Dear Kristen:
Are lighthouses still used for what they were meant for or are they just the nation’s decorative knickknacks on our coastlines?
Cameren Cousins
Herndon, VA
Dear Cameren:
I wish they were as useless as giant beautiful plastic flamingos covered in reflector tape. But unfortunately, their importance has magnified in these modern times. Apart from warning boats, canoes, and cross-ocean swimmers of impending land, they serve another function: bringing whale crime to light. Whales have taken their cue from the Somali pirates and have begun to rapidly create havoc in our peaceful seas. Stealing from ghost pirate ships, tagging reefs, and, more recently, abducting dolphin babies and selling them to infertile manatees. They do their dirty work at night and the lighthouses have been working overtime, combing the waters with their revealing beams after the alarm has been sounded by whatever sea creature can make the walk on land. Usually tattletale crabs.
Kristen
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Dear Kristen:
There’s been a lot of hullabaloo about child concussions lately. Are children more violent these days or were we just overlooked as children? The shake-off philosophy worked for us, so why can’t it work for modern-day children?
Nick Pappas
Hazelton, PA
Dear Nick:
Or perhaps are children more sleepy these days? Maybe they are using their concussions as excuses to take time-outs from working in the fields or sewing in the sweatshops. Check their tiny hands on their unconscious bodies. If their fingers are worked and bloodied to the literal bone, they are most likely faking that concussion and you should wake them up and put them back to work.
Kristen
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I think sacred music gets a bad rap. I’m working on getting it more accepted in the mainstream. Can I send you some of my organ and choral recordings?
Christian Clough
Hamilton, NY
Dear Christian:
You can certainly send it to me, but I will refuse to listen to it. You know why? Because I’m not dead yet! Everyone knows that when you die and go to heaven it’s organ and choral music nonstop. You can’t get away from it. Even when you go to your heaven hut and slam the cloud door, it’s still stuck in your head (which is no longer a human head but a beam of light). I think I’ll enjoy this nice variety of music on earth before my sacred playlist kicks off for eternity, thank you.
Kristen
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Dear Kristen:
I enjoy hamsters but guinea pigs really freak me out. My daughter, however, has her heart set on getting a guinea pig for a pet. Since they are both essentially rodents that live tragically short, wheel-spinning lives, how can I convince her to settle for a hamster instead?
Madi Schaefer
Phoenix, AZ
Dear Madi:
Just put a kitten in a hamster cage and call it a day. She won’t care that it’s not a guinea pig because kittens are the most adorable creatures in the world and possess a hypnotic power that humans are weak to. As soon as she sees that kitten mew and roll in the sawdust, she’ll say, “I love my guinea pig, I’ll call him Cider!” Important note: When the kitten inevitably becomes a cat, dispose of him. It’s uncomfortable seeing a cat in an aquarium. I guess you are doomed to have the dead pets talk no matter what.
Kristen
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Dear Kristen:
Why isn’t Pigeon Forge on the national monument registry?
Sean Stomsky
Santa Barbara, CA
Dear Sean:
To protect it from the terrorists. If you don’t think that registry is a sweet terrorist checklist, you are living in the summer of 2001, my friend. And I don’t want to live in a world where Dollywood is threatened. Worse yet, I might hate it more if the terrorists checked out Dollywood and started going there on a regular vacation basis. I don’t want to be standing in line for the Dollyland Grits, Tits, and Adventure ride and have a bunch of eager terrorists cut in front of me. Then I’d have to tell them they were cutting, they’d apologize and explain how excited they were. Then I’d tell them the Baby Jesus Sea Dragon ride is even better, and the next thing you know we’re all making babies.
Also, Reba McEntire is in charge of making the registry and everyone knows she’s jealous of Dolly.
Kristen
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Dear Kristen:
I actually do believe that the children are our future. I mean, duh. But here’s the thing. The other day I was at the park and I met this baby who I thought was kind of an asshole. I don’t want him to be part of my future. I don’t want him to be a part of the decision-making process for the United States, or a major corporation or an arts organization. I don’t trust this baby. Is there an effective way to encourage this child to go into selling cars or perhaps mattresses?
Shea St. Ives
Cleveland, OH
You’re making the mistake of thinking that the world is going to be like it is now in the future. Wake up! We are not going to have decisions or arts or the United States. That will be a sweet memory for the olds. Mattresses will be cut up and the springs will be used for scraping tools and we will eat the stuffing to live another day. We are talking three levels below Mad Max territory, because we won’t be dressed in cool leather outfits straddling mopeds. We will be wearing the only abundant resource available to us: plastic bags. What you see in that asshole baby is the apocalypse. He knows it. That’s why he’s being such a dick. You’d be a dick too.
Kristen