Q: What Are The Top Ten Things To Stress Out Teens?

A: When I feel helpless and hopeless after a long day of clock watching and pretending to work at my awful job, stressing out teens gives me a chance to regain a feeling of power. I may not be able to control my own life, but I can briefly control the anxiety of a teen. On most days that's enough. On the rest, there's alcohol.

You can:

 - Steal their girlfriend with the promise of alcohol, which as an adult, you can legally purchase.

 - Pretend to be a big-time college football scout. Call their home. Eat dinner with the family. Imply that his parents have a loveless marriage. Watch highlight videos. Ask if you can get any tape on Mom. Go to the big game. Spend the whole game chatting up his mother. After the game, when he asks how he played, shake your head and say "Can't say. I'm more of soccer guy."

 - Set their house on fire. (Note: This technique will stress out anyone, not only teens.)

 - Pose as their school's guidance counselor. Meet with students individually and ask about their masturbation habits. At first, they will be reluctant to discuss masturbation, but you will soon win their trust, thanks to your scholarly beard and tweed jacket. (Note: Grow beard and don jacket before attempting ruse.) Once they've confided their masturbation habits and frequency, cross your arms, stroke your beard, peer over your glasses and say, "That's all fine, but are you doing it correctly?" Immediately leave the room.

 - Find a victim of cyber-bullying, put your arm around him or her and whisper, "It's okay. These are the easiest days of your life. It gets much, much worse."

 - Hand them a two page block of text without pictures or graphics. Tell them you will give them $10,000 if they can read to the end without sweating or crying.

 - When you see a small group leaving a movie on a Friday night, laughing and joking and quoting their favorite lines, run them down with your car.

 - While wearing dark glasses and using a cane to walk, as a blind person would do, approach a boy in the video game section of Best Buy and him that you are him from the future and you've traveled back in time to undo a life of horrible decisions. Mumble "If only we had know the truth about Facebook."

 - When the cashier at Burger King asks what kind of drink you'd like, say "Whichever one will melt a corpse the quickest."

 - Make eye contact, speak slowly and ask them questions about their day.

I could go on. There are 73 ways to stress out a teen, but you asked for ten. Ten is what you get.

Q: What two things make microwaves more dangerous?

A: Microwaves are death traps. If the door is broken, they can cause radiation poisoning. If you put metal in them, they will explode. They can turn any food into a weapon. To make them more dangerous you'd have to replace the handle with a piece of razor sharp steel, or replace the window with a laser that causes blindness. Only a fool would do that.

On an unrelated note, would you have any interest in buying a microwave? I don't use it any more, but it works great. Trust me.

I'd look you in the eye if I could, but the doctors say I have to keep them bandaged for another month. Let's shake on it. Don't be alarmed by my prosthetic fingers.

Q: Why work in a restaurant?

A: Everyone needs money, at least until we all come to our senses and replace our broken capitalist system with a system based on exchanging hand-drawn back rub coupons for goods and services; what better way to make money than by working at a restaurant, lugging hot plates of greasy food, constantly on the move, your income reliant on the generosity of  strangers too lazy or too incompetent to prepare and cook their own meals?

I see you're starting to form words with your mouth there and I'm going to stop you before you get too far. My question was rhetorical. There is no better way to make money. End of story.

In addition to the money - and I'm talking hundreds of dollars a month, more than enough to support your drug habit or deadbeat boyfriend or elderly parent - working in a restaurant has certain ancillary benefits. You get to eat all the food we throw away at the end of the night. Sure you have to fish it out of the dumpster and knock the maggots off it, but once you do, it's yours. Bon appetit. If  customer doesn't finish his soda, you can finish it. That's like three gallons of free soda a week. Free food, free soda, free sex with the restaurant manager - how much better does it get?

Let me stop you there. No better. None. Rhetorical.

Aside from the free food and drink and sex - and it's good sex; I keep a nice rhythm, and I know just when to pinch and tickle and bite - there's one benefit to working at a restaurant that you can't get anywhere else: If a child gets lost in the restaurant and stays the night, he becomes the property of our employee of the month, no questions asked. You can do whatever you want with him: teach him to sing, to fight, to talk like a robot, to pick pockets, or grift, or act as body armor - anything. Kids get lost in here all the time. Once they enter the playroom, they have a hard time finding their way out, probably because it's shaped like a maze, and we play loud Danish death metal to disorient their sense of direction. And we drug all the kids meals. Whatever the reason, there's a lot of lost kids in that playroom. Enough to build an army. An army of disoriented children, bleeding from their ears and crying for their parents. Just so you don't feel bad, the parents sign a waiver before their kids enter the playroom. It holds up in court.

So, are you going to take the job? Or am going to have to sweeten the offer with some erotic photos from my vacation to Belize?

Great. Welcome aboard. Just sign this start paperwork and you're all set. As a new member of the team, you get the first session of free sex with the restaurant manager. Slip into this panda costume and meet me in the break room. I did mention that the sex, while free and incredible, is mandatory, didn't I?

Oops. Guess you should have read that paperwork. There's a zipper in the back of the costume. It's a one piece. If the smell bothers you, don't worry, you won't have it on that long.

