Q:  What’s the appropriate tip for a wine steward?

A:  A wine steward’s life is one that may have been chosen in haste, for in the heart of every wine steward lies the shatter pieces of what once might have been.  They get the praise for judicious decisions, but are not those decisions ones that are a matter of individual taste?  If even at that, for this steward has learned to dull his senses to the mind-numbing melancholia of offering up a sliver of his talent for your trinkets of nickel and copper.  He could have been a playwrite, he cries.  A painter, a dancer, a master thespian of Olivierian proportions.  He is not about the wine, he is about art , and every vintage brings him closer to the realization that he should have been so, so much more. This, my friend, preys heavy on the mind of our unfortunate servant and eats at his very soul, so try ten percent.

Q: I am job hunting and my resume is in Word format, but a lot of places now-a-days are requiring that resumes be submitted in pdf format.  How do I turn a Word file into a pdf file?

A:  Would that we could turn our life accomplishments into something that can last forever.  We scream for the fonts of our deeds to be well met and gain us a fair shake.  We trumpet for our image headers to start a torrent of interest in who we are and what clip art we have a personal relationship with.  We flaunt our perfect alignment, never missing the real message “I am a stand-up person, straight as an arrow, that’s how I fly.”  We do not want to be interpreted as the black cloud we truly are, because, I mean, why else would we be out of work.  Try Abode whatever-it’s-called.

Q:  I am really confused by all this mortgage collapse talk.  Could I lose my home?

A:  Well, first of all, thanks for not including any details about your situation, that makes it a whole lot easier to answer that question.  Second, what is a home? Is it a roof over your head to shelter you from what you seem to be harmful to your family?  And what is it you find most harmful to your family?  The War?  Drugs?  Roving gangs of geriatric mall-walkers?  No, it’s the weather.  When you say that you want to protect your family from the elements, just come out and say you’re an elementalist.  You are prejudiced against the elements, and, in particular, rain.  You can say, in your elitist hoidy-toidy voice, “oh, Rainy Day, you’re different than dark, scary, Rainy Night.  You’re romantic, you inspire songs, and god damn if I don’t love puddles” But a Rainy Night?  Only one man loves a Rainy Night, Eddie Rabbit.  And look what the media did to him. Yes, yes, Rainy Night did have some trouble with the law back in ’74.  But those were different times; society didn’t have the stigma of a sixteen year old girl having sex with an element.  But this is 2008.  As it says in scripture, let thee without sin cast the first hailstone.

Q:  How come girls can wear guys clothes but guys can’t wear girls clothes?

A: Quit talkin’ stupid.