Dear Tuffy,

I got a new computer at work a few weeks ago since my old computer started moving so slowly that I could start opening a Word file, step outside for a cigarette and a brief land war in Asia, and then come back just in time to start working.

Unfortunately, the new computer has been nothing but trouble since I brought it home. It freezes up whenever I try to watch a video. I can’t play any games without the screen getting all garbled and having to restart, too. When I put a DVD in, it spins until I can smell melting Lucite. However, I never get to see the movie.

I can’t seem to find any answers online and tech support hasn’t been very helpful; how do I fix this?

Garbled in Galensberg

Dear Garbo,

Newer readers of this column may be taken aback by this type of query, but long time devoteés of the Tuffy Craft will remember the early days of Ask Tuffy the Terabyte, the technical support advice column that ran in this space from 1996-1999 and was canceled only because the then-proprietor of this “zine” (as it was fashionable to call them at the time) felt the Year 2000 scourge would render such rags unnnecessary as we fought claw and thistle with the Herbergs and the Zeffelthiners of the Third Quadrant of the Milky Way.

As you may have guessed, I never got my last paycheck, either. Snufflefart.

However, I am still certified in Windows Sanitation and Personal Computing Elemental Divination by Frostbite Falls State. Therefore, I shall tackle this question with exacting technical skill and the normal verve the gentle reader expects from Ask Tuffy.

After carefully reviewing the evidence provided, consulting my old college manuals, and relying on my years of experience with similar phenomena, I can say with reasonable certainty that your computer is possessed. In all likelihood, the factory that created your machine was built on an ancient Indian burial ground or was assembled by a voodoo master with a vindictive nature and a cruel shift manager.

To best rectify the situation, gather the following items post haste:

• One (1) VHS copy of “Where the Boys Are” (acquire VCR as needed)
• Ten (10) ft. bailing twine
• The 1972 Miami Dolphins (surviving members only)
• Four (4) oz. elephant tears (African or Asian)
• One (1) token minority actor on a CBS series (African or Asian)
• One (1) carrot (pureéd)
• Urine sample cup (never used)
• Ball point pen (blue or black)
• Résumé paper
• Safety goggles
• Safety gloves
• Safety dance (optional but encouraged)
• Beverly Garland’s autograph (need not be personalized)
• Cinnamon (to taste)

First, watch “Where the Boys Are”. Gather your tears from the final scenes (oh, George Hamilton, you heartbreaker you) into the urine sample cup and combine with elephant tears and carrot. This will force your poltergeist to remember the pain and sadness of your inability to see your DVD version of “Where the Boys Are”. Don the safety gear and smear this concoction on your monitor.

Next, lash the keyboard and mouse to your monitor using the bailing twine. This will prevent the spirit from calling for help.

After that, have Gary Dourdan (or whomever you got from CBS) grab the champagne bottles out of the hands of the 1972 Miami Dolphins and beat them over the heads with them until they have expired or agreed to knock off that stupid “toast the undefeated record” and get back to the golf course. The first to acquiese gets Beverly Garland’s autograph.

Most importantly, take your computer and monitor to the roof of your office building and toss them both over the side. The ghost, having improved sight and empathy from your mixture, will see its impending doom and leap from your computer and into the nearest electronic device.

This will likely be your boss’ office. Once your boss finds out you threw your computer off the top of a building and infected his computer with pure evil, you will be fired. Use the pen and paper to apply for a new job. (You could have typed up a new résumé, sure, but you threw your computer off the roof, didn’t you? Didn’t think that through, huh?)

P.S. Also, update your video drivers. Ghouls hate improved compatibility between devices.

Dear Tuffy,

I’m in an awkward situation, Tuffy, and I need your help. I bit the bullet and asked my old boss, who I HATED, for a recommendation because the job I really want asked me to get one. The old boss, as usual, was completely unaware that I wanted her to die in a hail of fire ants and syphillis. She’ll do it for me, but she wants me to write one for her, too. (Gee; they don’t want her anyone? I’m too shocked to write another word.)

I really don’t want to write this recommendation, but I really want the job. What do I do?

Sincerely,
Riled in Reseda

Dear Riley,

She really demanded tit for tat? What makes you think she’ll follow through on a recommendation anyway? This does not sound promising for you; I can see why you approached me.