Q: What is a lions effect on man?

A: Before I had a lion, I had a wife, I had kids, I had a house, a nice one with three and half bathrooms, enough for everyone to use at once.  I had an important job, as an executive for a growing advertising company. I wooed clients, recruited writers and artists. I wore a suit to work, except on Fridays when I wore a designer jeans and a blazer. I had an expense account.

My son, Reggie, wanted the lion. He talked me into it. He said all the other kids in his class had exotic pets, Mike had an iguana, Tyler's parents bought him an emu, Jake got a orangutan for his 12th birthday. Reggie looked at me, tears in his eyes, snot in his nose, with a quivering lip, and asked "Don't you love me, Dad? Is that why you won't buy me a lion?"

I didn't love him. He had been an accident. My therapist told me I could never let the boy know, not ever, not for any reason, no matter what he did or said, no matter how much he disappointed me, no matter how often his presence reminded me of the beach house in Maui I could not afford thanks to his need for food and shelter and private education.

I bought him a lion. He named it Emmet. I thought that would be the end of it, and I could go back to ignoring him and dismissing his questions with a nod of the head, a raise of the eyebrows, by saying, "That's great, Reg. Daddy's busy."

When I bought Reggie the lion I bought three hundred pounds of ground beef. I thought that was the end of it. The lion ate the beef in four days. On the fifth day Reggie asked me to buy more food. I nodded my head. I raised my eyebrows. I said, "That's great, Reg. Daddy's busy." I finished my drink. I searched the internet for pictures of college girls posing in bathroom mirrors. I was not busy. I did not buy more food.

On the sixth day the lion ate Reggie. On the seventh day the lion ate my wife and my other children. On the eighth day my company's accountant questioned me about my expense account. Had I really bought 300 pounds of ground beef? Had I really bought a lion? I nodded my head, raised my eyebrows and told him I was busy.

On the ninth day I lost my expense account. On the afternoon of the ninth day, I lost my job. I still have the lion. He's stayed with me through it all, through the toughest time in my life. I wouldn't be where I am today without this lion. They say a dog is man's best friend. They lie. Man's best friend is a lion. I've never been so happy in my life. Although that may be shock. The lion took a big chunk out of my thigh a minute ago. Looks like he's coming back for more.

Q: Is there more energy when field mice eat spiders or when they eat oats?

A: When I began my experiments with field mice, I was sure that eating a diet of spiders would give field mice more energy than eating a diet of oats. Pretty damn sure. I must admit I entered into my hypothesis somewhat haphazardly, as I have never worked with field mice, or with a controlled experiment, or in a lab, or with other people. Most of my previous experiments had been strictly theoretical: How many rhinoceros could fit in the International Space Station? Who would win in a fight between Batman and The Scarlet Pimpernel? Could the Detroit Lions win the Super Bowl with a robot for a quarterback? That sort of thing.

Despite my lack of actual scientific expertise, I was awarded a grant and given a budget to conduct my experiments. Again, I admit I may have jumped ahead of myself a little bit. I could have started small, say with ten mice and ten spiders and one bag of oats, and see if my hypothesis proved true. I didn't start small. I bought 3 million field mice, spending most of my budget. In order to save money on the spiders, I bought a box of 7-legged tarantulas from Pakistan. I figured it wouldn't matter.

It did matter. Turns out, field mice get most of their energy from oats and very little from spiders. Turns out field mice don't eat irregular Pakistani spiders. Irregular Pakistani spiders do, however, eat field mice. At an alarming rate.

Turns out irregular Pakistani spiders get a tremendous burst of energy from eating field mice. They also develop tremendous aggression. And a tremendous appetite. And they grow. At an alarming rate.

I guess you could say my experiment was a failure. The grant board did, even after I tried to go back and change my application to say that I intended to prove that feeding spiders a diet of field mice would create an army of gigantic, blood-thirsty, super-intelligent spiders who could read minds. You know, for military use.

Didn't I mention they could read minds?

Well, they can. Don't think about killing spiders.

I've put my failed experiment behind me and I'm focused on my next project: I intend to prove that I can save the world from an army of gigantic, blood-thirsty, super-intelligent spiders who can read minds by sleeping with the Maxim Hot 100. I mailed the grant application this morning. Fingers crossed.

Q: How can you use corpse in a sentence?

A: I just did:

Your partner is a corpse.

That's what I said a minute ago. Then you smiled and nodded and I thought you understood and you'd stop crying and stop kissing her and I wouldn't have to back away slowly and run.

But then you got this blank look on your face, this far away look like you could see right through me, through everything, that look made me want to back away slowly and run and run until my legs gave out, but I didn't because I knew you'd catch me, and you asked what corpse means and I smiled because I thought you were joking and I pointed to your partner, dead on the ground.

But you didn't smile or laugh or seem to understand what I was saying, and then you asked again what corpse means and I said "a dead body" and you asked me to use in a sentence and I said "Your partner is a corpse" and now you asked again and I'm kind of at a loss for words.

Your partner is dead. She is a corpse. She is that corpse. That's why she's not happy to see you. That's why she can't hug you back. Stop trying to force her arms. Rigor mortis makes them too stiff.

