A simple plea for understanding

Dear Joe,

My wife does not understand me.  I think I shall have to stray.  Do you have any tips?

Ozymandias

…

Dear Ozy,

I am neither the Fonz nor JJ “the Casanova of the Ghetto”, able or willing to provide such amorous advice that you will misuse.  (I’m certainly outing myself here with all my modern pop references.  You’ll start thinking I’m some hip escapee from the Mod Squad or Room 222.)  I do not approve and will not assist.

Is it “understanding” that you seek from women?  In the words of Vyvyan “I’ve never heard it called that before!” (there, I’ve done it again). If so, why have you not prioritised “ability to speak English” on the forms you have been completing with RSVP?

Perhaps you should learn to enunciate more clearly.  However, the problem is that you’re wife understands you perfectly well – she understands that you are a sleaze who should wash more often.  Beware sir, you are a cad, and I have your return address, and you are due a thrashing – perhaps that is language you understand!

In the meantime, please read my poem on a not unrelated topic.

Yours most faithfully,

Your mate,

Joe Chip

***

Dear Mr Chips,

My parents won’t let me play with the other kids in the dark, zombie haunted caverns beneath my town.  Now everyone thinks I am uncool and a chicken.

Little Billy

Liebe meine kleine Billy,

Parents have to set rules, it is their function.  It is your job to rebel, that is your function.  It has always been thus.  It is a little more difficult now with “helicopter parents” who fuss and keep their children away from danger, protect them from perverts, teach them to swim and generally behave effeminately.  The race is in danger of avoiding all exposure to Darwinian forces.  If you do not take risks, what chance is there that we will evolve?  It is only through children exposing themselves to death (or at least the removal of their ability to reproduce) that the human race can develop further.  If all children survive childhood, what will happen to us?  You go chase those zombies, Billy, for the good of the Empire.  The People.  The Leader.

Herr Pommes Frites

(there is an interesting article on those caverns here…)