It’s not a great situation you’re in, but you’ll make it through. You’ve got an option if you want to get this recommendation. Your old boss sounds totally unaware of the world around her and definitely wouldn’t know faint praise from the hole in the ground where she comfortably rests her head most days.

Therefore, she is a prime candidate for a rare but delicious ploy: the coded recommendation letter. If you use the right terminology, you’ll be able to slip your message through while still meeting her onerous requirement.

Below is an example of the type of recommendation you could provide. I would suggest you write your own, but… hell, she’ll never know. She doesn’t even know she’s not wearing pants at this moment or she’s in the shower drowning again.

“Dear Sir or Madam,

(boss) managed me at (place) for (duration). During this time, she provided me with many moments. Often, I found her leadership to be extant. It was a source of inspiration to have her in charge.

Once, I saw her complete a series of tasks. This was an impressive feat for her that won her accolades from her team. We threw a party.

Also, I know you will find her people skills. Often, she works with others. Her reign as our manager brought terror to our competitors as she tortured the abused assumptions of the past to create a bleak future for those that would challenge the market share of the S.O.S. (company name).

She knows how to work through adversity. Once, she identified a deficiency in her ability to consistently locate the posterior region of her person. She was able to apply a GPS satellite in that region through the exuberant help of her staff and was then able to find it much more easily.

In conclusion, she has the keen ability to dress herself, usually communicates in complete sentences, and not soiled herself in a work environment terribly often. Her ability to convert oxygen into life-giving carbon dioxide is a boon for any organization that believes in a green workplace.

Quite sincerely,

(name)”

Ask Tuffy has an exciting announcement to make. Through my covert network of readers (hi Mom!), I have discovered an amazing product that will soon hit the market. Now you, gentle reader, will find out about this astonishing new development in an Ask Tuffy exclusive here only on DeadOn for Dick Clark Productions.

Yes, you’ve heard it from some smart aleck at a party or a family get-together at some point. “It’s the 21st Century,” they exclaim, “so where’s my hover car? Where’s my jet pack? I was promised a jet pack!”

As you humor the poor bastard while slowly backing away before he asks you to talk to the sock puppet he just cobbled together, do you ever stop to consider the truth behind the rank attempt at comedy? Why don’t you have a jet pack yet? Okay, maybe not a hover car; having to park your car on the third story without the benefit of a parking garage is only cool until you fall from the car while rushing out of work one day. Besides, you know some jackal in Finance will have to get the X-TENDER FALCON 5000 Hovercraft and block the fire exit with his new shiny metal tribute to his failing marriage…

…yet I digress. I digress because I don’t have the single-minded focus on completing tasks necessary. I don’t have the crack design team at my fingertips to make the product beautiful. I don’t have the billions in cash to underwrite such a task. I don’t have the slick salesmanship that allows anyone that steps into my field completely unable to resist my capitalistic charms.

But who? Who could rise from the sticky morass of “it’s hard and stuff and we can just make our product trans fat free and get the same effect even though we sell snow tires” and create the glorious 21st century delivered by the Space Age dreamers?

I present to you the next sonic “boom” to slip from the lips of The Anointed One, Steve Jobs: the iJetPack.

Using the combined forces of Jaguar, Volkswagen, Airbus, NATO, the G-7, and Mary Poppins Ltd., Steve Jobs will create the iJetPack from Apple. It will revolutionalize personal transportation, just like the Segway did.

With places to put your iPod, iPhone, and Newton, you will always have access to information and multimedia content (available for a small fee). Of course, you may have to float over a Starbucks to access the necessary WiFi, but that’s totally free as long as you’re shopping through the Starbucks WiFi Music Store brought to you by iTunes and Apple and the Desiccated Careers of Former Musicians.

Also, the iJetPack will be a marvel for the senses. It will come in many beautiful metallic colors and can be engraved with your medical information in case of mid-air collision. All of the controls will be utterly intuitive, allowing you to skip the difficult task of learning to drive a jet pack.

If anything goes wrong, after all, you’ll be able to nosedive into an Apple Store, where an iJetPack Genius will wait with a net and the necessary tools to get you back on your way. (”Yes, ma’am, you do have to recharge it occasionally. No, I agree; science is totally unfair like that. Would you like $100 in store credit?”)

Look for the iJetPack to be released to Apple Stores across the United States this fall, shipping in 4-6 weeks/months/years.

