In these bewildering, tumultuous, often terrifying times, we all could use some extra helpings of unbiased guidance and compassion. With that in mind, we present the debut of our new contributor Chad Vice and his monthly advice column, “A Tad of Advice with Chad Vice.”
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Dear Chad,
I am 27 years old and terrible at making friends. I just get so anxious trying to talk with people, I struggle to put together more than a few words of boring small talk in any conversation. You seem like an interesting and sociable person. What can I do?
Gene F in Burlington, VT
Hi Gene!
Do you bathe? My greeting reminded me of how important good smells are in socializing.
The best thing I can say to you is: be honest.
Honesty is like a compass; it will point you in the right direction.
If someone says to you
“What do you think of that sunset”
And you say
“It makes me think of mesothelioma”
And he says,
“I’m so sorry who did you lose?”
Marry him.
Does that answer your question?
Dear Chad,
My wife and I have been married for four years now, and are preparing to conceive our first child. However we’ve begun having serious disagreements that we didn’t discuss or even anticipate earlier in our relationship. For instance, I want our child, regardless of their gender, to be named “Fritz,” after my all-time favorite film director Fritz Lang. Similarly, it’s also very important to me that the decor of our child’s nursery be primarily influenced by the German Expressionists of the early 20th Century. On the other hand, my wife insists upon a more Bauhaus-influenced nursery, and is adamant that our child be an amphibious kleptomaniac named Carlos William Carloses. Is there any way for us out of this troubling impasse?
Buford W in St Louis, MO
Buford, A lot of things in this life are terrifying and unpredictable. Like having a child. So, I say, live in the moment. Get specific about how you go about conceiving the child. Live out the fantasies. Maybe one of you is into pretending to be a pony. Learn as much about each other as you can. Be as honest as you can be before y’all get knocked up. You will learn to compromise. You may even find that the times you seemed immovable about names and occupations for your child, somehow seem silly. So instead, you fuck because it is fun and wait.
Dear Chad,
I am a staunch pacifist, and am strongly against harming or infringing upon the basic rights of any living creature if not done in immediate self-defense. Lately my apartment has become infested with hundreds of spiders, and while none of them have bitten me or attacked me in any way, their presence has become significantly inconvenient, and I feel like it’s time to evacuate these critters & clear out their numerous webs from my home. How do I do that without making the spiders resent me and/or eventually take revenge upon me while I sleep?
Tanya P in Charlotte, NC
Hey T,
Spiders are wily bastards. Too many legs. It makes them arrogant. That said, they also are dream catchers, but instead of catching nightmares, they catch and keep other bugs.
So that’s free labor.
If you can’t sleep, for you fear their unnecessary amount of legs, etc:
Kill all or move.
Dear Chad,
There’s this guy I work with who’s very sweet, a little slow– let’s say somewhere between Forrest Gump and Lennie from “Of Mice and Men”– and extremely talkative. He and I usually eat our lunch in the break room at the same time, and while I prefer more solitary activities during my free hour, like reading or solving crossword puzzles, my co-worker constantly tries to engage me in drawn-out small-talk about the weather and local supermarkets. What would you suggest is the most polite and least confrontational way I can get him fired so I don’t have to deal with him anymore?
Andrea J in New Braunfels, TX
Hey
Hey – HEY! Kid.
Look at me.
If they fire somebody one day,
Who is to say they won’t get a taste for it?
Everyone gets Their rewards
Eventually.
It’s a waiting game.
#shawshankredemption
Your fellow player,
Chad Vice
Dear Chad,
I have this overwhelming desire to run through the streets of Times Square smacking people on the backs of their skulls with some kind of Nerf-style bat. Not hard enough to cause any fractures or concussions or any serious injuries, but just hard enough to, say, make them think twice about walking super-slowly in the middle of crowded sidewalks with music blasting in their ear-buds and their stupid faces glued to their smartphones and apparently no fucks given about their fellow pedestrians. If I did succumb to this desire, I would fully cooperate with police upon my apprehension, and serve whatever sentence the state deemed just, because I think it would be totally worth it. Is this ethical?
Victor C in New York, NY
IFEELTHAT
Victory,
Seek victor C.
What you do they just
Can’t see.
With out a telescope or something.
You could contribute to that mess.
But what they do There.
As loud as they can in places,
Like times squared
YOU
You do in the st(f)ar(t)s
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CHAD VICE first identified with Play-Doh. He is a nut in a nutcrackers world. He prefers bold musical choices and sitting all the way through movies’ credits. He is here to hear you. He has studied under Merlin and your Mom.
Do you need some advice from Chad Vice? Email your questions & quandaries to FLAPPERHOUSE at gmail dot com, then pray to Athena and blow a kiss to the cosmos…
FLAPPERHOUSE 