This week, the proprietor of a liquor store gets told how to do his job, and a health care worker wonders if ridiculous homeopathic cures from outer-space should or should not be performed on people who recognize that the 60s ended more than 35 years ago.

Our family has a wine-and-liquor store. Occasionally we get phone calls from distressed people asking us — often pleading with us — not to sell their loved ones any liquor or wine because of alcohol abuse. How should we respond? — D.F., New York

When I was in college, I worked at a wine-and-liquor-and-Pop-Tarts-and-magazines store. It was a great place for a young person flush with the enthusiasm of moral experimentation to work, because you could steal all your groceries (as long as all your groceries were macaroni and cheese and frozen taquitos) and get drunk on the job. It also taught many important lessons about the way the world works. For example: a drunken 19-year-old can in fact legally confiscate the fake ID of a twenty-year-old hoping to get drunk. He can then tape the confiscated fake ID to the side of the register and scrawl the words "I ♥ Cock" with an arrow pointing to the underage mouth. You know, the way the world works.

When you receive one of these calls from a so-called concerned family member, the best course of action is to take a sip of the Mountain Dew and gin you have in a twenty-ounce bottle under the register and hang up on them. If they call back asking to speak to the manager, tell them that you are the manager, and then hang up on them again. Then, when the alcoholic family member comes in looking for whatever will be easiest to hide in the tank of a toilet, turn up the Yo La Tengo album you're listening to and start reading the latest issue of Hawk magazine. Whatever you do, ignore the customer. When you see them approaching the counter, quickly pick up the phone and call your roommate to talk about your plans after work to bring home a couple of forties and some Flamin' Hot Cheetos and how they should bring home that screener DVD of the new Hal Hartley movie from the video store where they work, and also about how that one girl from your Statistics in Poetry class wants to fuck you, but she wears Tevas which kind of flies in the face of your strict "No Sex With Someone Who Wears Tevas" rule. If the customer has not left the store at the end of the conversation, hang up and begin masturbating through a hole in your pocket to the new issue of Hawk.

Will this solve anyone's problems? Maybe not, but it is the only way I know how to work at a liquor-and-wine store.

I work at a hospital where several nurses practice therapies like healing touch and therapeutic touch, said to adjust a patient's energy field and thereby decrease pain and improve healing, although there is no significant evidence for this. If those nurses believe in these treatments, may they tell the patient they are effective? If the treatments provide merely a placebo effect, telling patients about this lack of evidence might undermine that benefit. Would that justify withholding the information? — name withheld, St. Louis

You may withhold your name, but you may not withhold your face.

I'm pretty sure that you can tell people whatever you want about the benefits of healing touch. If they're retarded enough to believe it, then they should be dead anyway, so your medicine-less hospital full of laughter and irremediable organ failure is going to be the best place for them.

This week, a man's wheelchair-bound father and his craving for delicious treats teaches us all an important lesson on the value of human life, and a young couple from Pennsylvania hires a female rabbi (sic) to officiate at their wedding.

My 71-year-old father lives in a nursing home, is confined to a wheelchair and is tube-fed. He understands the health risks of his taking food or liquid by mouth. (He got pneumonia this way.) When he was first admitted and asked me to bring him a milkshake, I refused. Now that I see he will eat whatever he wants, I'm inclined to give it to him. Am I more compassionate or less ethical? — name withheld, Illinois

End of life issues are difficult and painful, making them a personal favorite. I have already explained my position on what should be done with my important, valuable body if I am ever left by a jealous God in a vegetative state, which is of course, that it should be kept alive no matter what the emotional or economic cost on my friends and family. Even if it should crush them, at least my drooly, poopy, living corpse will still be powered by modern science and the need of a people for their hero.

But neither you nor your father are as important as I am, as evidenced by the fact that you're the one writing the letters, and I'm the one making fun of those letters on a website you probably don't even know about. Scientifically speaking, I'm worth 3.7 of your dads.

So by all means, buy your father the milkshake, but as he is taking his first delicious, delightfully cold sip, pull the plug. There will be plenty of milkshakes in heaven. Just kidding. Heaven is a myth. Oh well. Seriously.

My son and daughter-in-law paid a rabbi in advance to officiate at their wedding. A few days before the ceremony, the rabbi was incapacitated and could not attend. She reluctantly agreed to return part of the money, arguing that she was entitled to be paid for her preparation time. I say that she did not do the job and so should not collect a fee. Right? — name withheld, Pennsylvania

You should withhold all the money from her, yes. Not because she was incapacitated and unable to perform the ceremonial duties to which she had agreed, but because there is no such thing as a female rabbi. Whoops on you. She is a liar, and she should be treated as a liar.

When your son and daughter-in-law want the bonds of their love to be recognized by the patron saint of flowing silk scarves, tasteful wireframe glasses, and sermons that reference Sex and the City, then by all means, a "female rabbi" is the perfect choice. Please invite me to their divorce, which will of course be marked by a somber drum circle, and the traditional placing of two symbols of their time together (usually a pair of anniversary cuff-links and a dog-eared copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking) into a small boat which is then set on fire and cast off into the sea.

Also, I know this wasn't something you were specifically asking about in your letter, but the answer is yes, having hired a female rabbi to officiate at his wedding and then not being able to actually handle the situation himself when said female rabbi shirked her duties and tried to Jew him out of the payment (ding dong) so he had to ask his dad to straighten it out and his dad tried to straighten it out by writing a frustrated letter to the New York Times does actually make your son gay. Knowledge is power. You're welcome.

This week, it's all New York all the time up in these letters, with questions about sexual prostitution, and shoes that cost more than writing for the internet pays in a month.

I recently discovered that my ex-roommate had been working as a prostitute and sometimes paid me the rent with money earned that way. I want to return her money because I don't think anyone should have to do such work. She refuses to take it, saying her work is none of my business. Must I accept (and keep) rent money regardless of its source? — Mike, New York

Aw. It's so cute/scary that you live in New York and don't understand how rent works. See, your ex-roommate wasn't giving you money, she was giving the landlord money. That being said, if she wants to engage in a little suck and fuck to git 'er done, I have no problem with that.

Unless, of course, you own the apartment and were renting out a room of it to Destiny (obviously she was named Destiny.) If that's the case, I would feel pretty confident...like, Spencer Pratt confident...that you charged her more than the actual room was worth. That's just business, and I have no problem with that, either. But it makes the part with you and the high horse and the riding in on it a little tougher to swallow (nullus), you know what I mean, Louie Kritski?

As the legendary poet Curtis Jackson once said, "I get money, I-I get money. I run New York." Put that in your mezuzah.