(Note: ability to fly will be added in a software upgrade in 2110.)

Dear Tuffy,

I admit it; I’ve become lax in eating right and working out. Still, I don’t feel too motivated to do much about it. I don’t think I look that bad, frankly. I feel okay, too. When should I consider getting back to the dip in the dieting roller coaster?

Sincerely,
Wobbly but Not Down in Walla Walla

Dear Wobbly,

Some pundits would tell you that asking the question is enough to answer it, Wobbly, and demand you jiggle over to the recumbent bike post haste and away from Walla Walla’s finest seven story King Kong’s Empire State Banana Split with little Fay Wray action figure implanted inside. (On Fat Tuesday, the person that ends up chipping a crown on the figurine is the next one to have a baby or at least gain the necessary weight to fake it.)

However, the far wiser among us know that mild fluctuation in habits should not be a call to fix flabby arms. Therefore, here are a few signposts on the road to Phuket, It’s Time to Get Serious About This Again:

• Put a full-body mirror in the bathroom. It will be unavoidable for you to see yourself in the mirror, of course, but do not rely solely on the countenance sloshing back at you. Instead, check the knuckles on your right hand. Are they scuffed? Bloody? Filled with jagged glass shards from violently striking out at the visage of your deformed meat package? If not, carry on! (Lefties, adjust accordingly.)
• It’s not enough for your favorite pair of comfy jeans to start feeling snug. Don’t consider a lifestyle change until you can’t wrap the legs around your waist and wear them like a loincloth.
• Have you noticed any new signs on your front lawn, perhaps requesting a zoning change from single family to multi-family residence? On a similar note, have you seen any new ballot initiatives to raise property taxes to pay for eventually removing you from your home by carving a hole in the side of your house large enough to fit the forklift?
• Do you start panting and clutching your chest while watching Olympic speed walking?
• Do you watch Olympic speed walking?
• Do you have the uneasy sensation that Jared is following you around? Don’t fret; we all do. I’m pretty sure I saw him do the honors at a bar mitzvah last weekend.
• Has your mate suggested you two become “workout buddies”? Good for you! You still have a mate, so you have wiggle room left.
• Are you eating something with one hand and preparing your next snack with the other while planning in your head what you should make next?
• Has your doctor stopped trying to give you serious advice and merely sighs while giving you a pamphlet on how to avoid bed sores?
• Have you gone to a list format for your recommendations because you don’t have the stamina for a full column?

erm. Well. If these seem uneasily familiar to you, Wobbly, please drop the pretense and get thee to a personal trainer whose name you won’t even bother to remember since you’ll give up in a month anyway. Otherwise, enjoy your denial with a healthy slathering of sausage gravy!

Dear Tuffy,

I recently was presented with quite a dilemma. There had been an accident outside my apartment, and the water line was broken. I went to perform my nightly brushing, and the water was brown. I’m not talking like slightly murky water like you see in a tequila bottle, but I’m talking about something that you would expect to find in a New York sewer.

Dental health is important to me, and I searched for something that I could use in place of water, but orange juice seemed unwise, and Kool-Aid seemed like it would defeat the purpose of brushing. So I chose Diet Pepsi. I chose it for its low caloric content, and lack of cavity-inducing sugar.

My question to you is this: In place of water, what is the best fluid to brush your teeth with? Would an alcohol such as vodka or gin be good? Or should I stick to my proven Diet Pepsi method?

Sincerely,
Sally in Seville

Dear Sally,

First, I have shared your note with my contacts in New York City and they would like to know where you have found this wonderful brown water in their fine city. They would kill the nearest homeless person for such an elixir compared to the blackened excrement that seeps from their pipes.

Berke Breathed once compared both Pepsi and Coke as a choice between two types of “malted battery acid”. He was too kind. Don’t rub that caustic death sentence for enamel against your teeth any more than you have to. For crying out loud, don’t swish with it! You might as well being considering your choice in denture adhesive. (PoliGrip. Trust me. I can’t say more at this time. Just trust me.)

