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If she ain't good enough for her own family, she ain't good enough for ours!

In yet another installment of my wildly successful, insanely popular (only in my mind) series, I offer you:  Dear Gutmeister, the Holiday Incest Edition!

Abby has received this letter from someone who only identifies himself as Bubba Running From the Holidays.  Now, if it were a letter about irritable bowel syndrome, I think it would be clever to sign it as “Runs from the Holidays”, but I digress.

Seems our boy, Running, had the hots for his step-sister.  And boy oh boy has it confuddled his little brain, read on.

DEAR ABBY: I’m a 25-year-old guy with a unique problem. My father has been dating a woman since I was 16 who has a daughter my age named “Emma.” Over the years Emma and I became good friends — then more than that. We hooked up a few times. About a year ago, I told her I had developed feelings for her, which drove her off pretty fast. We haven’t talked since. She now lives in another state with her boyfriend, and I’m happy for her.

With the holidays here, Dad expects me to go to all of the events and get-togethers. I made up excuses last year to avoid them, but don’t think I can do that again. I want to escape the awkward interaction with Emma and her boyfriend because I still have feelings for her. I don’t want to disappoint Dad, but I don’t know how to handle this. Help, please. — RUNNING FROM THE HOLIDAYS

Dude, you’re writing to a 95-year-old advice columnist, and you use the colloquialism “hooked up a few times”?  Shouldn’t you put it in terms she’d understand?  ”She showed me her ankles, and set my heart all a-flutter.  I dared to steal a glance at Cupid’s Drum Kettles and she began to massage ever so gently, my tally-whacker.  We began intimate relations, and I slid old  Nebuchadnezzar inside of her crinkum crankum.”  Abby would have a better point of reference this way.

Anyhow, so you had the hots for your step sister back when you were teens, you did the horizontal honey bee and now she’s creeped out by the idea of having slept with her brother and wants nothing more to do with you?  No.  No no no.  It’s not that she’s got an issue with the brother/sister aspect, for 16 years you two weren’t even aware the other one existed.  You’re not related, and that’s not what the problem is here.  But let’s see how Abby handles things first:

DEAR RUNNING: You don’t have to attend “all” the events and get-togethers, but you should attend a few. When you do, consider bringing a friend with you and minimizing the contact you have with Emma and her boyfriend. Observe the social amenities, keep the conversation brief and casual, and concentrate on the rest of the family.

While the initial contact may be painful, this is no different than any other romance that didn’t work out. The awkwardness will pass if you concentrate on something else.

So Abs is gonna just gloss over the whole creepy “I schtupped my step-sister” issue and get right to the heart of the matter.  That’s really not all that surprising, as I’m sure she’s woefully unaware what “hooked up” means.  She’s probably assuming you installed that new fangled Cable Telly-vision in her room or something.

She advises that you should attend a few events, but bring a friend and stay the hell away from Emma and her presumably ass-kicking ninja boyfriend.  Observe the social amenities.  Observe. the. social. amenities.  What the hell does that even mean?  Are you to simply look around and notice that a.) you’re in a social environment and b.) there’s a toilet ?  I don’t even….gah!

Further she suggests that if you just concentrate on something else, you can last longer in this situation than you ever thought possible.  Yeah, think about baseball, Grandma, a really sad movie, anything to help prolong this experience.  Sounds like some really nice advice for staying power.  (note:  I had to check to insure that Dr. Ruth didn’t guest post on Abby’s behalf, after reading this advice.  It’s what you do when you want to last another 30 seconds in bed)

So here’s my advice.  Man the f*ck up!  You made it clear that you “hooked up” back when you were teens.  Teenagers always do stupid shit, that’s what the word teenager translates to in Latin.  It’s expected.  If you’re uncomfortable because of it, I suggest you get blind drunk, hire a hooker and give her the business during the soup course at Christmas Dinner.  This will accomplish two things:

1.  You will no longer be considered weird for boning’ your sister, that’s going to be old news fast.
2.  You’ll absolutely make good use of Abby’s advice to “concentrate on something else”.

Merry Christmas!

Seriously, Who Farted?

So, it’s been a while since I’ve done a Dear Gutmeister, and I felt that I was cheating the two people who stumble by this site every other week.  Now I intend to rectify the situation.

You see, I love Dear Abby.  Not because I find valuable advice and insight into the human condition, but because it’s usually so utterly stupid I can’t help but scream vulgarities at the screen while I’m reading it.  Either her readers are the dumbest collection of human waste ever assembled, or she has a team of 2,000 monkeys sitting at typewriters and just takes whatever they come up with to meet her deadlines.  At any rate, I know I can help these poor people out.