My fiancée took three pairs of shoes to the valet service in our building to be sent out to be resoled. The service lost the shoes, took responsibility and reimbursed us for the original cost, $2,020. My fiancée immediately bought three new pairs of shoes to wear to job interviews. Later, the shoes were miraculously found, and the valet service asked us to refund their $2,020. Must we? — A. Mehta, New York

Let me guess, the A. stands for "Asshole Who Is Engaged to a Woman Who Spends $675 on a Pair of Shoes, Which Is Bad Enough, But Then Is So Out of Touch With Reality That When Writing a Letter About Shoes to an Advice Column, He Doesn't Realize That the Fundamental Problem Remains the Same Even if He Feigned Modesty About the Cost of the Shoes and Said That They Were $90 a Pair, But Probably Realized That He Couldn't Pull Off Such a Lie When His Letter Smelled So Heavily of Cuban Cigars and Dry Martinis."

Whoops, Kill yourself. For a modest fee, let's say two pairs of shoes worth, I'll do it for you.

The real question, of course, is if she can afford $675 shoes, what does she need a job for? Or is she applying for the position of "Unbearable Super Cow"? She's hired!

Just kidding. I don't know why I'm even giving you guys such a hard time about this when I'm all to familiar with the embarrassment one feels when kicking homeless people in the face with shoes costing less than what the person who made them makes in five years.

This week, Michael Grimaldi's wife takes care of his pole, and Allison Moule puts her head somewhere the sun does not shine. And you're right; they're not afraid to use their real names.

A utility pole behind our garage was rotting and likely to fall, so we notified the utility company. Weeks passed without action. Then my wife, the executive director of a small nonprofit agency, contacted a member of her board, who heads the utility. The pole was replaced within 48 hours. Now my wife feels she did wrong. Did she? — Michael Grimaldi, Kansas City, Mo.

Last weekend, for Memorial Day, I ended up at a rooftop barbecue in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The barbecue was being hosted by a friend of a friend of a friend, so I didn't know anyone, but I did know this: sometimes Smirnoff Ice commercials come to life. Everyone seemed perfectly at ease in their designer vintage, sitting on fake grass drinking Patron margaritas while not one but two DJs battled for most-rarest-underground-old-school-hip-hop-gem over giant loudspeakers and a LCD projector threw anime up on one of the whitewashed industrial brick walls. Whenever I find myself in situations like these in which I am clearly in a world that was not made for me, it makes me wonder what else I'm missing out on, when the barbecue ends and everyone goes back to their underwater mansions to have sex with dragons.

Your situation is kind of like the boring middle-aged Midwest version of this. Popular culture has led us to believe that the upper middle-class is filled with sexual aimlessness and moral turpitude, all key parties and impulse-purchase-sports cars and vodka tonics. In reality it's board meetings and Whole Foods and small industrial favors to save the privileged few from one more headache before they settle down for a night of television, wondering if their college-aged kids are going to be able to avoid all the mistakes that have led to this mildly depressing but not completely unpleasant place in their middle-management lives, and if not, what is in the hatch?!

Your wife did what needed being done. As a reward you should sleep with her twice this year!

I flew out of Denver International Airport shortly after a bad storm and spent three hours in the security line. First-class passengers had no wait because the Transportation Security Administration allowed them to skip to the front of the line. Security costs are shared by the airlines and taxpayers. Should preference be given to first-class passengers? — Allison Moule, Broomfield, Colo.

What is it with you people and the Denver airport? How did it become the event horizon of your morality?

In the movie Event Horizon, Laurence Fishburne leads a team of astronauts to salvage a space vessel that had gone missing for seven years after a maiden voyage to explore the edges of the universe. When they reach the ship, they realize that through the use of its "Star Drive," the ship has traveled to hell, only to return haunted. One by one, the members of Fishburne's crew are terrorized and murdered by the ship. (This movie is not to be confused with Ghost Ship, which you can tell is a different movie because Event Horizon happens in space, and Ghost Ship happens in the ocean. Completely different.)

I saw this movie in college, twice, and it scared the shit out of me. I'm not a particularly religious person, and what I found so disturbing about this retarded piece of garbage was a concept of hell in which you could be condemned to an eternity of suffering simply by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Everyone on the ship went to hell regardless of how they lived their lives, it was simply circumstance that doomed them.

You, on the other hand, will be going to hell for a reason: You are such a whiny asshole.

Previously: I Am Drunk

This week, in honor of the nation's fallen, the Unethicist is drunk. But what kind of drunk? A raging, out-of-control, "fuck you and your family!" kind of drunk? An amorous, in love with the world, "you're my best friend" lush? A quiet, unobtrusive, gazing at the ceiling type? Is he drunk because his Christmas sweaters have been beset by moths? Because of Dick Cheney? Because he is secretly gay but cannot admit it? Because of...you?

I am a single 62-year-old woman with a full-time job. Two years ago I allowed my 87-year-old mother, then quite ill, to live in my home with a 24/7 caretaker. Mother is now in good health, with mild dementia, but still needs the caretaker. I would desperately like them out of my home. None of my six siblings can take her in. What is my obligation? — name withheld, California

I'm on vacation. I am drunk.

I am a retired orthopedic surgeon who volunteers at a clinic for the indigent elderly. I treated a woman who has obviously been crippled by a surgeon. She will soon lose the ability to walk and has chronic pain. She is unaware of her right to sue for malpractice. Am I obligated to inform her, particularly when I know that she will need the money for continuing care? — name withheld, Florida

Seriously. I'm drunk.

This week, a high school English teacher learns about economics, and a college drop-out gets a second chance to make a first impression.

As a high-school English teacher, I am frequently asked to proofread and make rewriting suggestions for students' college-application essays. I decline on the grounds that admissions officers assume that these essays accurately represent the students' work. Other teachers argue that our students lose the editing advantage many students receive. Is it ethical for me to read student essays? — name withheld

The implication in your opus, Mr. Holland, that somehow college applicants present an unbiased representation of their own meritocratic worth is, for lack of a better word, "fuckinghilarious." They don't. This is in large part because they don't actually have any meritocratic worth, but also because college applications are largely composed of the complicated expression of social and economic forces well beyond the manipulation of someone sitting in their friend's Honda Civic listening to a burned copy of the new Avril Lavigne album, wondering which of the people walking by is most likely to be willing to buy them beer from this store on the edge of town where hopefully no one will recognize them and are you sure you can't just call your older brother?

That being said, you are in need of an important lesson yourself, Mr. Keating. I know for a fact that you don't make very much money, and I also know for a fact that the segment of the American population with the highest level of disposable income is teenagers. GET ON THAT GRIND, PROFESSOR. Maybe this summer, you won't have to sell your plasma to pay for whatever it is teachers do all summer besides complain about being underpaid.

