Sexual Deviance And The State of The National Economy

Dear Ms. Bad Advice,

I’m a divorced woman in her mid- to late-thirties with an MBA from a respectable state school and more than 10 years of experience in executive-level management.  Coming out of grad school I made the mistake of signing on with Bear Stearns and complicated that mistake by staying with them.  To the end.  The very ugly, messy, fiscally disastrous …  end.

After being unemployed and near complete financial ruin for close to two years, I had an old boyfriend from my grad school days call me and offer to ‘lend a hand’ with my employment difficulties.  Long story short: he got me a job as his “Executive Assistant” (to be read: secretary) at a salary reasonable enough to get me out of hock and promises of ‘moving up at the firm’.  He was lucky enough to be a fund manager at a smaller firm that made millions from the larger financial collapse and subsequent government bail-out.  He’s up to his ears in cash and now has a federal insurance policy that keeps him employed.

As if all that weren’t humiliating enough (I graduated top of my class at grad school while this imbecile was polishing his skills at the local bar playing ‘Space Invaders’), this ‘good samaritan’, ‘helping hand’ ex-boyfriend has been taking every opportunity to indulge in the most flagrant sexual harassment.  He gropes me while I’m reaching to get a ream of copy paper.  He sends urgent pages to my Blackberry in the middle of the night and when I call him back, he drunkenly breathes into the phone, “What are you wearing?”  When the members of the office went out for drinks on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving this year, he suggested checking into a nearby motel and having a threesome with one of the younger receptionists.  When I indignantly slapped him in the face in reply, he followed with, “Okay.  How about one of the guys from the mailroom?  Just no gay stuff.”

Oh yeah: The HR Department at this firm is staffed by all of one person: my new boss’s sister.

I’m starting to impress some of the other partners at the firm (who aren’t completely simian in nature) and I know that I can get back to a place of career respectability if I’m put on the right account with the right partner.  I’ve been told by a partner at the firm that he knows I’m the one keeping my ex-boyfriend/boss’s funds solvent and that he’d dump my you-know-who in a second … if you-know-who’s dad wasn’t the Chairman Emeritus.

Is butt-pinching, obscene phone-calling, overt brushes up against my breasts, and invitations to motel debauchery worth another shot at climbing the corporate ladder?

Between a rock & (proudly advertised) hard place,

Liz

Chicago, IL

Buddy, can you spare an inappropriate sexual advance?

Dear Rock,

Though Old Bob does love him his You-Nighted States Marine Corps, he nevertheless has underlying issues with authority.  He has violently ended the lives of hundreds (if not thousands) of this country’s enemies and laid waste to more fertile acreage in his time than anyone this side of Ghengis Khan — all while under direct orders — he has also, nevertheless, been known to beat into paralysis s**t-breathed officers, the odd ‘journalist’, and back-stabbing CIA operatives.  Because of his rather unique ‘skill-set’ (i.e., unrestrained mayhem), leaders of several administrations have seen fit to keep Bob among the civilian population rather than locked away in some Eastern Bloc dungeon.

For that, I am grateful.  When something that is impeding the way of American progress in a foreign territory needs to explode and claim the lives of some mouthy protesting civilians, Bob is happy to re-pay his debt.

It pays the rent & keeps him neck deep in Old Grand Dad and oxycontin.

Now, just what the hell is a leprechaun doing in my ice tray?  I will twist your ethnic stereotype head off, you midget bastard!  And then I will reach down, take hold of and eat your heart you Lucky Charms looking … .

Ummm … .  Sorry about that.  Bob gets more than his share of unexpected visitors these days.  What the hell were we talking about again?

Oh yeah, your ex-boyfriend / dips**t new boss.

Back in the ‘Nam we had this thing called ‘fragging’ that kept the s**tbirds in line or on the KIA list when feathers got ruffled.  Here in the world, things are a little more complicated.  Still, it’s nothing a box of rat poison, a good bone saw, and several items I will detail below won’t make go away.

Liz, honey (and my intentions in addressing you in that matter are nothing but honorable), this is what we in the business like to call a ‘subject in need of immediate redress’.  Over the holidays, ‘threesome’ boy and you need to check into that motel he was so eager to get to before digging into the Thanksgiving turkey.  While you need to leave refreshed, invigorated, and prepared with a few vacation days, he needs to leave in several tightly packed, easily managed (30 lb.’s or less), industrial-grade plastic-wrapped segments — the kind that will fit into no more than three athletic bags (don’t want to attract any undue attention) and lay in perfect vertical lines along the space of your standard hatchback.

Prior to his making the reservation at the motel (and make sure it’s him that makes the reservation & his credit card that pays), you will make a reservation to do some ice fishing a day or two later up in the Great Lakes area.  You’ll have a guide saw you a hole in the ice, show a neophyte like yourself how it’s done, then you will present him with a fifth of Wild Turkey laced with no less than 200 mg. of Valium as a show of your appreciation.

While your guide is fast asleep, you will then relieve yourself of your ‘luggage’ into the freshly made ice-hole, drive into town and purchase someone else’s fresh catch, return to the already closing ice-hole, and awaken your guide.  In the event that your guide does not readily come to consciousness, don’t worry.  Ice fishing guides are not widely known for their emotional stability.  Dropping him off at the nearest emergency room will hardly raise an eyebrow.

While the local police may have some questions for you if you happened to have been spotted with ‘threesome’ boy at that motel before he mysteriously went missing, I’d just shrug my shoulders and blame it all on one too many Mai Thai’s at the Christmas party.  ”Wish I could remember, officers,” you can tell them in your most embarrassed, feminine hush.  ”He said he couldn’t get his soldier to stand at attention, and then it’s all a blur of him cussing and me trying to get some sleep.”

If ‘threesome’ boy is hitting on you this hard, chances are the list of his other motel-mates is a long one.

Before you know it, you’ll be tripling the return on those funds and tossing Old Bob his requisite ten percent interest.

Don’t worry about finding me; I’ll find you.

Hold still, you leprechaun sumbitch!!!

Happy days are here again,

Vietnam Bob

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