As such, I’ve found the following gem from “Fully Present in Arizona” and I’d like to share with you the conundrum that caused someone to contact Dear Abby for advice.

DEAR ABBY: I have heard of interventions for drug and alcohol addicts. Could I stage one for my daughter “Aileen’s” addiction to texting on her cellphone and Facebook?

She and our grandson live with us because her marriage broke up. I am becoming the boy’s default mother because Aileen is constantly texting or spending hours on Facebook. She’ll say, “I have to send a quick message,” then reappear an hour later. By then, we have fed our grandson and changed his diaper.

When I try to discuss this with her, she says her work requires this constant communication, but I know it doesn’t. There have been times when Aileen’s feelings have been hurt because her son doesn’t want to go someplace with her and prefers to stay with us instead. I suspect that he feels ignored when he’s with her because her thumb is constantly flying across her phone. How can we get her to understand how this might be making her child feel? — FULLY PRESENT IN ARIZONA

First off, anyone who spells Eileen as Aileen has an alien fetish and it confuses me when I’m trying to read.  Spell shit right, people, it’s not that hard.  Everytime I read this name in the letter, I’m automatically thinking about Reeses Pieces and a pre-pubescent and not-quite-alcoholic-yet Drew Barrymore.  So, to keep my sanity, my copy of this letter has changed every instance of “Aileen” to “Chauncey”.

Anyhow, the problem seems to be that the daughter has moved back home to live with Mom and Dad.  This is a too common occurrence in our society and is largely the fault of the parents in the first place.  You never allowed these kids to deal with failure, rejection, hurt feelings, etc.  You always made them think they were a special little snowflake, who was always a winner because they “tried”.  Now that they’ve become (legally) adults, they don’t know what to do when the real-world pisses on their dreams and basically couldn’t care less about them if they were on fire.  If you hadn’t set her up to think the world was a magical fairy land where everyone gets a trophy and nothing bad ever happens to you, she’d probably be working a job, with the kid in daycare, at her OWN GODDAMN HOUSE.  But I digress, on to your “problem”.

Apparently your daughter is taking full advantage of the built in babysitting service so she can continue to be self-indulgingly selfish at all costs.  Why be responsible for yourself when someone else can do it?  That’s the new Amurrikan way isn’t it?  The world owes these kids a living, and dammit, affordable data plans on their iPhones.  That’s a God-Given RIGHT and you’re the Anti-Christ if you plan to take that away from them.

You want to stage an intervention?  Cut off the money supply, cut off the free baby-sitting service, the free room and board and kick her in the ass, while simultaneously shoving her data device cross-ways into her rectum.  That’s all you really need to do “Fully Present”.  But let’s see what Abby had to say:

DEAR FULLY PRESENT: You could and should stage an intervention with your daughter. Aileen is neglecting her son. It’s a shame that before couples are allowed to conceive that they aren’t forced to take parenting classes. The time she spends on Facebook and texting is time she should be interacting with him.

Because she is so easily distracted, you and her father should declare your home to be a digital-free zone unless your grandson is napping or in bed for the night. Consider making discussions with the boy’s pediatrician — and perhaps parenting classes — a condition of her staying in your home. She won’t like it, but it would be in your grandson’s best interests.

Hmmm…yeah.  The problem is her distractibility.  It’s so painfully obvious now.  Here I thought it was a total lack of responsibility and that she was so wrapped up in what made her personally happy that she no longer gave a damn about her child or anything else.  As long as Chauncey’s happy, Chauncey sees no problems here.

It’s a shame people don’t have to take parenting classes before they’re allowed to conceive?  Really Abby?  That makes perfect sense, and would be a great way to control the population explosion.  But honestly, how do you plan to enforce this rule?  ”Oh, you’re pregnant?  Let me see your certificate of parenting. Don’t have one?  Well, we’ll have to kill you now.”  Yeah, this is a bang up idea, Abs.  Did you, by chance, take any classes on giving advice?

A digital free zone?  Well, if you had done some of this parenting shit back when she was younger, you wouldn’t be in the position you’re in right now.  It’s too late to make up for lack of good parenting.  The best you can hope for now is that a magical fairy comes flying out of the neighbor’s cat’s anus and imbues her with a sense of empathy for others, a sense of responsibility and pride in herself.  Perhaps she can learn to WORK for things she wants and deal with unpleasantness in her life.

Or, you know, maybe not.  Seems like you’ve got a wonderful daughter there.  Let her go, maybe the iPhone people will develop an app for being a responsible human being and a good parent.  Sounds like you both could use that one.