Generally speaking, you’ve hit on the right solution in this difficult situation. Vodka and gin are both clear liquids with the alcohol that has a slim chance of killing a bacterium or two while you do the heavy lifting with the brush. In a pinch, these will both do nicely. If you have both, go with vodka. Its odorless and colorless nature is why I keep it in the middle left drawer of my desk at all times. (And a flask in my coat. And the glove compartment. And a vial in my sock. And a surgically implanted CamelBak. And…)

Also, using vodka as a brushing rinse is great for children. Motivation to brush increases greatly, especially for teenagers. Younger children are less likely to wake up in the middle of the night for a glass of water or fear of a storm or acute illness or… well, anything, really. Prolonged use, however, may lead to going out for the morning paper and finding his tricycle wrecked on the front steps with a SpongeBob SquarePants toothbrush wedged between the spokes or a child’s shame at waking up to find herself cuddled next to a stuffed animal she’s never seen before. Caution (and rubber sheets) are recommended.

Similar caution should be applied to adults. After all, you’re rinsing with sugar water. What may first appear to be an innocent interest in dental hygiene may eventually devolve into being surrounded by family and friends hesitantly complimenting you on your gap-laden shiny grin as an entry point to intervene and point out the six bottles of Grey Goose surrounding the bathroom sink.

If you don’t have vodka and gin in your home… hell, get to the store now and stock up for this eventuality. Tell the liquor store clerk you’re preparing for a disaster. He’ll know what you mean, man. He’ll know.

However, if this really isn’t an option, have you considered dry brushing? After all, if fluoride treatments are $25 a pop at the dentist, they’re clearly great between visits, too. Just spit out what you can and let the rest do its magic on your molars and bicuspids throughout the day. You’ll adjust to the taste eventually. It wouldn’t hurt to buy some of that flavored kid toothpaste, either.

(No, not “kid-flavored”. Toothpaste flavored to make it more palatable for kids. Arthur C. Clarke made the same mistake and is still working through the last case of Crest BURSTIN’ bubblegum toothpaste.)

There are other benefits as well. For example, appearing rabid will help you skip long lines at the bank, bargain for the best price with a scalper outside a ball game, and get your own syndicated radio talk show.

Good luck with your brushing conundrum, Sally. The most important lesson to be learned? It’s not healthy to swallow.

Dear Tuffy,

I have my first big job interview post-college coming up next week. It’s at a big office, so I know I have to dress up some. I’ve got a tie and dress shoes and stuff, but my dad wants me to go out and buy a suit. A tie and nice slacks should be enough, right? Do I really need a suit for a job interview or is my dad being old fashioned?

Overdressed in Oakland

Suspense ended: your father is right. While you were able to get through college with nothing fancier than your Al Davis Collection dress jumpsuit, it’s time to grow up, son. You need a suit anyway; take him up on his offer and become a man. A man owns a suit.

Besides, you’re going to need it again when your friends that are able to dress themselves get married and leave you behind by 25 to continue your perpetual childhood, playing with your Wii all night and drinking Schlitz while plotting the demise of the weekend manager at Circuit City who is totally holding you back because you don’t kick back part of your commission to him.

Avoid all that by purchasing the following:

• Charcoal gray wool suit. Considering your likely proclivity for hitting your mouth with food only about 60% of the time, you need something that handle the stains. You might consider Scotchgarding the thing, too.
  • Check those pants legs! It’s not enough for the pants to cover your freshman 40 ass; those cuffs better cover most of your shoe.
  • Get the damned thing fitted all over, in fact. Try not to look like Daddy was so proud of you that he lent you his remainder suit.
• Socks. I have a feeling I have to spell this out for you: yes. Black, please.
• Shoes. I know you love your Pumas. Hell, everybody loves Pumas. They’re the George Clooney of ultracasual footwear. It’s time for big boy shoes now, though. Get a pair of Eccos or Hugo Boss from a store where the staff actually recognize the names and can tell them apart from across the room. And get them polished when they’re dull-looking, for Chrissakes.
• Get a haircut, you hippie. The only thing that should have highlights when you leave is the magazine stack in the hair salon.
• Tie. I don’t trust you with anything stronger than a solid color. If I let you start picking patterns, you’re going to end up with a Daffy Duck tie. Yes, it does show your real personality to the interviewer; we’re trying desperately to hide that, remember?
• Cologne. Ask the nice woman at the counter; she’s there to help. Make sure you go to a real store, though. If I hear you’ve been asking the nice lady at Walgreens or Rite-Aid for advice, I will tell your potential employer about how you attempted to break the masturbation record sophomore year and nearly flooded the dorm laundry room when you tried to wash your socks at the end of the month.
  • Also, apply it sparingly. If you want to remind your potential employer about you after you leave, send a card. Don’t let your cologne linger so strongly that they burn the chair you sat in.
• Last but not least, bathe. All those sharp creases and gallons of cologne cannot make up for the fact that you smell like you mud wrestled with both Ringling brothers the night before.