After we offered a job to a talented, experienced person, a background check revealed that she did not have the college degree listed on her résumé, apparently missing a diploma by one semester. When confronted, she admitted her lie, explaining, "I ran out of money, started working and never completed my studies." My first thought was to withdraw the offer, but I believe in second chances. Should I hire her? — name withheld, Michigan

No one cares.

But I think you should hire her, if only because then you can fuck with her for the tenure of her employment, constantly calling her into your office and being like, "Stacy, you know that I let it slide when you lied about graduating from college. I took a chance on you, because I saw potential. But you were five minutes late today, and eventually a man reaches his limit." Just always come thisclose to firing her over really minor stuff, without ever actually pulling the trigger. Constant psychological torture that results in daily tears and abject pleading, that is what I recommend.

Or don't. Like I said, no one cares.

Previously: I Hate Your Generation

This week, they say the children are the future, but... no. We suddenly feel way more charitable toward the old folks from last week.

A foundation hired me to start and help run a philanthropy club at the high school where I am a junior. We raise money for women's health in Mexico. None of the other members are paid. Am I ethically wrong not to tell them (or colleges or future employers) that I am paid for work they might assume is voluntary? — Anna Akullian, Berkeley, Calif.

First of all, wipe that brown off your nose before you speak to me.

Now, even setting aside my own high school experience, I think the entire canon of pop cultural documentation of those formative years is based on the exploration of youthful sexuality and recreational drug use. So your philanthropic entrepreneurial spirit is more than a little concerning, Teenager Robot.

You should know that all of this hand-wringing over the ethical ramifications of your extra-curricular activities is the reason that no one invited you to the SnOw C winter ball. Any high school junior who spends her weekends deciding what the ideal level of disclosure over income earned will be with FUTURE EMPLOYERS is the kind of girl who can't even get a date in the fucking AV club.

It's definitely one of those catch-22s, because the best thing to straighten you out is probably a good pregnancy scare, but you can't get one of those unless you have sex, and you can't have sex unless you stop doing and being everything that you are doing and being.

My brother, an eighth grader in a school where I am a junior, gave a speech about the genocide in Darfur to his English class. His teacher and classmates chose him to present it to the entire grade. School administrators would not let him speak unless he removed a sentence containing the word "rape," finding it inappropriate for 13-year-olds. Is this censorship, or does the school have a valid point? — name withheld

Okay, someone is just fucking with me now.

Adults don't even write like this, TeenBot3000. Please upgrade your language chip to a more believable model.

It is cute, though, when children get all worked up about injustice like the removal of a potentially upsetting word from a speech to a room full of 8th graders. ERACISM! You probably sit at Denny's all weekend, staring out the window at your friend's Toyota Corolla, quoting Chomsky while picking at your Eggs Over My Hammy and decrying the inherent unfairness of the exploitative capitalist system, all while wondering why girls won't talk to you.

But I think we all know why girls won't talk to you.

In any case, within 10 years none of this will matter because you'll either become so disgusted and discouraged at your bullshit job that you won't have the energy or interest to change the world anymore, or the civilized world will have ended in some kind of apocalyptic disaster and you'll be dealing with "rape" in a much more immediate and unambiguous way.

An 8-year-old distant cousin I've never met has Crohn's disease. A doctor has started my relative on steroids, which can have side effects, some of which my relative is already experiencing. Through long experience with a close companion, I've seen what dietary changes can accomplish. I believe the child needs to see a nutritionist. As a member of the extended family, what responsibility do I have to pursue this? — name withheld

I know you don't have a date, but what are you wearing to prom? Actually, your question isn't stentorian and indignant enough. You're probably still in Junior High.

Previously: In Heaven, There Is No Early Bird Special

This week old people act old, which is gross, if you're young and narcissistic and afraid of death, which you so totally are.

My wife of 30 years and I are in our 60s. A few years ago she asked that we no longer engage in sex. "It's not such a big deal anymore," she said. She would not see a doctor or consider other help. I began an affair with a widow. Recently my wife found out and went ballistic. If she can casually renounce sex, can't I seek it elsewhere? — name withheld, Massachusetts

This is the grossest question I have ever had to consider, much less answer.

Ugh.

God. Seriously. I want to help, but your dusty balls and your wife's withered vagina keep getting in the way. I can't do this.

(POWER THROUGH, GABE, YOU ARE THE UNETHICIST. PRETEND THAT HE AND HIS WIFE ARE 18. BARELY LEGAL, DUDE!)

Okay, while I have no idea why your superhot, almost underage wife would want to stop having sex when young people are so hot having sex and not old and gross at all, but that is the situation you are in, young man. And the answer to your question is: yes. Obviously, by getting married, she knew that if she didn't put out, you were going to "dip your wick" somewhere else, that is the agreement you made under the eyes of God. It's also appropriate that you did not tell her. Wives, even superhot teenage babes, should never ask questions.

UPDATE: The couple has settled into an uneasy routine of don't ask, don't tell.

Nice. I could not have advised a better course of action.

When a friend and I went to the movies, I requested two senior tickets although I knew we were both too young to qualify at that theater. My husband says I misrepresented myself as a senior and acted unethically. I believe it's up to the cashier to ask for proof of age, which I'm happy to provide. Who is right? — Gaby Roughneen, Bedford, Nova Scotia

The only thing more boring than old people are people right on the cusp of being old. At least old people have settled into their bizarre eccentricities and comfortable Sears clothing. People on the verge of being old still get excited about shit like pity-discounts, not realizing that it's the world's way of saying "Sorry about how you're going to die soon. Hopefully the two dollars you saved on this purchase will help pay for all those prescription medications you're going to need."

Everyone worries about getting older in their own way. Some people seek out the plastic surgeon's knife, others accumulate material wealth or seek fame. I have no idea what homeless people do. They probably write their names in feces on very hard to reach pylons and tunnel walls. But we all get old, and we all die. That is the hard, inescapable truth of it.

Some of us just don't greedily embrace the reaper's scyth for a two dollar discount at Jindabyne (or whatever David Edelstein reviewed on Fresh Air this week).

As for the lying, I have no problem with this.

Previously: Workers Of The World Unite, You Have Nothing To Lose But My Patience

This week, a medical resident finds that it's hard out there for a mule, and someone planning an outing shuns the possibility that no one cares about your stupid outing.

At the private hospital where I am a medical resident, security guards routinely ask to check employees' bags when we leave. After working a 24-hour shift, I just want to get home. Do employers have the right to search our bags without any probable cause? — Name withheld, New York

What do you mean, "without any probable cause"? Do you know how much organs go for on the black market? They go for a lot on the black market. (Especially at a private hospital because most of the organs are probably from white people.) So do drugs. Drugs are very popular.

