Open Letter to Myself: Please Don't Go Drinking With the Crazy Girls from the Office

Dear Ken: Next week, you will be representing your company at "the conference." While you are at "the conference," you will be in the company of several coworkers, all of them female, between the ages of 23 and 46. These girls, as you well know, like to drink. Often to excess. This note is to remind you that no matter how much you want to, you should not go drinking with the crazy girls from the office.

Part of the reason is that you know how you get. A coupla beers and suddenly you're going on and on about how you've mastered the art of eating pussy. How you gently suck the clit and hold it between your lips, appying gradual pressure while briskly racing your tongue across it. These are not the sort of things you should be saying to women you work with. So please, don't go drinking with the crazy girls from the office.

Also, you know they like to dance. Remember that night they pulled you onto the floor with them at the Hong Kong? If you go drinking with them, you'll invariably end up dancing with them. Which means Loretta from Customer Service will sashay up to you and arch her not entirely bad ass at you, inviting you to start dry humping it to the dulcimer tones of "Paradise by the Dashboard Light." And you'll do it, because you're drunk and, well, it's a female ass. And, because you're a heterosexual dude, you'll begin to stiffen. And suddenly Loretta from Customer Service is giving you a hard-on. And that's not what you want to happen, dude. It just isn't. So please, don't go drinking with the crazy girls from the office.

Remember, also, that these girls never know when to quit. And because, as Tom Waits once sang, "the night does funny things inside a man," you'll invite them all up to your room after last call. Because you've got "the big room." The Executive Special that comes with a big-ass conference table and a wet bar. And you'll imagine them all fighting over who gets to blow you first, but they're really just coming to drain your minibar. And the closest you come to naked flesh is when Janet inexplicably pulls you into the bathroom with her, locks the door, and forces you into the shower and closes the curtain so she can take a whiz. When you come back out, you see Frances polishing off a bottle of champagne which, according to the Hyatt mini-bar pricelist, just cost you sixty dollars. You don't need to be explaining such expenses to your boss, so please, don't go drinking with the crazy girls from the office.

Dude. Seriously. Do you really want Loretta telling people that she gave you a hard-on? Just don't even give it a chance to happen. Don't get yourself into such situations. There's probably a good movie on. Hell, get a porno and spank it till the wheels fall off. But don't go drinking with the crazy girls from the office. There's just nothing good that can come of it.

Note: The conference was actually last week. And, yeah, I went drinking with the crazy girls from the office.

Open Letter to Myself from the Future

Dude, on Saturday, Neal's going to call. And you know what Neal wants to do. He wants to go to the strip joint.

This message is to tell you do not go to the strip joint with Neal.

And whatever you do, do not get drunk before you don't go to the strip club with Neal.

Because you know how you get when you walk into the strip joint and your alcohol-soaked brain gets filled up with that perfume and music and thongs and those boots. For starters, you get that look in your eyes -- you know, that glazed-over, fattened tongue, "Man, I haven't so much as touched a girl in a month" thing you do. And the strippers can spot that a mile away.

So don't talk to the strippers. When they approach you, simply tell them that you're here for a bachelor party and it's currently raging downstairs in the "Shower Room" and you just stepped out for some air but you have to get back and thank you very much. Because once you let them get you into the corner and put their arms around you and get all up in your face with those lips and that perfume and those boobs, you're toast. So don't sit down. Not there. Dude, especially not there on that corner sofa. Because then you're cornered and she's going to sit on your lap and once she does that... oh, fuck.

Alright, we can still work ourselves out of this. Again, use the bachelor party story. Even better, say you don't have any money. Because that will get her off you quicker than setting yourself on fire. But it's tough, isn't it? Because there's this gorgeous 19-year-old stripper sitting on your lap and rubbing your neck and you'd rather swallow a cup of crushed lightbulbs than move right now. And you're gonna say to yourself "How much can one lap dance hurt?" and before you know it, you're sixty bucks in the hole and all this girl has done is rub her curvaceous and hot damn! ass all over the crotch of your jeans for five and a half minutes. And then, like Keyser Soze, she's gone, and you're sitting there with a ranging hard-on, an horrific case of blue balls, and a hangover that's rapidly staking out property across your forehead.