None of this can bail you out for sleeping through most of senior year or for failing your drug test because of “poppy seeds on my bagel, man”. Still, if you can pull it together just long enough to fool a few people, you will soon be on your way to just getting by for the next 45 years. Good luck!

Dear Tuffy,

I have a very serious problem; I need your help badly. See, I was gardening in the back yard the other day. I have these finicky orchids that are always dying, so I spend a lot of time out there. I’m out there working in the flower garden when I hear my neighbor struggling with a crate he had sent from his ex-pat son from Chile. So I head over and help him carry it in the house. (Turns out it was a bunch of books in Spanish about obscure Chilean history and food. Boring.)

However, while moving the crate, something crawled on my leg and took a chomp out of me. I swatted it off with my other foot and stomped the hell out of it, but it started getting pretty red and raw right away.

After a few days, I started to feel lazy all the time and not very hungry. I just wanted to lie in bed all day. So I called my doctor and went out to see him the next morning. He rubbed his chin and said “I see” a lot while he took pictures and blood samples and scrapings and I don’t remember what all else. He gave me this cream to make it feel better while I waited for the test results to return. It didn’t really help, but it was something.

Anyway, the doc calls back a week later and says I have this rare South American disease that can only be passed by an infected spider that dies soon after getting the disease itself. What luck, right? Then I end up quarantined in my home and the CDC crawling all over the place, looking for “indicators” and “predilections” and “stuff”.

While I’m stuck in my house waiting for the HazMat edition of Meals for Wheels to drop by three times a week, I’m still itching like hell and you can only soak your leg in a vat of chamomile lotion for so many weeks at a time, y’know? So I’m digging around on the Internet and I find out there’s only one known possible cure for the rash. Of course, it’s in Chile. I guess that makes sense for a South American disease, but it’s damned inconvenient. If the disease could come up here, why not the cure? Right?

Well, it turns out the only people that know the cure are these few natives deep in the forests of Chile. Since it’s such a rare disease, no big pharmaceutical company bothered to steal it from them for nothing. Therefore, it never escaped to the outside world. I’m starting to think at this point that this spider was sent by its little spider friends to get back at me for working as an exterminator during the summers while I was in college.

I tried to get ahold of someone on the phone, but it’s apparently a touchy subject. Most people hung up on me or told me to get lost in broken English. Then the Chilean consulate called me and said that they were sorry that no one could help me and that it was a real shame that I was gonna be Itchy McSmellsLikeChamomile for the rest of my life and that they wished me luck in never calling Chile again and asking so many questions.

Now at this point, I’m driving myself nuts with the rash and it’s not getting smaller on its own and in my mind it’s getting bigger and deeper red and I think I may have to buy a chainsaw to cure this. So I decide to sneak out of the country and go to Chile, no matter how hard it would be to break the quarantine. Maybe, you know, I could find this Hechim tribe to show me the cure so I can rub/ingest/sing it and stop obsessing over my leg.

As it turns out, a CDC quarantine is enforced about as strongly as Marion Barry’s tax responsibilities. Two days later, I was on a plane to Santiago.

Since then, I have been robbed of all my cash by a native con man, fell in and out of love with a low-level government paper pusher, been lost in the woods for a week with nothing to eat but bugs and toxic leaves which left me incontinent for three days, and had my first forcible homosexual experience. Tuffy, I’m at my wit’s end and I may have to gnaw my leg off for any satisfaction. What do I do?

Vexed in Valparaíso

Dear Vexed,

It is very easy to water orchids too much; be sure to carefully measure the amount of water they receive and match it to the environment and species. If you keep them properly watered and give them as much indirect (not direct) light as you can, you will succeed in growing these hardy yet beautiful flowers. Good luck!

Dear Tuffy,

I want to turn out the lights with my boyfriend and tell him that the party’s over. It’s been wonderful, but it’s time to move on.

However, we’re both in an excellent fantasy football league run by his friends (separate teams) that I dominate every year. On the other hand, his teams somehow find a way to finish at the back of the pack.

