repressed Memory to take the win.

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 “When is it appropriate to use a smiley (or emoticons in general)?

 Joshua Filmore”

Cambridge, MA

It is appropriate when you are:

–Posing as 13 year old to catch a child predator

–A child predator trying to disguise your real age

-ironically applying one following during a scathing personal email assault

Ie. I’m sorry god twisted your womb and made you barren in punishment for being such a bitch 😉

–High as shit

Outside of these narrow exceptions emoticon use casts a pall of doubt over ones literacy, upbringing, and general worth as person, making you suspect they were raised in a mall food court and told bedtimes stories via black berry.

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What would the moral implications of eating a “My Little Pony” be? Assuming they were real. Is it worse than eating a Dolphin? Than punching a Unicorn in the face? Than making love to a Teddy Ruxpin doll that you’d implanted with a recording begging you to stop?

Davos in Chicago

That’s a tough question, Davos. It asks what obligation do we have to other species? How much weight, if any, sentience/intelligence plays in that obligation? And why Teddy would dress like that if he didn’t want us to take a voyage on his magical airship?

I’m going to need to bust out a mini assessment scale to provide some clarity on this issue.

Mythical discourtesy scale: (in ascending order of discourtesy)

1. Rogering Teddy. Despite his protests.

2. Making a Lemur wear a chinchilla coat to a weasel convention

3. Informing a Barba-Poppa  that it looks like a nutsack

4. Punching a Unicorn in the face

5. Placing used chewing gum in Jehovah’s beard

6. Eating a My Little Pony (likely Sundance) [1]

7. Setting fire to Oscar the Grouch’s trashcan, without first removing Slimey.

8. Using Pippi Longstocking’s invisible bike in a drive-by-shooting.

9. Whoring a Who down in Whoville.

10. Filling Thomas the Tank Engine with Sarin nerve gas during the lunch hour rush.

(1): Extra points if you eat Meghan as well.

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Poppa AJ, Sing me a song of summertime.

Lucy Sweetmess,

San Diego, CA

I don’t see why not, Miss Sweetmess.

When reading the following try and apply the tune of a lively Irish pub song.

 

“Weeeellllllll, I saw your dirty old mother walking the bad side of town

She had her hand clenched up in her druthers and her top was mostly down

I said to the lady, “dear Sadie”, I sez me, “you seem to be lost and a whore”

She said with a wink, “Dear Aj”, I think, “Give me ten dollars and I’ll lay on the floor”

Yeeeesssss, I saw your dirty old mother and I do mean in the biblical sense

She had her hand  stuffed deep in my druthers and the other was holding a fence”

Any more than that and my label will make me pay for distribution rights. I wasn’t so careful about signing contracts in my younger days.

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In response to Prompt: Shadow