Dear Tell All: Recently I found a small pair of plastic women's breasts in my drawer at home. There was a hole in them and I fashioned a necklace so I could hang them around my neck. My significant other - a staunch and vocal feminist - seems to find this act offensive and demeaning to women. I see it as a really cool, humorous art form. I think we need help. She is hinting an end to our relationship if I continue to wear my necklace.
Fashionman
Dear Fashionman: Are you suicidal? You're dating a staunch feminist and you're demented enough to taunt her with a breast necklace? You might as well tease an angry bull by prodding him with his own horn. There's a reason that Paula Abdul's cheap line of jewelry doesn't include a tiny-tittie necklace: because it's just plain dumb. I could add offensive, demeaning, insulting and tasteless. You don't have to be a feminist to have that opinion - in your case, just a survivalist.
Dear Tell All: Having a pain in the ass is nothing to be macho about ("Oh, the Pain," 6/11/10). Colon cancer can strike young or middle-aged, apparently healthy people. Hopefully, Tough Guy will follow your advice, get over his embarrassment (the doctor is not going to laugh at him) and get his butt to a doctor. Also, hopefully, what he has is hemorrhoids, as that may be the best of a number of possible alternatives.
So, for Tough Guy after he sees the doctor, and for other interested readers, the home remedy that has worked for me is to take one teaspoon of blackstrap molasses by mouth two times a day. Huh? Yes, you read correctly. It took a few weeks, but now my symptoms are essentially gone, with only very rare instances of bleeding, tenderness, itching or swelling.
Tough Butt
Dear Tough Butt: Thanks for the tip! You're right: the doctor isn't going to laugh at Tough Guy. They've seen and heard it all before. I once met a med student who was thrilled to be doing his residency in Invercargill, at the southern tip of New Zealand. He said the area is filled with poorer, self-sufficient people who tend to let things go and only visit a doctor as a last resort. So he was delighted to see the festering boils and gangrenous infections that doctors normally only read about in textbooks.
Do you have a question about life or love in Madison? Write Tell All, 101 King St., Madison, WI 53703. Or email tellall@isthmus.com.