How do I stay in the league and move on with my love life? I need to know soon so I can work on my draft with a clear conscience.

Keeper in Kansas City

Dear Keeper,

Obviously, looking for another league is the last possible choice. It’s much easier to find a half-decent guy to settle for than a quality fantasy football league. You already know the tendencies and tells for each of the other owners; it will take you forever to reach the pinnacle again in a new league. No, you need to stay in this league.

Before we proceed further, have you considered perhaps not breaking up with him? People have stuck through loveless relationships for far less (sex, money, power, “the children”, etc.). Separate teams, separate beds… maybe? No?

Come on… why not stick it out through January? Get one more fling and treat it as your last season as an owner before you sell high to a deep-pockets owner, collect your last tax breaks, and move on to conquer new realms. Clearly, this involves putting up with a relationship gone sour for four more months, but championships are not won without sacrifice.

Still, if you’re determined to be a moral and good human being, you’ll have to work harder. Frankly, Tuffy doesn’t see the percentage in working hard for your reward, but he knows that there are many lifestyle choices available these days. Why, Tuffy has heard that many people now wear pants at all times in public. Who’s to account for taste?

If you’ve been a good league citizen all this time, you might be in the good graces of your leaguemates independent of your former mate. Speak to the commissioner about staying in the league. Do not be afraid to use your wiles. Surely, you’re smart enough to have considered this option yourself since you were smart enough to write Tuffy. However, you have seemingly dismissed this option in favor of “honor” and “mutual respect”. Nonsense; it’s fantasy football. There’s no honor among those thieves. Get in there and bat some eyelashes, Jessica Rabbit.

If the commissioner won’t help you in your cause, surely the ex-boyfriend’s uninspired play has irritated other league members over the years. Work them like LBJ in the Senate coat room. Sell them on the notion that you’ll fluster him so badly that he’ll end up making a series of increasingly bizarre trades (Tomlinson for L. Johnson, Brees and Tomlinson for Favre, Brees, Tomlinson and Favre for Art Monk, his entire squad for Kyle Brady, Cap Boso, and a signed letter of intent from Nick Saban to coach his fantasy squad for four years, etc.) that he’ll be curled up on the floor 20 minutes before the trade deadline sucking his thumb and trying to figure out a way to trade his skateboard and pet rabbit for a single-serving cup of Mott’s applesauce. If your league is as good as advertised, they will welcome you home with open arms.

Dear Tuffy,

I found an old videotape in my parents’ video cabinet the other day where they had taped an episode of “Emergency!” off the television. (Apparently, my parents had a Mark Spitz obsession before I was born. This is a problem for another time.)

While watching the videotape, I saw this commercial for the Consumer Information Catalog in Pueblo, Colorado. Apparently, there was this place in the 1970s where a person could send a postcard and receive a catalog with a whole bunch of knowledge inside.

What was this place and what did they really do? What kind of information did they have?

Diving for Information in Delaware

Dear Diving,

You have uncovered one of the forgotten glories of the American experience in the second half of the twentieth century: the 81009 zip code. Located just outside Pueblo, 81009 was a magical land of brochures and men in sea blue shirts and navy blue ties happily typing away at specially constructed typewriters, pouring the world’s knowledge into those heavy paper beauties.

The idea for the Federal Citizen Information Center came from Alan Zip, the Postmaster General of the United States Postal Service from 1961-1989. After his invention and implementation of the Zip code in 1963, postal delivery became so much easier to complete that his employees became rude and listless in their newfound free time, unlike their hard-working and polite reputation.

Mr. Zip’s talkative and curious young girl, Zelda, provided Mr. Zip’s solution to this conundrum.  As most young children are, Zelda would pepper her father with questions both inane and inspired.  After wearily tackling the thirteenth attempt to explain the transistor radio to his precocious child, it occurred to Mr. Zip that there simply must be a better way to answer people’s questions than shouting “magical pixies live inside the radio and sing to you and will die if you pester them too much!” and absconding to the den.

Unlike most fathers, his solution wasn’t to hide out at the corner bar until Zelda grew up and moved out of the house to put up with her incessant nagging which she got from her mother, the banshee. Instead, Mr. Zip sent his elite postal inspectors out to look for a home for what would eventually become the Federal Citizen Information Center. The FCIC would serve as the trusted governmental father figure for naturally inquisitive people nationwide, big and small.

