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ASK MAX

January 30, 2011 Edition

Dear Max:

Where have you been? It seems like forever since you’ve posted a column.

- Missing You

Dear Missing You:

People don’t understand how busy my schedule is.

There’s this column. There’s breakfast. There’s my post-breakfast snack. There’s lunch. There’s my post-lunch snack. There’s sitting around looking adorable. There’s dinner. There’s my post-dinner snack. There’s my post-snack snack. There’s my post-snack nap. There’s my chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. There’s my bathroom break. There’s my post-bathroom break nap. There’s Big Trailer Putty-Tat, the series of novels I ghostwrite under the name Candace La Candace about a woman whose 42-pound calico kitty solves mysteries in a mobile home park. There’s my post-nap nap. There’s chasing my tail. There’s chasing Mommy’s tail. There’s my post-dinner dinner. There’s my post-dinner-dinner nap. There’s my nightly viewing of Navy Seals. There’s my pre-bedtime snack. There’s my-bedtime nap. And, of course, there’s bedtime.

I’ll try to do better. Want to help? See the end of this post.

Dear Max:

Do you know why elderly ladies wear several necklaces all at once? Do necklaces increase exponentially with age?

- Curious

Dear Curious:

That’s correct. Much in the same way that thick, unattractive hair starts to flow freely from the ears and noses of middle-aged men, necklaces first begin to organically grow from the matronly human female collarbone at age 55, and they fully mature at the rate of one every five years.

Which is good, because otherwise it would be impossible to get an honest assessment of a woman’s age without cutting off a leg and counting the rings.

In some sort of evolutionary copycat syndrome, you’ll note that an abundance of piercings have begun to organically grow from the faces of teenage girls, real housewives who aren’t really real have been organically developing all over basic cable, and Juggalos and Juggalettes* have begun organically sprouting up in areas where the educational system is extraordinarily poor.

(*If you don’t know what Juggalos and Juggalettes are—and bless you if that’s the case—I’m not going to explain it to you. You’re a human, I’m a shih tzu. You have fingers, I have paws. You can Google Juggalo faster than I eat a hot dog, and I can eat a hot dog in under three seconds. Although… if you do Google Juggalo, I cannot be blamed for the unspeakable horrors you will witness.)

Dear Max:

Should we get one puppy or two?

- Jackie

Dear Jackie:

Two. The reasons are simple: Get two puppies, and that’s twice as many puppies who get a good home. (I’m presuming you’ll provide a good home, and considering you’re one of my readers, I’m confident that will be the case). (I also hope you’re going to adopt or rescue a pup and not go to a pet store.) (Seriously.)

Get two puppies, and you’ll double the karmic impact you’ll have on my fellow furballs. Get two puppies, and they’ll always have someone else to play with, wrestle with, chase around at the park.

Sure, if you get two puppies, there’s twice as much poop to scoop. There are twice as many mouths to feed, and if they like to eat as much as I do, it will be like someone accidentally left the Notorious B.I.G. one-hour cloning machine running overnight. (Which would be awesome! RIP Biggie.)

But you’ll also have twice the puppy fun, twice the puppy love, twice the puppy wonderment. It’s always better to have two of something than one.

Well, unless you’re talking about Caddyshack II… or Basic Instinct 2 … (BTW, why can’t we just stick with Roman numerals or, um, what’s the word… non-Roman ones?) … or Blues Brothers 2000 … Or Speed 2: Cruise Control

Dear Max:

If you had come up with a fake letter from a fake reader in order to fill up your quota of four letters per post, what would it be? And how would you answer it?

- John Doe

Dear John:

I’m so glad you asked. But first, please allow me to compliment you on your sharp, incisive questions. They were incredibly well written, and they leave me with the impression that you’re clearly an individual of great intelligence, wit and savvy.

John, I love you. I do. And that’s not just because of your amazing skill at crafting a letter so brilliant and succinct that Shakespeare himself just wishes he could be resurrected, if only so he could renounce all his works and set them on fire because they look like Danielle Steel novels when compared to your extraordinarily perfect letter.

I love you because you’re an Ask Max reader, which means you must love dogs (great) and you must love Mommy (I guess that’s cool, too). And I love you because you’ve provided me an opportunity to get something off my furry, eminently rubbable tummy.

I love you for reading my columns, and you love me because I provide you free funny on a regular basis. Okay, on a not-so-regular basis. Okay, on an admittedly-sporadic-but-still-more-common-than-a-Guns ‘N Roses-album-release basis. Poor Jackie the Puppy Adopter? In the roughly eight years it took me to reply to her question, she’s had time to do more adopting than if Angelina Jolie and Steven Spielberg got together and decided to run a high-production sneaker company out of their garage.

(Yeah, turns out Spielberg has a lot of adopted kids. News to me, too.)

Anywhere, here’s the answer: I really, desperately, truly, madly, deeply need some great questions. I only have two paws, and—as noted earlier in this post—I have a very busy schedule.

If you want Ask Max appearing more regularly, as in more often than every other leap year, help a doggy out: Send me some questions, and not just “Lennon or McCartney” or “Animal, vegetable or mineral?” Give me something to work with. I want to bring the funny, but a need a little more slack on this leash. Help me help you.

The better the question, the more likely it is to get answered. So take an extra few seconds and think up a really kick-tail question for me. If I get a nice, big batch of great questions, I promise more Ask Max on a more regular basis. And I think that’s something we can all get behind.

And remember, I love you all. I love you like a sausage wrapped in a ham hock wrapped in a sausage.

So send me some smart, interesting questions, and let’s keep this wagon train rolling.

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