But actually, I think you already know this. After working a 24-hour shift (which, seriously, when you're done congratulating yourself, you might want to admit that they're only 18-hours), you should be too tired and delirious to really care about someone poking through your purse right quick. All this complaining smacks of suspicious behavior.

So, here's an easy fix for you, Resident Full of Grace: stop taking a bag to work. Just put the contraband in balloons, cover those balloons in Vaseline, and shove those greasy balloons full of morphine and kidneys up your butt. They don't routinely search your butt when you leave, do they? YOU'RE WELCOME.

I am booking a bus to take a group of friends to a political event. The bus holds 47 people. I'm thinking of confirming, say, 55 people, on the almost certain assumption that some won't show up at 5:30 on a Saturday morning as they promised. Is that ethical? — name withheld, Illinois

This is the second most common problem facing anyone planning a party bus. The most common problem of course being "traditional stripper pole" or "lucite stripper pole laced with Christmas lights"?

Of course, the problem runs much deeper than simply figuring out how many people to over invite to make sure that absolutely NO SEAT goes empty on what sounds like a REALLY EXCITING Saturday. Who doesn't love riding in a crowded bus to a "political event" (in that seat of democracy...Illinois?) starting at the crack of fucking dawn with a maniacal micro-manager who wants to make sure that everything goes according to detailed, known-months-in-advance plan. You probably have a speech prepared for the very beginning of the trip, as the sun crests the hills and the driver rolls his eyes in the rearview mirror because you're like "all those lazybones who couldn't roll out of bed this morning don't know what they're missing." Except that, what you can't face in the darkness of the night, lying awake in bed, is that they do know what they're missing, and that breaks your sad, lonely heart.

Just invite 54 people, and kill yourself.

Previously: Lo Means No

This week, a capital-J Jew writes in with a medical concern, and a date rapist is amazed at the lengths some women will go to make them feel bad for what they've done.

When I went for an examination, my surgeon asked if two residents could be present. I felt uncomfortable being undressed in front of extra people, and so I declined. My surgeon scolded me, saying I was preventing the next generation of doctors from being trained. Why is it my responsibility to provide training for medical students? — name withheld, Beit Shemesh, Israel

Dear "the Hebrew word for 'Tobias F nke,'"

As someone who abhors locker rooms and urinals and dance clubs and swimming pools and the outdoors, really anywhere in which the human body is reduced to something other than a highly stylized signifier of the social contract, I am on your side on this one.

That being said, please come down off your high "the Hebrew word for 'horse'." People of all ages get surgery, but very few of them then write in to the newspaper afterwards, so you've got to be middle-aged at the youngest. And a bunch of baby-faced medical students who unwind by shooting syringes full of ether into their necks and rubbing medical-grade topical cocaine on their balls do not give a shit about your dusty vagina.

So no, it's not your responsibility to provide training for medical students. But think about it like a restaurant: the more obdurate and needy you are, the more likely there're pubes in your Cobb salad. Next week, when you're walking around, feeling all unviolated, that gentle stabbing in your lower back, that's a scalpel that has been sewn into your body, and frankly, you "the Hebrew word for 'deserve'" it.

I am a volunteer firefighter. I responded to an accident involving someone I knew to be infected with hepatitis C, a contagious disease. As we cut the roof off her car to remove this injured and bleeding woman, two police officers approached to administer first aid. They were not wearing protective gloves, so I offered each a pair; they declined. Should I have revealed her medical condition? Should I inform those officers now so they can be tested and perhaps treated? — Ryan Thomas, Oakland County, Mich.

Dude, how bad does it suck when you go to save someone's life and you get the jaws of life out, pry shit open, lights all flashing, your adrenaline is pumping and shit is GETTING REAL, and then you're like FUUUUUUCK, I totally gave this bitch an STD after too many Jaeger-bombs at Goodnight Gracie and never called her again.

AWKWAAAAAAAARD.

Your situation kind of reminds me of that old early-AIDS-era warning that when you have unprotected sex with someone, you're having unprotected sex with all of their former sexual partners, too. It follows that when you go to staunch the arterial bleeding of someone, you go to staunch the arterial bleeding of everyone they've ever slept with, too. That is why I never help anyone, ever.

Since you couldn't really explain the situation to the police officers who assisted your former one-night stand without divulging personal information, your best bet is to fuck both of them without protection, thereby virtually insuring that they get hepatitis C. At least then you'll know that there was nothing that you could have done to protect them from infection. You know, besides not fucking them.

Previously: Dude Looks/Acts Like a Lady

In this week's edition, a woman in Texas is disappointed in her friends, an assistant physical therapist tries to kill a patient for her own good, and a letter from a poor person!

I organized a trip to a pro basketball game for 20 friends, purchasing tickets up front, then collecting the cash from each person. On game night, several did not show up, only some of whom alerted me in advance. I sold those tickets at face value at the arena. Who should get that money? Should it be refunded to the no-shows? Spread evenly among all? — P. J., Texas

Aww, you make me sick.

What does P.J. stand for anyway, Female Genitalia Juice?

Seriously though, are all of your friends shrews and are you married to all of them? Because I could imagine that being married to 20 shrews would sap your manhood entirely. But if you're not married to them, then...I'm trying to find a witty, tactful way of saying this...WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?

I haven't actually seen The Vagina Monologues, but now that I've read your letter, it feels like I have. You know, what I mean, The-Human-Incarnation-of-a-Georgia-O'Keefe-Painting? You should take the money you got from the tickets and buy yourself a penis.

I am an assistant physical therapist. A patient phoned to say that she was sick and might be late. My staff told her to stay home, get well and not expose others to her flulike symptoms. She insisted on coming in. I put her on a bicycle and without telling her set it at a higher level than previously, hoping she'd tire quickly and go home. In 10 minutes, she felt horrible and quit. Was it ethical to "deceive" her to safeguard others and herself? — Jon Wingate, Reading, PA.

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHA. I have whatever is the opposite of "a problem" with this.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on curing AIDS. I feel like it would probably involve some heavyweight boxing, internment camps, and a lot of shame.

Our nonprofit agency provides monthly, unlimited-use Metro cards to certain staff members. Administrators want staff to use these cards for business trips only. Would it be ethical to use the cards for personal travel too? — name withheld, Bronx

What is a nonprofit agency? It sounds poor. And that is gross. Please feel free to write me back when you have some money.

Previously: Those Who Can, Kill Themselves, Those Who Can't, Teach

This week, a high school teacher gets all Big Fun, and Joan Shore, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is what the French call "an asshole."