He eventually settled on a remote location just outside the tiny town of Pueblo, Colorado, and declared it the property of the United States Postal Service by designating it with its own zip code: 81009. During the somber groundbreaking ceremony, Mr. Zip honored four postal inspectors lost in the line of duty during this search in a tragic cheesecake accident in Portage, IN.

When a question arrived in the massive 81009 mail facility, it would be sorted by the Ask-O-Tronic 2000 into one of four main categories: Factual, Predictive, Advice, and (for a brief time) Requests for Autographed Photos of Leif Garrett.

Questions that could be answered by a trip to the world’s best reference library (constructed mostly from bulk mail extras and “accidentally” lost packages) were delivered to the Zip Library, located on the northeast campus in 81009. There, retrained mail carriers would fashion pamphlets to answer frequently asked questions. Popular editions included “How to Buy a Home”, “101 Uses for Fruitcake”, “Where Did I Leave My Keys?” and ”Shouldn’t It Be ‘Pink Ladies and Jeff’?”

Asking about the future required a little more work. Mr. Zip gathered America’s finest minds (mostly former Nazis) to create numerous scenarios to predict future matters, such as the arrival of the personal hovercar and the winner of the 1994 World Series. After limited success over the years, these questions were reluctantly outsourced to Project Quantum Leap in 1995.

People seeking the advice of a trusted stranger were quite the surprise to Mr. Zip; he didn’t expect millions of requests for the federal government to fix their love lives. Mail carriers did their level best to help these lost souls. However, the overwhelming number of requests required a more efficient approach.

Thankfully, efficiency has always been a hallmark of the United States Postal Service. Mr. Zip handled this problem by quietly releasing two separate solutions: the Magic 8-Ball and Dear Abby. The former solution let the Type A American answer their own questions with eerie accuracy; the latter was a computer program designed to give hope to those that need to look to a higher being. (Dear Abby has subsequently been replaced by a team of robots and now cloned Stepford wives trained for the task in a secret bunker under the southwest campus.) This lowered the number of advice questions sent to 81009 by 87%.

As you might have guessed, 81009 fell into relative disrepute after it could not turn its huge brick-and-mortar facilities into a cost-effective Internet-based service. The Internet could offer the same answers (or close facsimiles with truth-like substances applied aftermarket) along with immense quantities of pornography, which Mr. Zip’s team could not possibly compete with.

A few wise, intelligent, and handsome people have tried to take up the slack on the Internet to apply salve to the mental strains of the terminally stupid by answering their thoughtful questions. Still, we are not enough; it is feared America could continue the intellectual slide first experienced by Great Britain when they discovered the Internet in an Egyptian pyramid outside Gaza in 1908.

There are still a small group of retired mail carriers watching vigilantly over the Alexandria of the New World, caring for its artifacts and knowledge in case there ever comes a time when a small child will need help on a math problem or a housewife needs to know when to leave her lousy no-good spouse without any porn included with the answer.

Alas, that day will likely never come. Perhaps the final confirmation of that comes from the passing of Mr. Zip himself in 1992 after a lengthy battle with a paper cut infection. Mrs. Zip found a copy of the 1743 Poor Richard’s Almanac at his side when he passed, open to the famous Benjamin Franklin quotation: “Everything is better with pornography.”

Dear Tuffy,

You seem to be pretty smart in the ways of science and alchemy, so I am writing to you in hopes that you can help me with a dream that I have been working on for many, many years. A dream so great, that if we can create it, it will bring us riches beyond our wildest dreams.

I am of course talking about –

The Water Slurpee.

In the dog days of summer, there is nothing on this green and blue marble we call home better than an ice cold Slurpee.

However, regular Slurpees are filled with sugar and calories and Blue Dye #17, and no one wants hang out with a hyped up fatty with blue teeth. Sometimes you can find Diet Pepsi Slurpees, but it’s usually in the spinner that is broken so it comes out all watery and not very Slurpee-like.

I’ve tried making Water Slurpees at home, but so far, it has not gone very well.

The first time I tried it, I just put a bowl of water in the freezer and then went back every 30 minutes with a fork and stirred up the forming ice to try to make the Water Slurpee that way, but after a couple of hours of doing that I lost track of time and fell asleep on the couch watching a Law & Order marathon on TNT. Next thing I knew, Chris Noth had been replaced by some guy who looked like he had coconut for a head and I had a bowl of frozen water.