At that point, just leave. Don't even look for Neal. Because you know where he is. He's downstairs, in the wrestling area. And he's watching the strippers wrestle these drunken buffoons and they're all covered in shaving cream and slipping and sliding across each other and you know what Neal's thinking. He wants in. But he's not going to do this alone, you see, which is why it is absolutely imperative that when Neal asks if you want to wrestle, you say no. And when he calls that girl in the American flag short shorts over and starts asking her how much, don't look at her, and especially don't look at her ass. Because then your jaw will drop at its sheer awesome-ness and she'll key into this and get all Superfly Snuka on you, dropping down on the bar, wrapping her legs around your head and pulling your nose right up against her buttcheeks. At which point you'll surrender, throwing down cash and credit cards and social security numbers and whatever else she's trying to shake out of your wallet.

So when you're back there, in the changing room, getting into a grimy pair of wrestling shorts and waiting for the "ref" to call you out to the ring, I suggest that you just run. Don't look back. Don't even collect your clothes. Just bolt out into the Sunday morning air and be done with this madness. Because once you step into the ring, you're going to realize that these chicks mean business. And it's almost like they're trying to fuck you up. And when one of them flies off the top rope to elbow you in the chest, you swear that six of your ribs just splintered. And Neal's next to you, face down in the shaving cream and getting pumelled by that redhead and you're not sure if he's even still alive, but you can't worry about that now because holyfuckingshit here comes your girl off the top rope again and all you can do is shield your package and pray god she doesn't pierce your skin. And when she actually does sit on your face, it's only to grind a couple pounds of shaving cream up your nostrils and into your eyes and down your throat. Then, just to add an exclamation point of humiliation to it all, she stands you up and pours a pitcher of ice down your shorts, painfully extinguishing whatever semblance of a hard-on you could muster at that point.

Don't even look at your credit card invoice. Because when you realize how much you just paid to have your nuts slung up, you'll want to drop some arsenic. Better to just scurry backstage, wash yourself up, and slink back to Boston.

Better yet, when Neal calls, don't even answer the phone.

Open Letter to Myself: The Hot Female Bartender Isn't Going Home With You

There needs to be an official rule for guys in bars. And that rule needs to be as follows: The Hot Chick Bartender is Not Going to Fuck You.

Seriously.

And I'm the worst offender. Seven "black and tans" and I'm drooling over the lassie behind the bar, telling her for the umpteenth time that I'm mad crazy about her and want to start a family with her or at the very least, bury my head between her legs for a good half hour. And when I stop to take a sip or breathe or vomit, there are six other guys who chime in with the same platitudes.

See, the bartender is the only woman in the bar who has to talk to us guys. At least, she has to acknowledge us. No one else has any such obligation. So the bartender hears it. And if she's ridiculously hot, like our friend in the photo above, she hears it non-stop, start of the shift right up to last call. Drunken buffoons in our Banana Republic shirts, thinking we can score the hottie who's working the tap. Or that we're the first guy in the world who's told her that joke or complimented her on her ridiculously tight, round ass. Or that we're the only dude she's ever shown that tattoo.

But in the end, it's always the same. Her Levi's get stuffed with tips. I walk out with nothin' but a headache. And a raging hard-on. And it's go home, puke, take the intravenous Vitamin C, H2O and aspirin elixir, then come back again tomorrow.

Because I'm sure she'll eventually cave.

An Open Letter to My Facebook Friends, Who Are Dating, and On Vacation Together

Dear Facebook Friends, Who Are Dating, and On Vacation Together,

Congratulations on your newfound togetherness! We are all so very happy for you. We are all also pleased that even in this down economy, you've managed to scrape together the funds for a nice Mexican getaway.

But please, we're begging you--shut the fuck up about it.

You've been nonstop since you boarded the plane. Posting the Blackberry pictures of each other smiling. Pictures of the palm trees. Becoming fans of the restaurants you've mentioned in your status updates. Tagging each other as you fawn over how excited you are to be there. With the coolest girl in the world.

But here's the thing: If you were really having a truly amazing time, we wouldn't be hearing from you. The last thing you should be doing on a romantic getaway is being anywhere near your phone. Vacation is the one time we truly live--drinking all day, lounging on a hammock, incorporating foodstuffs into our sexual activities because it's not our job to get the stains out of the hotel sheets.

So, please. Turn the Blackberry off. Put it in the depths of your suitcase. Fuck each other's brains out. And, please, keep the graphic details to yourself when you come back Stateside.

Sincerely,

Everyone