Take my friend and personal sass-o-meter, Jillo, for example. Her parents arepretty damn sassy themselves. It's no wonder she's so fullof saucy commentary. She's been raised in an environmentthat promotes the use of sass as a tool for survival.
Many creatures rely on the use of attitude to benefittheir existence. Those feisty creatures of the night thatdig into your trash for a midnight meal, know full well thatif you catch them, you'll kick the heck out of 'em. Butdoes it stop them? No, because they've got guts. They've gotthe attitude it takes to survive.
On the other hand, as I've said before, there are thosewho don't understand the advantage of having a personalidentity. They wait for others to find the path to the joysof life, resigned to secondhand subsistence. They talksome talk, but never walk the walk. They fail to realizethe obvious.
It ain't no big thing if the nut fails to fall at all.
Dear Allison, I have a beautiful oak tree in my front yard. I love acorns- their color, their texture, oh yeah! The problem I haveis that squirrels keep eating all the acorns before they canmake it to the ground. I hate them. They mock me. Can yourecommend a predator I can purchase (or rent) to rid me ofmy problem? Dan the Man from East Pakistan
Dear Dan, I'm sure you could buy a nice .22 andshoot the hell out of all the squirrelsin "your" tree. However, these innocent, indigenoussquirrels are probably just acting on instinct. Do youthink squirrels are immune to hunger? Or that a squirrelshould not live in an oaktree simply because you happen to put a housenearby? If the acornsaren't making it to the ground, why don't you get off yourass and get climbin'? Dear Allison, I want to write some HTML and need to know where to find thebest info (oh, and do you know any pickup lines that wouldwork on computer chicks?) Robert
Robert, For HTML pointers you could try Jeff's handysampler on the subject. As far as picking up "chicks,"go to a barnyardand make some clucking noises - maybe you'll get one. Ifyou want a woman,however, stop calling us chicks and learn a little respect. Dearest Allison, Is thatreally you! I mean the picture of the blonde with longluscious eyelashes. If it is you, have you ever thoughtabout modeling? If you are interested, post this with ananswer and we will talk. I've got a good eye! HUH!
HUH! yourself, pal. You send methe contract and the check in advance, then I decide if wetalk.
Dear Allison, My girlfriend is a selfish conniving twit who only thinksof herself. How do I change her attitude, so she mightbehave like a human being instead of a succubus? Drained Dry
DearDry, My advice is to get out. You want a girlfriend who is a "selfish,conniving,twit"?Why? Yeah, OK, you want to change her. But comeon, that stuff doesn't even work in the movies anymore.Attitudes are learned and cultivated, they aren't changed. Dear Allison, How do Iknow, my Dear, that you aren't simply a Turing programcooked up by some clever java-guzzling programmer atHotWired? It would make a difference, you know. Imagine theoutrage if your loyal readers were to discover that behindthe pretty face were simply 100,000 lines of fiendishlyclever parsing code? Enlighten me. Rene Descartes
Rene Darling, While Ido know some fiendishly clever programming boys, none ofthem have enough time to cook up a script that could delivermy own particular brand of you-know-what. It's really me,deary, and I eat, breathe, and crap just like everybody else.
Many creatures rely on the use of attitude to benefittheir existence. Those feisty creatures of the night thatdig into your trash for a midnight meal, know full well thatif you catch them, you'll kick the heck out of 'em. Butdoes it stop them? No, because they've got guts. They've gotthe attitude it takes to survive.
Dear Allison, 
Dear Dan,
I'm sure you could buy 
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