Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Ask Gideon Welles

Dear Gideon,

My hipster neighbors recently began using clear plastic trash bags. Is it ethical to examine their weekly trash for letters, receipts or other materials of an anti-American or otherwise conspiratorial nature and judge them accordingly? -Seeking Consultation Regarding Every Williamsburg Yupster




Dear Megan,

Your dilemma is one that plagues me daily. Of course you should not only perform a cursory examination of their trash but stab it open with any available sharp instrument. Deftly cut a long incision across the width of the bag; listen to the bag softly gasp as you release the air within. Watch the garbage pour from the hole onto the sidewalk as you smear your guilty hands in it. Take some of the oozing refuse--the fair trade coffee grinds, the leftover organic sauces--and use it to write your neighbors a note on their windows and doors. A kind reminder such as "Stop Hexing Me" or "I Know You're Watching Me in My Sleep." Remove any mail or letters from the bag and read them at your leisure. They were written about you anyway, so why not? After reading them three times burn them in the toilet with charcoal lighter fluid and a blowtorch, or with your mind. It goes without saying that as hipsters most of the contents of their trash will contain items of an Anti-American nature. As we all know, Whole Foods is a thinly-veiled front for the Taliban, who uses the proceeds to stone anyone even considering using irony. So yes, you will find such materials, but more importantly these items need to be tested in the lab I've constructed in my lower colon to see if they are magic, or at least if they possess magic dangerous to you. Stop bathing in their trash immediately and send it all to me in a big red box wrapped with electrical wire, flares and eight rolls of duct tape. In the meantime prevent your neighbors from further misdeeds by relieving yourself in their mailbox, or, as a timesaver, by setting their house on fire and seeing if you can knit a sweater out of the flames.


Copyright 2010 Max Jukes/Brian Edward Hack. No quotation or reproduction of this material without permission from the author. Illustration copyright 2010 by max jukes/brian edward hack.

Ask Gideon Welles


Dear Gideon:

Last week I accidentally walked in on my fifteen-year-old son masturbating to my wedding album. As you might expect we are both embarrassed and it is becoming more and more awkward the longer we pretend it never happened. What can I say to alleviate his worries and let him know that masturbation is a normal part of adolescence? -Worried About David

Dear Mrs. Weaver,

Since the early nineteenth century, when young boys first began masturbating to seed catalogs and the drawings on the front of burlap feed sacks, interlopers such as you have unwittingly interrupted what otherwise would have been a peaceful "yank of the plank," as it was called in those days before cleverer euphemisms were invented. Masturbation was greatly enhanced after the arrival of the daguerreotype in 1839, although the long exposure time almost but guaranteed that the act would be completed by the time the photograph was developed, mounted and stuffed down one's trousers. Later experiments in masturbatory stereoscopy necessitated the creation of a two-handed, and later, thankfully, a one-handed stereographic viewer; one lad's diary entry from 1858 reported that seeing three-dimensional images of nude statuary made him "quiver so violently that the horse in the adjacent stall released himself, although I am quite unawares of how so much of the milky brine landed on my face and person." This leads us to your current situation. Your son David Weaver needs to know, as do all of his tenth-grade classmates at R. Budd Dwyer High School, that masturbating is essential for proper nutrition and health. In fact, in the mid-1950s it was frequently taught as part of the Home Economics curriculum, as a supplement to those long tedious hours baking and cleaning house. You might begin to repair your relationship with David by spending a few days with him perusing your wedding album. Ask him which photographs he most enjoyed, and then ask him why. Have these images tattooed on his chest by a competent tattoo artist, or a neighbor.

Copyright 2010 Max Jukes/Brian Edward Hack. No quotation or reproduction of this material without permission from the author. Illustration copyright 2010 by max jukes/brian edward hack.