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The Tomato Nation advice column addresses your questions on etiquette, grammar, romance, and pet misbehavior. Ask The Readers about books or fashion today!
Aaaaaaaaaaand without further ado: Robert/Roberta. (It was already here, actually; don’t forget, the search function actually…functions now, so if you’re looking for older content, try that first. Top right-hand side.)
I’ve (re-)discovered a few things over the course of the recent Days Of Rage. Some of them are great!
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a lonely girl in possession of a library card must be in want of a twin. The child who spends a lot of time in books also spends …
Bee-yoo-tee-ful. I feel like this sort of thing doesn’t happen enough anymore. Whatever happened to angry anonymity on the Internet? (This, from someone who got fuh-LAMED by a roving pack of New Age-ers for not liking their friend’s band, “Book of Lies.” Chapter One: This band rocks.) Oh, 2003, I MISS you.
BEST Vine ever, hands down and by a mile.
This even beats the “I steal tomatoes to save the world from THE MAN” dude.
I think your response to Jack was the best Vine response ever, but this situation is way more amusing. (And sort of sad, once you get past the transparent deception. I hope Roberta’s figured out his/her gender issues by now.)
Jaysus… what a frickin idiot!
“Chain Mail” was still better, but not by much.
HTG, every time i read this i’m like, “WHO DOES NOT SEE THIS COMING?!”
i’m not sure whom i feel sorrier for. but i’m sure of one thing, i laugh so hard when I re-read it that it makes me look a little crazed about the face from all the redness.
dude… have you considered doing a “best of” Vine letters, with 2008 updates from the original authors? Because that might be, apart from a logistics nightmare, kind of awesome.
Yeah, the logistical-nightmare part is the main issue there. Besides which I don’t know if I could track down the original authors — or if they would admit to being the original authors. Heh.
I always wondered what happened to that woman who was married to that rich tool–his mom wanted her to have an abortion because she was having a girl and it was “family tradition” that the first child be a boy or some such rot? That and the roommates who apparently adopted and raised a bobcat. Really, really want chapter two on those.
“More naive than an Amish newborn.” I want that on a t-shirt.
Man, how the hell did I miss this one the first time around? I fondly remember Shoplifting Jack, but, damn, this one is completely off the wall. You gotta love it. Thanks for getting the rest of the old Vines up, Sars.
Omigod that is hysterical–I guess I don’t go back far enough in TN to have seen that one. Sars, can you start answering these again? Not that I don’t love “I can’t find lipstick in the right color,” but I used to LURVE the drama. Oh, dear God, the sweet, sweet drama–and you saying great things like “You don’t have a relationship if the other person doesn’t want it,” and “I know but…..NO.” Please??
By the time I finished reading that letter, I felt like I’d just finished watching an episode of Days of our Lives. Word.
Yes. Yes, I forgot the search function.
But now I have used it to locate my other favorite Vine letter of all time, the breeder-hating girlfriend who couldn’t understand why her attitude toward her prospective MIL might be turning the lady off. This is my favorite “YOU are the problem!” Vine response:
https://tomatonation.com/?p=1035
@Michiewah: I was going to say the same thing, only with “Passions”. . . or maybe “Three’s Company”.
Breeder-hater is certainly a wonderful “YOU are the jerk!” Vine incident, but my own favorite is Church Secretary. (The “Can you believe what a jerk he is? He actually expects me to make coffee, do photocopies, and run errands for him!!” lady. Sars led off, I believe, with “Dear, what exactly do you think a secretary does?”)
As far as I can tell, that one hasn’t shown up yet. Great stuff.
Just when you think you’ve seen everything in this job…Roberta. Excellent.
I really, really wish I could be you for a day, Sars. I never get letters about gender-confused best friend’s-online-boyfriend situations, and I feel that this is a serious lack in my life. (By which I mean, HAH!)
Aggghhh. It’s been a couple of hours since I snorted Coke Zero out my nose on reading the breeder-hater letter AND the Jack-the-tomato-pirate letter. Still got a headache, but it was worth it.
“The woman raised a man you fell in love with. Show her the respect that that deserves.” That’s going on a sampler in my living room when my boys hit dating age. This breeder thanks you!
I’ve never been moved to comment before, but the one that sticks in my mind – I can’t even think of a search term to find it – is the one where the friend’s husband has an ex who keeps calling and threatening and doing possibly criminal things and the husband won’t “let” the wife do anything about it or call the police or anything. Your response was, “So you know he’s fucking his ex, right?”