I am a schoolteacher. A teenager told me about her thoughts of suicide. To offer her hope, I told her that I had contemplated suicide decades ago and survived with the support of friends and doctors. She told her therapist about this — fine with me — who told our school social worker, who criticized my conduct to our principal, perhaps endangering my job. I'm not the therapist's patient, but was it ethical of her to discuss me? — name withheld, Conn.

It should go without saying that outside of international espionage, fanatical religious "Comet God" cults, and Tim Allen, I do not advocate suicide. Not because I have any problem with you taking your own life—if you actually feel that is your only option then you might as well go for it because you're probably a horrible conversationalist, and, like, cry after sex. But suicide is basically just an extreme form of being a cutter, and being a cutter is just taking enthusiasm for My Chemical Romance albums and Hello Kitty paraphernalia to its violent conclusion. It's lame. And I do not advocate being lame.

That being said, if you really wanted to help this emotionally troubled girl, maybe showing her that if she just toughed it out a little while longer she too could be a school teacher giving half-baked advice wasn't the most effective deterrent. You feel me, Mr. Rosso? You're just lucky that when you asked her what store at the mall you could get some jelly bracelets and raccoon eye-liner because she looked "really cool...like a really cool, really unique, artsy girl who's just totally being, like, herself" she didn't take both of you out.

Of course, as far as the therapist is concerned, the best way to get back at her for her indiscretion is to kill yourself. She'd probably feel guilty for, like, two whole weeks. And this advice does not conflict with my afore-mentioned anti-suicide stance because you have proved yourself to be so lame that in a sea of lameness, your suicide would be a drop of lame too small even to cause a lame ripple.

Last summer, I visited friends at their chateau in France — good company, excellent food, but a lumpy mattress full of bedbugs. Badly bitten, I said nothing, but I know I'll be invited back. How can I politely tell them about their infestation? Or more politely, must I remain silent and simply decline the invitation? — Joan Shore, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

I forgot about the part in the Princess and the Pea where the Princess turned out to be a total twat. Ooh la-la, yearly visits to your friends' chateau in France. You know, even in spite of your gauche I'm-not-just-an-asshole-I'm-an-international-asshole thing, the fact that you got bed bugs would normally have put me firmly on your side because that is some bullshit (nice chateau, Scabies Depardieu), but that you can't even talk about it without the bourgeois complaint that the infected mattress was "lumpy"? Go le fuck your le self.

If I was in charge, we would chain you up and force feed you until your liver turned into human foie gras, like some kind of set piece from Saw VIII: Jigsaw Prends Paris.

Je hate you.

Previously: The Unethicist: +/- 3 FU Points

This week, an off-duty police officer pulls a McNulty, and Doug Mockett does the lord's work, if the lord's work involves impersonating a crippled person to beat the rush to the Cinnabon.

I am an emergency-medicine physician. The police and E.M.S. brought in a man in handcuffs who passed out while driving and hit a barrier. They thought he was drunk, which our alcohol test confirmed. But when he identified himself as an off-duty police officer, the cuffs were removed and no charges were filed. Can I report this without violating my ethical and legal duty to protect patient privacy? — name withheld, New York

I only played a role-playing game once, at Mike Danford's house, when I was in junior high. It wasn't even Dungeons and Dragons, it was some kind of third-rate, superhero role-playing game. Mike's house was one of those really awful poor people's houses, with piles of garbage, literally garbage, everywhere. His mom was the "dungeon master," and she had just had a corn removed from her foot, so that was soaking in a cooking pot filled with epsom salts. They had this little dog that I don't think anyone actually fed or took care of, it just rooted around behind the TV for Cheetos crumbs and cigarette butts. When I sat down on the couch, this is not a joke, the dog had taken a shit on the couch. There was probably a shooting gallery upstairs, and a meth lab in the basement, but I wouldn't know because I was too scared to even go into the fucking kitchen.

The thing about role-playing games is that you do whatever you want, but you roll dice to see if you are successful in your endeavors. Like, you can be all, "I'm going to challenge this demon to some Guns n Roses pinball at the Inn," and then the dungeon master is like "roll your fifty-thousand-sided-nerd-die to see if you get the November Rain skill shot." When I played, Mike's mom kept asking us if we wanted to fuck the female superheroes in the game, and then she would roll the dice to see if we were successful at fucking them. I think I was 12.

When I got home my mom asked me how the game went, and it was the closest I ever came as a child to having to point to the part on the doll where the bad man touched me. She called the other parents and as far as I know, that was the end of role-playing at Mike Danford's house. I saw him about a year ago. He drives a cab now.

I guess what I'm saying is, it's not ratting someone out if you're 12 and it's to your mom and it involves fucking superheroes in a shit-covered squatter's hovel. So if this accurately describes your situation, then you should totally report Mike Danford and his mom.

After a snowstorm, the Denver airport security line was hours long. I am 66 with gray hair (and perfect health), so I requested a wheelchair. No one at the airline asked why. My son and I were whisked through security in two minutes. I didn't harm anyone; I just delayed those in line another 30 seconds. I say, "The devil's tools to do the Lord's work." Was I wrong? — Doug Mockett, Los Angeles

Obviously, I have no problem with this. (Man, it has been an easy couple of weeks.)

But we still need to deal with the details of your letter logically. After a snowstorm, the Denver airport security line was hours long. Good. Causal relationship, I see it. You are 66 with gray hair and in perfect health. That's not your fault. Everyone gets kind of presumptuous as long as they don't die. But here's where you lose me: "so I requested a wheelchair." The syllogistic relationship between your saggy face and your ruse is intellectually false. You didn't request a wheelchair because you are 66 and have gray hair and are in perfect health. You requested a wheelchair because you are an asshole. The correct logical formulation of the problem thus would have been "After a snowstorm, the Denver airport security line was hours long. I am an asshole, so I requested a wheelchair." See how that makes more sense, Doug?

I'm sure you know, in all your infinite being old wisdom, that people of every age can be in a wheelchair, all it requires is some kind of debilitating illness or injury, and/or an innate sense of superiority that allows one to mimic a disability that is often as crippling emotionally as it is psychologically just to cut in line so they can grab a venti frapp before hitting the Captain's Lounge.

Let's read further, yes? "The devil's tools to do the Lord's work." Now, what is the devil's tool here? The wheelchair? Or you? You're definitely a tool. It might be you. But also what is the Lord's work? Cutting in line? Is that New or Old Testament where God is like "Dude, you should pretend like you're crippled and cut in front of all these fuckers, because fuck them." To which of the apostles did Jesus teach this valuable lesson? Was it Philip of Galilee? Simon the Canaanite? Rodney "the Douchebag"?

In any case, well done, Doug. And in front of your son, no less. Showing the way to a whole new generation of entitled assholes!

Previously: My Parents Are Divorced and Look How Great I Turned Out!