The next time I thought I was on to something. I filled my blender with ice and then filled it half way with ice-cold water, just like when I get those Jose Cuervo margaritas in a jug. Well, I guess I wasn’t thinking about cold with cold, because when I hit “blend”, the cold water just stuck to the ice and I just got a blob in the bottom of the blender. I guess I needed another type of molecule or something in there so the H20 doesn’t mate with the other H20. I tried jabbing it with a spoon, but stupidly used one of my wooden spoons, which ended up getting ground up in the blades. Long story short, I ended up with a big ice cube with splinters.

(I thought about doing ice with hot water, but I once saw a ‘Better or Worse’ cartoon where the mom put cold water in a hot pitcher right out of the dishwasher and it broke and then bratty Michael and the dog Farley laughed at her. I’m already down a wooden spoon, and I don’t want to risk the blender too.)

Well, I’m rambling on and on here Tuffy, but if you could help me figure out a way to make Water Slurpees, I promise we can name then after you. Turpees or something. However, we’ll still split the riches.

Thanks for your help,
Turpees #1 Fan

Dear Turpee Fan Nonpareil,

I am shocked and saddened by your desire to make me a part of your sins against nature. Why not a cottage cheese Slurpee? It’s no more an abomination against God than your Turpee.

Slurpees exist solely as a syrup delivery vehicle. They are meant to make sugar even more dangerous and delicious than before. To pull the syrup from a Slurpee is to pull the unidentifiable filling from a Twinkie or Brett Favre from the Packers. One only exists to support the other as an otherwise useless host body. Without that important thing, the significance of the other becomes perfunctory at best.

However, I am inclined to help you in your quest for the convenience store equivalent of liquid tofu in no small part because of the intriguing photo essay enclosed with your letter. (So many uses for a Slurpee straw; who knew?)

I stepped into the high security wing of Tuffy Laboratories earlier this week to study this issue further. Here are the results:

First, I look good in a lab coat. I often wear just a lab coat around town and ask people if they want to see my test tube. I get more takers than you would initially guess because I look just that good in a lab coat.

Now, to the matter at hand. A brief recreation of your experiments proved out your analysis, TurpeeLover53@aol.com: ice clumps, wood splinters, and Chris Noth just isn’t that inspiring as an actor.

Then I did the unthinkable: I did some research into the matter. Apparently, all carbonated frozen drinks are created by mixing the syrups with filtered water and then injected with carbon dioxide. The sweet/cold/gassy mixture is then slipped into a cylinder surrounded by cold coils that keep the mixture below the normal water freezing point. The cylinder is scraped from the inside and churned constantly.

The combination of the sugar crystals, the air, the water with impurities removed, and the churning both help prevent the water from being able to form large crystals and break down any large crystals formed. This makes it easy to get your syrup up through those gaping straws.

You haven’t given me a lot to work with. You’ve taken out nearly all of the ingredients needed for small ice crystals. Artificial sweeteners are out. Supercooling is Right Out. Really, there’s only one part of the process still standing: chipping at the ice fervently to keep it tiny.

Considering your distinct lack of a Slurpee machine you can crank to 11, here’s your best bet: grind down the ice and club soda as best as you can with your pathetic non-industrial blender, pour the mixture into one of those novelty frozen mugs, and shove it in the freezer for a few hours with an ice pick attached to one of these:

Cat

Advantages: Will fit nicely in your freezer; will claw the hell out of anything you love; requires little investment
Disadvantages: Easily distracted; hard to train; slight risk of catsicle

Small Child

Advantages: Will fit well enough in your freezer; will work hard for your meager affection; doesn’t know well enough to bitch
Disadvantages: Must constantly nag to work harder; child labor laws limit the number of Slurpees you can get out of a child each week

Wee Man (from Jackass)

Advantages: Will fit in your freezer with enough shoving; will work hard for promise of reality series; will do just about anything for $5
Disadvantages: Will eventually figure out you don’t have a reality series; still needs $5

Good luck with your tasteless efforts. Also, please remember that Tuffy Laboratories, Tuffy Enterprises, and Tuffy himself are not liable if anything leaves your freezer in a different state of life than it entered.