…and then the one where the teenager(?) writes about her friend’s father being so niiice, and wants to do things for her, and it’s all TOTALLY platonic, but she has kind of a weird feeling about it(?). And your response was, “So you know he wants to fuck you, right?” (I sense a pattern here. Clueless people are funny!)
But truly, when I discovered this site and The Vine, I spent some time reading back from the beginning, and I have to say I really do miss those types of letters. And your kick-ass (and kick-in-the-ass) advice.
@Magoozen: I think the first letter you mention is this one — https://tomatonation.com/?p=1177. I definitely remember the second one (“What do I do?!” “Don’t…go over? There? …Really?”).
Oh christ… “Bad manners don’t make you better than anyone.” THAT’S what belongs on a tee-shirt.
@Sarah D. Bunting: Nope, that’s not it, as I recall it, but I may be “misremembering.” It was the “friend” of the wife writing, and the lights and sirens were way too bright and loud, so to speak. And the ex was kind of scary and threatening. And the wife was all, “Okay, she did something to my car, but Hubby says he’ll handle it and not to call the police, so I must trust in my husband…”
Second one? Yup, that one. Totally.
I believe I left off in early 2004 before the migration. Yes, I kept track.
Oh man, I also miss the bad old days of the Vine advice. It’s what hooked me on this site. The produce advice can be useful, but… I miss the real Vines!
@DensityDuck: OMG Chain Mail! That’s my favourite too :) “Chain mail? CHAIN MAIL? You actually still want to sleep with this asswad? DO YOU HEAR YOURSELF?”
Word on missing the drama and clueless kids Vines. I got here originally through a link at TWoP, and stayed for the Vines and excellent essays.
Speaking of essays, how are Little Joe and The Hobe these days?
*sigh* I just love the “classic” vine questions! Thanks for the links, everyone…now I’m off to read…
I add my voice to the chorus that misses the old Vine. Dear Abby, Dear Margo, and Annie’s Mailbox just don’t cut it. I also want to hear how Little Joe and Hobe are doing.
Hear hear! Bring back the old Vine questions! Even if it’s just a few days a week.
As much as I appreciate the kind words, the “old Vine” questions aren’t going to play as big a role as they once did on the site. I started the column eight years ago (…I know! Were we ever so young?…), and after eight years, you just plain run out of ways to say that friendships have a lifespan, or that you can’t stay friends with a guy you’re in love with, or that if you don’t want the cat shitting on the bathmat you’ve got to pick that terry mofo up, or whatever it is.
I’ll still do some, but the five-a-day-four-days-a-week era is, I’m afraid, over. You want your sister to cover those tats in your wedding, you know damn well what I’ll tell you to do about it by now. Heh.
But I wouldn’t mind some input on how to present The Vine — do you like it how it is now, kind of cazh? Should I bundle them all together and make it a weekly feature? A weekly feature with ATR questions separate? An open thread for ATR questions?
Discuss.
As for the cats, don’t worry. They’ll be back. The fat one is having a tooth pulled today, so he’s staying at the vet for the day and the orange one is King Shit of Fuck Mountain over here. Wait ’til he finds out it’s not permanent.
You know, I was just thinking the other day that we hadn’t heard much about the cats lately! I generally already have my own cat related drama going on at home (climbing into my box spring, for instance), but I always appreciate knowing that I’m not the only one who is owned by derranged animals. :-)
I’m fine with the Vine the way it is now, just kind of whenever you get a good one and have time to answer it. I don’t think Ask the Readers needs to be that regular, either, because that’s kind of something that depends when you get it, too. Now that the whole site is kind of blog formatted, the lack of regularity seems to work for me.
I’d like a weekly feature that ends with an ATR question — you know, if this was My TN Utopia. But.. really, I like the Vine however it grows, so just do your thing, Sars.
(Ahem. “However it grows.” Am genius. GENIUS, I tell you.)
First, King Shit of Fuck Mountain? BWAH! OMG, I have a coworker who thinks he is that, and now I so want to tell him he’s not!
I miss having the Vine everyday as much as anyone, but I get what you are saying. I figured that was why they had become few and far between.
I’d like Ask the Readers to remain its own separate entity, every Friday.
I’ll throw out a wild suggestion here-if you are tired of answering the same kind of advice questions over and over again (and I don’t blame you)-how about letting the readers take a stab at it? Monday through Thursday you just post a Vine advice letter and throw open the comments and let the readers run with it. I think that would be awesome.
I would vote for the way you’re doing things now. If you get one that you absolutely have to answer, just post it. Or every now and then do a grammar special or ATR special. Whatever, I trust you.
