Dear Guy Trying To Describe What He Saw On
My husband’s job requires a lot of business travel, so I hardly see him during the week. When he’s home on weekends, he says he’s too burned out from traveling to do anything and just wants to relax. It’s really starting to affect our marriage. How can I get him to realize that I need time, too?
—Neglected In Nyack
Dear Neglected,
Dude, you are not gonna believe the weird shit I saw on TV last night, man. Me and my roommates were flipping around the channels when we saw that Nova show. The one about, like, science and shit? Anyway, the episode was all about insects and bugs, and I could not believe my freakin’ mind, watching this shit. My roommates were like, “C’mon, man, I don’t wanna watch some friggin’ nature show. Change it.” But for some reason, I was like, “No, no, I wanna see this.” So we ended up really getting into it and watched the whole thing, and it totally freaked us out. Like, there was this one bug, right? I don’t know if it was, like, a roach or what, but they were talking about how it talks to other bugs, by, like… shit, how do I say this? Like, by humming and vibrating or something on the branches of this bush where it lives, and it sends, like, these supersonic ultrasound vibrations or whatever through the whole bush. And no human can hear it, ’cause the noise is, like, way-ultra-low-frequency super bass, but the bugs can hear it, ’cause they pick it up through the branches through their feet. Dude, I shit you not. The bugs, like, listen with their friggin’ feet. We were all so freaked out by this shit, I can’t even tell you. And there’s, like, thousands of these things in one bush, and they can still all tell each other apart by listening with their friggin’ feet. These are, like, tiny-ass bugs. Their whole brain is the size of I don’t even know what. A single piece of salt, maybe? My roommates were like, “How do they do that shit?” and I was just like, “Shit, man, don’t ask me.”
Dear Guy Trying To Describe What He Saw On
My 13-year-old son is a computer whiz, but I have strong reason to suspect he’s looking at X-rated web sites on the Internet. Even though we’ve put a child lock on our Internet access, he’s figured a way around it. His father says we should just take his computer away, but his teachers all agree he’s a gifted programmer and should be encouraged. I’m at my wits’ end!
—Cyber-Stumped In Cypress Grove
Dear Cyber-Stumped,
Then they were showing this freaky bug sex, which was even more bizarre. Like, they have this one bug in New Zealand or the Falklands or someplace like that, right? And the male bugs, the thing that attracts them to the chick bugs is that the chicks have, like, this rounded, bumpy orange ass. Only it’s not their ass. At least, not like a normal ass. It’s, like, a exoskeleton or an ova-posi… ovapostioner, oviposit… whatever you call it. Anyway, wherever this country was, they had this one brand of beer where it comes in these special bottles that are, like, orange and have these same kinda bumps on them as, like, the chick bugs. Ribbed and shit. Or not ribbed, really, but you know. So, anyway, people would throw these beer bottles on the street, and these male bugs would be cruising along, looking to get laid or whatever. So the guy bugs would see the bottle and think it’s, like, the biggest, roundest, sexiest bumpy orange bug ass they ever saw in their lives, and they’d get confused and start humping away on it. Except, they don’t really hump like we do, ’cause I don’t think these bugs have dicks. But that’s not important. The thing was, the real chick bugs totally couldn’t compete with these bottles. And it was really screwing up their econo… ecolo… their ecologosystem. Whatever. Look, I really can’t explain this, okay? Just trust me, it was some seriously freaky-ass shit. The moral of it was about how you shouldn’t litter and throw beer bottles in the wild and stuff, ’cause you don’t know what’s gonna happen because of that bottle you threw, like, if some bug is gonna want to fuck it or what.
Dear Guy Trying To Describe What He Saw On
Ever since her stroke last December, my elderly mother has been in a wheelchair. We take her to church on Sundays because she can’t make it alone. Recently, her church moved to a building way across town. The trip is a big inconvenience, and my husband thinks she should start going to a closer church. But Mother loves her friends at church so much. What should I do?
—Wondering In Worcester
Dear Wondering,
Okay, but then came the grossest part of all. Oh, man. Dude, I don’t even wanna think about this one. Me and my roommates were all, like, “[non-verbal sound indicating revulsion and disbelief]!” I swear, I almost spewed, but I couldn’t turn away. Okay, how do I explain? It was, like, one of those caterpillar-ish things that turns into a cocoon or whatever. And then there’s this other bug that, like, totally fucks with it and somehow lays eggs inside the caterpillar as it’s getting ready to turn into a cocoon. The caterpillar doesn’t know the eggs are in it, and the eggs have this hormone in them or, like, an enzyme or something that makes the caterpillar think it still needs to keep eating leaves and stuff, even though it’s already way, way, way bigger than this type of caterpillar is supposed to get before it can start cocooning up. Pretty soon, this thing, it’s, like, a walking food supply for the other shit living inside it. And when they hatch—dude, this was so freakin’ gross, man—they dig their way out, like zits or something, or like these horrible ruptures. Oh, man. And they totally showed the whole thing! I was like, “Are they gonna show it?” and my roommate Steve was like, “No way. No way can they show that shit,” and I was like, “I hope they don’t show it.” And they did! We were gonna puke! I swear, it was like that shit from Alien. I’m not exaggerating. Isn’t that the most sick-ass revolting thing ever? Anyway, you shoulda seen it. It was fuckin’ insane.
Wayne Paulk is a syndicated advice columnist whose weekly column, Ask A Guy Trying To Describe What He Saw On Nova Last Night, appears in more than 250 newspapers nationwide.
