Miss's Mailbox

Dear Miss Begotten,
Did a dingo really eat that baby?
-Arf

Dear Arf,
Woof. Miss Begotten has undertaken an extremely thorough due diligence in order to attempt to definitively answer your question. I donned safari jacket and pith helmet and ventured deep into the bush in pursuit of my quarry -- because I've heard that's where the dingos hang. Well. It appears that the farther one treks into the outback, the badder the dingos are. Some of them were wearing colors and I'm pretty sure one was toting an assault rifle. Finally, I found that which I went in search of -- the baddest of the bad, the dingiest of the dingos. And let me tell you, he was one bad hombre. After a brief stare-down and some ceremonial sniffing and huffing, I had a few words with him -- and showed him some teeth. I'm all right, or I will be once the antibiotics kick in and the stitches come out.

After weighing the evidence derived from my eye-to-eye with the chief suspect, the answer to your question is in all probability, YEAH, he did. Lesson: If you're going to the outback, get a babysitter.

Please don't ever ask me to go back there. Those scruffy puppies scared me.

Dear Miss Begotten,
Why does evil exist?
- Trying To Be Good

Dear TTB Good,
The short answer is, because it can -- because it is, has always been, and will always be. The more in-depth answer might be because there must always exist an opposite to everything in order to achieve balance. Yin has to be Yanged. Actions require equal and opposite reactions. E = MC². Yada-yada. In other words, why are you asking me? Nevertheless, it does occur to me that if no evil existed, would not good lose its value? Yeah, you know you'd take it for granted and never pay good a second thought if it weren't walloped by evil every now and again. Wouldn't halos tarnish if there was no evil to counteract? Without evil stalking us, what would we use our good for? And what would we gossip about?

Nonetheless, Miss put the pith helmet back on and stomped off in quest of evil to get a first-hand look at it. My thinking was that if I could get at the very heart of the matter, surely I would have some sort of quasi-epiphany regarding the nature and properties of evil. Yes, I walked through the Valley of the Shadow, yada-yada. I have only one thing to say to you, TTB Good. Don't ever ask me to do that again! They don't MAKE enough holy water. There is truly a lot of evil in this world and it scares the crap out of me, never mind that it has a right and a duty to exist.

If you have a question you'd like answered next week, send it in. You never know.

TWISTED LINGUISTICS tried feeding these Words Gone Wild to evil dingos, but they tucked their tails and ran -- and left me with dingo barf to clean up.

accomedate - Unprotected speed dating.

dosent - He refuses to take the medicine.

somethink - The mindset necessary to comprehend Doublespeak, Newspeak, etc.

milita - A rag-tag band of badly trained, unarmed paramilitary guys.

On the 9th day of Christmas, your true love gave to you ___________. Now pretend that I'm blind and describe it in exquisite detail to me, please.