This week, the Unethicist gives powerful advice to everyone who can't keep a marriage together but still has internet access, and wishes you Jews could get your shit together.

My ex-husband and I each agreed to pay for half of our son's education. Because he is enrolling in a university where his dad teaches, our son receives a tuition remission, but my ex insists that I must still write him a check for half the tuition because that tuition waiver is his benefit, not mine. Am I ethically obligated to pay? — H.H., New Jersey

Yes.

It's not so much that you are ethically obligated to pay, but rather that by being divorced you are bound to a life of being held emotional hostage, the near constant threat of dark secret revelations, filial tug-of-war, and excruciating mindgamery. Your ex is simply exercising his right to make impossible demands on you both emotionally and economically, while holding your child's wellbeing in the balance like some kind of Casino Royale double-blind. (Hint: you are the one who cries blood.)

While there is no way to get out of what basically amounts to EXtortion (get it? fuck you), there are ways to balance out the books. For one, get yourself a new man, preferably a big black one. Then leak a sex tape onto the internet (yes, that's the one with email.) You can't just expect your ex-husband to find it himself, what with the whole "locked in the ivory tower" thing, but that's what emails with the subject "Arnold Davidson Discusses the Interrelationship Between the Lacanian Mirror Stage and Foucault's Reappropriation of Jeremy Bentham's 'Panopticon'" are for. Then, BOOM! You're straight inter-racial raw-dogging it right in his unsuspecting face!

Surely that's worth whatever half of a community college tuition costs these days. $250?

My wife's sister and her husband keep kosher, so we have a special pot for their visits. Recently my wife caught me using the pot for my traif soup. She insists we must buy another pot, but I say as long as my in-laws believe it's kosher, they won't violate their faith by using it. Would I be unethical to keep this secret or simply cheap? — Paul Kramer, Montclair, N.J.

I have no problem with this.

But also: WTFUCK?

Aren't Jews supposed to be "the people of the book?" I'm pretty sure you could open up a copy of fucking Goodnight Moon and be able to find some sort of explanation of how secrets are kept, and none of it involves ATTACHING YOUR NAME to an ELABORATE DESCRIPTION OF THE SECRET for PUBLICATION in a NATIONALLY SYNDICATED advice column.

Also, I applaud your work in the field of perpetuating negative stereotypes. Seriously. You probably have horns, don't you, you schmuck.

Previously: I Know What You Blogged Last Summer

In this week's installment, Keith Lublin discovers your child on MySpace and is NOT impressed, while Gabe discovers things about Keith Lublin that make him feel the same way.

I interview high-school seniors who apply to my alma mater. I routinely Google these students and discovered that one posted information on his blog that reflects poorly on him. May I ask him about the blog? May I mention it to the university? Should it affect the score I give him? — Keith Lublin, West Bloomfield, Mich.

Before I get to how appropriate it is to judge and punish children by things you learn about them through Facebook (hint: very appropriate), can we just clarify something: you Google high school students. Like, all the time. OK, Keith Lublin, just checking. Just making sure that in the course of a regular day, you trawl the internet looking for personal information on teenagers. You sound like a great candidate for your position, and for one of my favorite TV shows. I would like to applaud the University of Michigan for choosing you.

While I'm at it, I'd also like to congratulate you on your marriage to Elizabeth Dorn, in 1999, whom you met during your time at the University of Michigan's Center for Japanese Studies. It must have been disappointing to you not to get your hands on a tight little Japanese girl, but Elizabeth looks like a lot of fun for a middle aged Presbyterian from Dayton, Ohio. And now an assistant professorship in Japanese studies at Wayne State. Very nice. Keeping that red lantern burning, yes?

Google is so awesome, right, Keith? So, you guys are back from Hawaii, where Elizabeth completed her PhD at the University of Hawaii, but what I don't know is this: are you still working in finance for Citibank Group? And why did you give up Japanese? Does it ever bother you that your wife has unfailingly pursued her passion, while you seem stuck in a dogpaddling white collar profession, moving back and forth across the country to support her? Do you ever think that maybe there's more to life than eating Buddy's pizza and Googling teenagers in fucking West Bloomfield, Michigan? Or is the satisfaction enough, knowing that you stood in the way of their college careers after they made the impardonable mistake of blogging on their livejournals about the awesome gravity bong they built last weekend? You know, not everyone spent high school sitting alone in their rooms, translating the writings of Confucius and his disciples from the original, just dreaming of the day when they could meet a strong, powerful woman to take charge and give their lives meaning.

But yes. You should definitely hold any youthful indiscretion you discover over these applicants' heads. If you change just one child's life for the irremediable worse, then you will have done your job.

UPDATE: Lublin checked with the university and was told not to ask the student about the blog but to include its URL with his report.

Oh well. You did what you could. Perhaps there's a way to warn future employers about this 17-year-old's insufferable use of pun-based reworkings of Linkin Park lyrics for post titles?

Earlier: Occam's Gillette Sensor

This week, someone discovers our generation's calculator/remote control wristwatch—which nearly breaks poor Gabe!—and San Diego's Belinda Smith uses her secret identity as a functional retard to spread industry secrets.

Each day people are more brazen and rude with their cellphones. My husband bought a device that can block the signals of cellphone users who annoy him, although he knows such gizmos are illegal. Isn't his vigilante behavior worse than that of the rudest cell user? — Name Withheld, Connecticut

This may be the most difficult question I have been faced with in my tenure as a professional adviceicist. On the one hand, I, too, find myself annoyed on an almost daily basis by the shouting inanity of the hoi polloi's pedestrian conversations. How many times do I have to hear some schlub's opinion about Grey's Anatomy, or, like, how many peanuts they've eaten in the past week, while I'm minding my own business at the store just trying to pick up some bleach and steel wool? On the other hand, I have an equally deep well of hatred for people who clearly not only receive the Sharper Image catalog each month, but sit down and flip through it. People like you deserve to get electrocuted by your World's Best Musical Butt Massager.

This really is a tough one, though. On the one hand, there would be a certain pleasure in watching the frustration on some jackass's face when his public, one-sided argument about whether Tim Burton's remake of Planet of the Apes starred Paul Giamatti or Giovanni Ribisi suddenly goes dead, right there in the middle of the bank. On the other hand, the I-have-a-tiny-boner-right-now-face that your husband undoubtedly makes each time he turns his "gizmo" on is so revolting, even just to imagine, that it makes me want to call up Hammacher and Schlemmer and order the World's Best Wireless Shotgun.

I guess the hope is that the combined electromagnetic fields generated by the two devices will leave you all sterile.

