With a Little Help From Famous People — A.J. Jacobs
For a good part of my life, I’ve been drawn to advice columns.
Today's guest columnist: A.J. Jacobs
Being somebody who is constantly plagued with doubt, reading “Dear Abby” or “Dear Prudence” has been a wonderful way to learn what is socially acceptable and what is the type of weird behavior that gets you talked about behind your back.
Unfortunately, the advice columns run in the newspaper rarely answer the type of burning questions that keep me up at night. That’s where my friends come in. I’ve been blessed with friends and family that are wonderful fountains of information and advice. Some of the advice has even been solicited.
Sometimes, though, I need help that my friends just aren’t able to provide. Whether because of my friends’ character flaws, limitations in knowledge or just because they’re tired of me asking them for advice all the time, I am forced to look elsewhere for guidance. Luckily, that’s why God gave us Famous People.
A.J. Jacobs, for example, is a cornucopia of knowledge — brimming with trivia and interesting factoids instead of fall-related accoutrement. In books such as “The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World” and “The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible,” Jacobs takes readers on a free-wheeling tour of the underbelly of wisdom — giving a lively guided tour of trivial stuff you never even realized you didn’t know.
A living-breathing Encyclopedia Brown, Jacobs gained his knowledge by reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica cover-to-cover over the course of one year. In addition, in pursuit of a better understanding of faith and religion, Jacobs spent an entire year living life according to the every rule in the Bible — from the biggies like the ten commandments to the minute ever-present rules and suggestions listed on every page.
It’s no surprise, then, that I’d want to read an advice column written by A.J. Jacobs. Unfortunately, Jacobs rather extensive criminal background he gained while working as a child pickpocket under the tutelage of master-thief Fagin prevents him from getting a job as an advice columnist at any respectable newspaper. That didn’t stop me from rustling up some of my own questions to solicit his responses for:
Dear A.J.,
I feel like I’ve become really pigeonholed. Everywhere I go, I get the same thing: “Oh, look there goes Man’s Best Friend.” Well, bark that! Nobody ever asked me if I wanted to be best friends with Man.
Nobody ever asks me anything. It’s always “go fetch” or “roll over.” I never get a “Would you mind bringing me back that stick I foolishly threw out of arm’s reach?”
I’ve put some serious thought into it and I feel that there are cooler kids out there than Man. The problem is Man and I have been through a lot together. We’ve been pals for a long, long time. I’m afraid if I told Man I didn’t want to be friends with him anymore, I’d break his heart.
As much as I’m tired of being Man’s toady, I don’t want to hurt his feelings. How can I move beyond being second fiddle to Man and become my own canine? Is there an easy way to tell Man I don’t want to be his best friend any more?
— Barking Mad in Burbank
Dear Barking,
The easiest way to tell Man about your conundrum is to speak his language. And this is now possible, thanks to a group of intrepid Japanese scientists. They’ve invented Bowlingual, a dog-translation device that fits around your neck, analyzes the tone of your bark, and transmits the corresponding emotion to a device that your owner carries.
You’ll be fully conversant in no time, like Koko the Gorilla, who, after years of training in American Sign Language, was able to have such fascinating conversations as “cup, cup, ball, water bucket.”
— A.J. Jacobs
Dear A.J.,
While hiding from the cops, my friend has been crashing at my place for the last month. I’m not one to judge a person so I don’t care too much about what he did or how he escaped from death row, but I do mind the fact that he refuses to do the dishes.
If he expects me to cover for him and keep him safe until the heat dies down, I expect him to help me keep a clean abode. Would it be uncool of me to threaten ratting him out to the fuzz in order to clean up? I don’t want to seem like a bad guy in the whole situation, but I sure don’t appreciate finding half-eaten leftovers in the dirty sink when I come home from work.
I also don’t want to be shanked.
— Clean in College Station
Dear Clean,
I was following your question up until the last word, “shanked.” Now, I know from the Encyclopedia Britannica that the Red-Shanked Douc is a species of Old World monkey, and that a beef shank is a cut of beef from the extremities of a cow. I couldn’t figure out why your down-on-his-luck friend would hit you with a pile of meat or sic a monkey on you, so I consulted a research tool that rivals the EB’s gravitas – UrbanDictionary.com. According to the site, “shanking” refers to stabbing someone with a homemade knife, sometimes made from the metal part (the shank) of a prisoner’s boot. Aha. Although the EB enriched my life for the year I spent reading it, it’s got painfully little street cred. It didn’t even have an entry on crunk, which is already like ten years old. — A.J. Jacobs
A.J. Jacobs wrote this column in 2006. It originally ran in The Battalion, Texas A&M’s student newspaper.
An author, editor and journalist, A.J. Jacobs has a long resume of impressive writings to his name. His latest book, “The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment” collects several essays Jacobs has written about radical lifestyle experiments. The book is availble in stores September 8. Visit A.J. on the web at www.ajjacobs.com.