I kind of like how it is now: a Vine ( now usually an ATR, but that’s ok) whenever a good question pops up, mixed in with the rest of the content, here and there. (On a side note, I am really enjoying the book and movie reviews and the comments that follow.) I think we all know that if you get another “Robert/Roberta”, we’ll see it here, so there are no worries about missing out where any future “outrageous Vines” are concerned!
Hard not to miss “24 Vines in 24 Hours”, though. Nostalgia!
…ATR questions? Like, Automatic Tampon Remover?
*****
Didn’t you already do a “Best Of The Vine Contest” once? I remember a bunch of voting about that.
*****
The thing about the Vine is that half of the questions always seem to boil down to “there’s this thing that I want to do, but I’ll feel guilty if I do it. Tell me that it’s okay to do it, so that I can transfer the guilt onto someone else.”
I think I prefer to read Vine letters bundled together rather than separate entries. Although for Ask The Readers letters, it does make more sense for each to have its own thread of responses. So: bundle them, but keep ATR separate.
Is it funny that all of the other letters from that Vine seem new to me (as in: don’t remember them at. all.), but the Robert/Roberta one came FLOODING back to me after I read about two sentences of it?
That really was the best one ever. And I wish we had a follow-up to find out whether Mary ever picked up on the fact that she was “dating” a woman. (And that she was an idiot for not knowing – admitting? – it for all that time.)
I will ALWAYS remember Robert/Roberta. When it first came out, I actually reread it about five times over the course of the week, so gleefully incredulous was I. I really, really hope it wasn’t bogus.
I’d enjoy Vines bundled together, I think, with ATR questions separate. Even if it’s just one or two letters weekly, I like getting a regular gossip-y fix. It’s something to look foward to.
King Shit of Fuck Mountain, ah ha ha ha ha haaa! I need THAT on a T shirt…
I miss the cats too. I followed a link from a TWoP recap to the Roomba essay, and that was it. Haaaa.
Vines, I like how they are now, I think. Easier to find if you’re looking for one when they’re separate rather than bundled, and I like the ask the readers ones separate from the advice ones so all the comments are basically on topic.
You run a tight ship. As you were.
Love the old Vine questions – I whiled away many an hour at my last job on those. To this day, when an issue comes up – family life, work relationships, friendships, I think WWSS (What Would Sars Say?). Seems to work pretty well :) I vote a weekly column, inlcuding the ATR. Gotta have my weekly ration of peeking into the lives of others.
@Sarah: Heh, I can just picture Hobey strutting around all, “Hooray, I am an ONLY CHILD once again!” and then his little face falling when you bring Joe home tomorrow: “Oh, crap. *Him* again.”
ADHD means that any time there’s something new on the site, I’m happy. Hey, look! It’s different!
I do think there needs to be an all-call for ‘where are they now?’ updates for the more outrages Vine letters. I mean, if readers have followed you this long, why wouldn’t the people who’ve actually written for your advice? The Robert/a writer may not be following this particular set of comments, but they might the main page.
Ah, the Vine; it whiled away so many long workdays. I used to read the letter and then try to guess what Sars was going to say (it came out about 50/50, heh). Thanks for the memories :D
My all-time, hands-down favourite was the vegan who accidentally ate some tuna and being UNABLE TO LIVE with the GUILT! THE GUILT!!
I agree with @Sara’s suggestion. And “King Shit of Fuck Mountain” just made me snort coffee out my nose. Hee.
ooh, Anna, me too!!!
I seem to recall her asking Sars how she could ever “heal”. She actually used the word heal. Because apparently being an omnivore for five seconds is an experience on par with losing a loved one, or being violently attacked.
I still randomly think of that and laugh.
I’ve got the Martyr Vegan right here: https://tomatonation.com/?p=709
I mean, I don’t like fish, and I can’t imagine just NOT NOTICING that there was tuna in something. It is a very strong scent.
Mostly I’ll just take what I can get and be thankful (life teaches you to lower your expectations and, well, be thankful for what there is), but…
I’ve searched and can’t find the letter where two people apparently adopted a bobcat! I MUST! read! Bobcat Letter!!!
Apparently, “My cat weighs between 16 and 30 pounds” (or 20 pounds, if it’s female) and “I have a bobcat!” are two groups of information that don’t necessarily get combined. Although if a full-grown bobcat can weigh 16 pounds, and Little Joe weighs 18.3 pounds, I can see where some people who overlook that whole your cat has a BOBBED TAIL might get confused…