My firm is the sole producer of a promotional item that our customers, well-known companies, place in hotel rooms. Having produced a batch for one company, I was approached by another to do the same and ship it to the same city at the same time for the same event. Only one of these items can go in each room, and I fear that the second customer will gobble up hotel rooms that would have gone to my first. Must I decline the second order? — Belinda Smith, San Diego

You know, if you want to ask a question, please, go ahead and ask it. I'd love to answer your question. And if you don't want to ask a question, that is fine, too. No one is making you. It's totally your choice, one way or the other. My only request is that if you do ask a question, FUCKING MAKE SENSE. "My firm is the sole producer of a promotional item that our customers, well-known companies, place in hotel rooms"? Really? There wasn't a more confusing, obfuscating way to phrase that? How about "My job what is that we do makes hotel things what for we sell to folks now see?"

Naturally, I understand how you might want to keep your anonymity when discussing business matters. That is simple professionalism, am I right, Belinda Smith from San Diego? I mean, your business depends on a high level of expertise and discretion, so it makes sense that you want to keep details vague in order to secure the advice you need without impugning your work. AM I RIGHT, BELINDA SMITH FROM SAN DIEGO WHO NO ONE READING THIS COULD POSSIBLY KNOW WHAT/WHO YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT IF THEY HAPPENED TO WORK WITH YOU AND/OR BE ONE OF THE CUSTOMERS FOR THE MSYTERIOUS PROMOTIONAL ITEM THAT IS PLACED IN AFOREMENTIONED HOTEL ROOMS?

Your secret is totally safe with me, you fucking idiot.

Earlier: Rabbit, Shut Up

This week, we learn that the only thing more out of touch with the real world than a creative writing student is a creative writing professor, and Wendy Erdwurm of Phoenix, Arizona, has an important announcement about how wonderful she and her husband are thinking about maybe being.

I teach in a creative-writing graduate program. A colleague submitted a student's story to a fiction anthology without the student's knowledge. The story was accepted and the student is thrilled, but I am uneasy. If other students find out, they may see this as favoritism. Did my colleague act improperly? Should our department establish rules about such things? Name Withheld, Alabama

A young woman wearing a vest packed with explosives and ball bearings blew herself up on the campus of a Baghdad university yesterday, killing at least 40 people and wounding dozens more in what was one of the bloodiest days in that war torn country since Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki declared a new security crackdown.

Meanwhile, reports from America's top intelligence officials indicate that al-Qaeda and the Taliban are enjoying a resurgence of power in Afghanistan and Pakistan—where President Pervez Musharraf made a truce with the terrorist organizations recruiting and training in the north of his country, even going as far as to release many prisoners associated with Bin Laden's murderous clan. The consensus among security experts is that terrorists are closer than ever to detonating a nuclear weapon in the United States.

Look, Updike, I guess what I'm saying is who the fuck cares about a boring short story getting published in a boring literary journal that no one except the seven boring writers being published and their seven boring moms will ever read? It's not so much whether or not your colleague acted appropriately or inappropriately as it is an issue of pulling your Harrys out of your fucking Potters.

The cousin of a Bosnian friend is seriously ill. A clinic here has agreed to see him, but he is too ill to fly here from Bosnia. The clinic wants him to take certain medication for a month. It is not a cure but will stabilize his condition sufficiently for him to fly. Sadly, he cannot afford this medication. My husband and I are considering paying for it, but we cannot afford to do so beyond that month. Is it ethical to help get him here and then abandon him? Wendy Erdwurm, Phoenix

This was the first draft of my response to your question, Wendy:

So, you're going to raise money to provide medication to a desperately ill man in another country whom you've never even met so that he can travel to the United States for treatment that could save his life? That's IT? You make me sick. Go back to Nazi Germany, asshole.

This is the revised draft:

If I ever fall gravely ill, I just hope that there is a hero like Wendy Erdwurm in my life who may or may not actually help me, but who will make sure to pose false ethical questions that even she knows the fucking answer to in a nationally syndicated advice column, just to let the whole world know how generous, selfless, and altruistic she and her husband are considering being, as if the Prius bumper covered in Free Tibet and Buck Fush stickers weren't indication enough. I'd give you guys a pat on the back, but it looks like you've got that pretty well taken care of.

Earlier: In the Year of the Scavenger, the Season of the Bitch

In this week's column: How to file expenses for one's garage, what to do with letters of commendation, and that whole "conflict diamond" thing.

My company reimburses me for my parking garage. I found a two-car garage for $300 a month. I bill my company $150 for my half and sublease the other half for $225. I think this is fair, but my mother disagrees, believing that I should charge only my net cost, $75 a month. You? — name withheld, Queens

Question: Any time I see math, my brain does that thing where it falls asleep. Because math is boring. And math is for nerds. So, to make my life easier, from now on please bill your employer for the full $300. Then put that $300 dollars in a train leaving from Washington D.C. and heading west at 75 miles per hour, while an identical train leaves Portland, Oregon, heading east at 62 miles per hour. Where will the trains meet?

Answer: time to stop living with your mother, nerd.

I resigned from a company where I worked for 15 years. In that time, I received many letters of commendation from clients and co-workers, some addressed to me and others to my boss. May I present these to prospective employers, or would this violate my previous employer's privacy? — David Nieves, New York City

I've spent some time trying to figure out what kind of job you had where you received letters of commendation from clients and co-workers addressed to your boss and somehow felt that it was appropriate to open and read those letters, and then to keep them for future reference. In my experience, bosses might have a subordinate open their mail for them if they are busy, but they do not give those same subordinates the mail when they are done reading it. In fact, I don't know anyone who is like "Here, I'm done with this letter addressed to me. You keep it." The only thing I could come up with is prostitute, because I don't think a pimp would care about letters of commendation, and if he saw how happy it made you to let you keep them, that's just one less night of you getting all uppity and needing a five knuckled lesson in manners.

That being said, after fifteen years in the whore game, you're probably pretty used up, and I'm not sure letters of commendation, no matter how glowing, can really cover up the fact that you have a worn out anus and a pretty seriosu meth problem. I'd recommend leaving the past behind you and starting a new life, maybe as a line worker at your local McDonald's. Good luck, David!

My fianc gave me a conflict-free African diamond engagement ring. Initially, I wanted a Canadian diamond, but Amnesty International and Nelson Mandela advocate supporting the conflict-free African diamond trade. Now I am debating if we should support the diamond industry at all and instead just go for a band. What is the most ethical thing a newly engaged gal can do? — Erin McLachlan, Brooklyn

Erin, you and Leonardo DiCaprio have brought up a really important issue that is overlooked by most of the modern world. In our endless pursuit of luxury and social status, we often fail to understand just how exploitative our purchasing power can be, and the human cost is far too often hidden in the shadows. Most people are like you, good at heart, and mildly annoying. They support cruel industry practices out of ignorance or apathy, but if they understood even a fraction of the tragic circumstances surrounding conflict diamonds—or any of a number of other products that come at the expense of our world's poorest peoples—they would never support such injustice, financially or otherwise.

