Meerrettich and Deportation

The German arrived last week. It was good to see him again after a 5-week trip - despite the fact that he came back with a wretched cold and strained throat. At least his nuts were intact so to speak. Today, he dug up a shit load of horseradish and the two of us spent about three hours making batches and batches of this stuff outside in our driveway. We were pretty high for a good portion of the time. I like that quick and wickedly intense brain sensation, and then it just sort of dissipates - kind of like wasabi or poppers.

My folks were here with their friend L for the weekend. We had a good short visit. We were poking fun at mom last night over dinner because, technically speaking, she still to this day does not know if she’s a U.S. citizen. We came up with the usual scenarios about her being deported back to Poland (she was born in Poland, but the city she was born in is now part of Russia, although she is Russian – all very confusing). I told her to think of it as an adventure tour and how fun it would be for us to travel to Poland to try to find her – sort of like a DP camp version of Where’s Waldo.

Boy, Dr. Bibfash got hit with some tough questions for the advice column this week, but I asked for them, so here goes:

Question: Other N writes that she’s concerned about surviving her in-laws moving to town and what the expectation is for her to eat with them, run errands, visit them at their house, and handling unannounced drop-ins.

Dr. BF Responds: Personally, I don’t like unannounced drop-ins. Occasionally it’s okay to do this, especially in the summer, but it is unacceptable on a frequent basis. You could simply tell them that you have nude church services in your house on an irregular basis, so that may keep them at bay or at least caution them about dropping in unexpectedly. I say at the beginning of their move here you’ll want to eat with them more frequently until they “get into their groove” and meet some people, then you can wean off a bit. Running errands and visiting at their house you have more control over. If the errand would include something that they would also be buying for you – then I say go with it. Just remember – it’s always about you.

Question: Sad Plum is having a hard time with the smoke factor at the local Thursday hangout and she doesn’t know what to do. She would like to convince people to have these events in someone’s backyard, but how can she get people to agree to this?

Dr. BF Responds: This is tough. First, this whole Thursday night get together is technically the History Club get together, which has been recently co-opted by these nutty English people and a few other un-nutty people. The other problem is that you never know who will and who will not show up making the purchasing of beer at a private residence very difficult. Plus some people like to eat dinner, while others pass (like Other N), but that’s hard to predict, too. Then it becomes more of a house party, which as you know requires quite a bit of preparation, and then there is the food problem. In this sense, it’s easier to just go to the bar. Also, backyard parties would only work in the summer unless you’re so drunk (like I was two Saturdays ago) that you wouldn’t even notice if it was 80 below zero – even if your nipples were ready to pop off. I’m not up on the latest smoking ban and that may have a near future impact on the smoke quotient. Also, I do believe this bar opens up the front big windows in the summer, so that may help. The only other short-term alternative I can think of is this: Bring a portable fan with you to blow smoke away and occasionally orchestrate the backyard barbecue in the summer months only, or just go up to every person smoking and drop the little bastard in his or her beer. That should work.

Fun word of the day (brought to you by Urban Dictionary):

Dandruff
One who always ditches, or "flakes," hence the name dandruff; usually for an insufficient reason, getting the hopes up of friends and family and ditching them for materialistic sluts.

"I think Tyler needs to get a bottle of head 'n' shoulders cause he's been pullin some dandruff moves lately."