You have a real opportunity here, Erin, to let the world know about what is happening in countries like South Africa, by buying one of the many young children who have lost limbs in the mining trades, and wearing that child on the ring finger of your left hand. He will be lighter than wearing a regular child, because he has lost so many limbs! When people ask you what the deal is with the limbless black child on your hand, you can tell them that he is a symbol both of the individual hardship being suffered at the hands of a rapacious and unforgiving western culture, and of your own personal journey into an antiquated legal and financial relationship with another human being that has much more to do with the normalization of gender roles and the economic reinforcement of the capitalist class structure by familial conglomeration of wealth than anything like love or even affection! CONGRATULATIONS!

Earlier: He's Just Not That Into You, and By "He" I Mean "Me"

In this week's column: Should one diary one's infidelities? Should one buy women on the internet? Should one lie about one's billable hours? Should one write for advice to the New York Times?

My father, a translator, was hired by a man who suspected that his wife was unfaithful and married him only to get a green card. He had my father translate photocopied pages from her diary. Family members think this was unethical. My father maintains he simply did his job. You? (Incidentally, the diary confirmed the devastated man's suspicions, and he is initiating divorce proceedings.) — Nicole Schou, San Francisco

With the possible exceptions of Anne Frank and Samuel Pepys, I've never understood diaries (and who am I kidding, fuck Samuel Pepys. Dude suuuuucked.) Everyone has their little secrets, some of us just don't have the impulse to write those secrets down in an ugly book from the Barnes and Noble gift section. Hot tip for Valentine's Day: if you're cheating on someone, the memory of that betrayal should be enough, you don't need some permanent record to revisit years from now in a nostalgic trip down "I Was a Fucking Asshole in My Personal Relationships" Lane.

That being said, here's another hot tip for Valentine's Day: Cash Rules Everything Around Me. Did you enjoy having a bed to sleep in when you were growing up? How about all that food on the table? Maybe it's time to get off your dad's back. He doesn't come down to your work and slap the dick out of your mouth. Not to mention the fact that we're talking about PAGES FROM A DIARY. That amounts to a "big fucking deal" in any language. Just ask Harriet Le Spy.

Incidentally, the devastated man should keep his chin up! Hot tip for Valentine's Day #3: How to Get the Woman of Your Dreams Using the Internet! At least with a mail-order bride you know for a fact that all she wants is a green card. White Slavery, so hot in 2007.

My son is an athlete at a small college. He and many teammates have jobs supervised by assistant coaches who encourage them to "round up" the number of hours they work — to say they worked longer than they did. My son is efficient enough to finish his work faster than the time allocated. Is he an "honest sucker" if he alone reports accurately? — name withheld, San Francisco

Please refer to Hot Valentine's Day Tip #2: Cash Rules Everything Around Me.

The obvious answer to your question is yes. Yes, your son is an "honest sucker" and a "newsie" if he alone reports accurately. His teammates will ridicule and rape him for being such a "schmoe" and a "fag."

It's cute that you're trying to teach him a valuable lesson in honesty and integrity, but he's in college now, so unless the lesson has a lot of references to beer pong and date rape, eh. How about you just tell him to double bag it and call it a day. A Valentine's Day! Zing!

Earlier: Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter Gives Head

My husband, an excellent and experienced preschool teacher — he is the best at what he does — applied for a job at a local public school. The interview went great. The principal was impressed by his r sum , recommendations and abilities, but feared that his beard would alienate community parents. Would he shave it? He politely declined. She said she would not hire him unless he did. Legal? Ethical? — name withheld, Georgia

I'm sorry that your husband beats you.

Seriously.

I'm sorry that you are so physically and emotionally abused by your bearded maniac husband that you can't write a normal letter to a human being without spending 3/4 of the time gushing about what an amazing person he is so that if the letter ever makes it into print he won't (politely!) beat you.

Or: I'm sorry that your husband is queer.

Seriously.

I'm sorry that your life is a complete sham because your husband is unwilling to be honest with himself about his heart's true desires. I'm sorry that you have built such an impenetrable fortress of false representation that you can't write a normal letter to a human being without spending 3/4 of the time talking about all of the great things about him so that you can gloss over the ungreat things about him, at least as far as a fulfilling heterosexual relationship is concerned, i.e. that he not be gay, which in this case, he is.

Also: I'm sorry that your husband fucks kids.

Isn't that what this is about? The only thing that alienates parents about an excellent and "experienced" (your word, creep) pre-school teacher when it comes to the beard is that he is probably fucking some of the kids. And if he's not fucking the kids, he is hiding something (gay).

Your abusive gay husband is obviously brave though, to have stood up to that principal and turned down a job as a pre-school teacher at a public school in Georgia. It takes some real hairy balls to keep one's integrity in the face of a job that probably would have paid upwards of 17,000 dollars a year! Take that, Big Education!

My daughter, an older teenager and experienced baby sitter, received a job offer that pays one rate if the child is awake and a lower rate if the child is asleep. But my daughter would be on the job whether or not the child was awake. And I wondered, if the child slept only part of the time, would my daughter have to keep track of those periods? Isn't this unfair? Doesn't it exploit teenagers who feel awkward negotiating with adults? — name withheld, Maplewood, N.J.

"Experienced" baby sitter. Yes. Your daughter can sit on the couch watching the Gilmore Girls and eating someone else's Sun Chips while upstairs a baby sleeps like it's no big deal. What is it with you people and your sad families that you feel the need to make a big deal about everyone's abilities in an anonymous letter to an advice column? I can't prove you wrong or verify that you're right, so just GET TO THE QUESTION.

There is a lesson here, Maplewood: it's called "The Lesson of Milking the Clock." How is your daughter ever going to beat the high score on Spider Solitaire, take a two hour lunch, buy shoes online, and plan her dream trip to Cabo while ostensibly working as an administrative assistant in some bullshit office if she can't even navigate the simple contract negotiations of "I'm telling you, your shitty kid was awake all night. Now pay me."

That being said, if you're so worried about it, why don't you actually be a parent and give her the twenty dollars or whatever so she doesn't have to humiliate herself at some crappy stranger's house. Am I the only one who knows that two things happen to babysitters: they get murdered on the job by an escaped psychopath, or they get hit on by the dad when he drives them home? And any dad who thinks up some elaborate Keynesian scheme to screw the babysitter out of a few extra dollars is probably going to try and teach her the ways of adult love while his Aerostar idles outside her parents' house. Let me ask you this: does he have a beard?

Earlier: I'm Working, But I'm Not Working For You