I'm guessing you haven't been a detective that long. And I'm guessing you and your partner had a relationship that was more than professional. That probably makes her death hard to accept. If it were up to me, you could stay there holding her and crying all day. But it's not up to me. We have a crime scene to process. I need you to step away from the corpse so I can take her down to the morgue for an autopsy.

You probably don't want me to explain what autopsy means.

Q: What are the 5 things the determine personal health?

A: A healthy lifestyle depends on:

1.) Eating a balanced diet, low in sodium, sugar and fat.
2.) Exercising daily.
3.) Refraining from smoking, drug use or drinking alcohol.
4.) Getting plenty of sleep, at least 8 hours a day,
5.) Not having an alien gestating in your rib cage.

You were so close.

Q: What type of things were drawn on cave walls?

A: That's an excellent question, Tommy, and that's exactly why we took this field trip, to see some cave drawings with our own eyes and experience what it would have been like to live thousands of years ago, before TV, before movies, before man could even read or write. I can't wait to see what we find. Let's take a look.

Here we have a drawing of a family around the fire, looking up with awe at a man in elaborate dress, perhaps a soothsayer or wise man. And here we see a warrior saving his bride from a mammoth, slaying the beast with   a spear.

It's like stepping into a time machine and traveling back to visit our ancestors. We can see how they ate, how they lived, how they danced and, if you look over here, how they ... oh dear ... how they made love.

Let's move on. Here we have a still life, of some sort of gourd, or maybe a banana, next to a pair of oranges -  okay let's keep moving. Come on everyone! Eyes down! Eyes down!

Stop taking pictures, Tommy!

Hurry along, hurry along.

Okay, this is more like it. A herd of animals. Look at the details, the arc of the horns, the grace of their movement. These drawings are the work of a true artist. We can see the animals, running through the plains, leaping over a stream, running right into the spear of a waiting warrior. I think that's his spear. I hope that's his spear.

Oh, dear.

Move along, class, move along. Kelly, don't look at that!

Run, children, run! Over here, over here!

Oh, here's a nice one. This is magnificent. Look at the scope. Thousands of tribes coming together, walking through the canyon to worship a space ship. A space ship. What the fuck?

I quit. Field trip's over. Bus leaves in five minutes.

Tommy, please stop taking pictures.

Q: Why does Chaucer portray himself as a knight in the Canterbury Tales?

A: For centuries, writers have written themselves into their own work. Take a look at The Bible, written by God. God puts himself at the center of everything: he's either in every scene, or the subject of every scene. In the sequel, his ego fulfilled, God took a step back and focused more on his son, much to the delight of millions of  fans.

Writing is hard, lonely work, often unrewarding. Writers love to remind readers that the words on the page did not magically appear, nor were they written by an elf or fairy, nor are they result of an infinite number of monkeys banging away at an infinite number of keyboards for infinity; human beings write books, humans with hearts, with souls, humans looking for attention, humans looking to get laid. What better way to woo a potential lover than by writing a story where you appear as a knight, or a wizard, or a crime-fighting cyborg from the future?

The tradition of writers putting themselves in their own work continues to this day, as seen in the works of M. Night Shymalan, portraying a writer whose work will change the world in Lady in the Water, Quentin Tarantino, portraying a former hitman with a loving wife in Pulp Fiction, and George Lucas, portraying the role of inter-galactic crime boss, Jabba the Hut in Star Wars.

By the way, did you happen to read that story I gave you about the crime-fighting cyborg from the future named Ryan? Pretty sexy stuff, huh?

So, how about we grab dinner and maybe I'll let you find out if I'm really half-man, half-machine?

Q: How do you beat twitch in star wars knights of the old republic?

A: Years ago, before you were born, I left my home in Schenectady and boarded a train bound for Milwaukee.  I sat down next to a man who bothered me. I don't know what it was about him, maybe his mismatched socks, one navy, one maroon, his crumb-covered vest, the odor of old feet wafting from his belt, or his uneven beard, but it was something, something I didn't like.  I would have switched seats had I could but I could not, so I sat with my head down, hoping he would depart soon.

He rode all the way to Milwaukee. Along the way, the woman behind me began to convulse. She kicked the back of my seat, slapped me in the head, fell to the ground foaming at the mouth. The whole time, the man in the seat next to me clapped his hands and giggled. "Is that Joan Rivers?" he shouted, over and over again, clapping louder. "Is that Joan Rivers? Is that Joan Rivers? Is that Joan Rivers?" It was not Joan Rivers. It was an elderly epileptic struggling to live. I never thought I'd see a worse case of timing than that man asking that question while that woman writhed in the aisle. Until right now. Until you lept from your seat, shouted your question about Star Wars and ruined your grandmother's funeral.

Congratulations, son, you've asked the most ill-timed, poorly thought out question I have ever heard. You deserve a trophy. I'll leave for Milwaukee tomorrow to pick it up. Hopefully that guy still has it.

Q: Why does the silica content of the seawater in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans increase as the depth of the water increases?

A: That's a simple question, with a simple answer, an answer any marine biologist knows by heart. You see, when the depths of the oceans increase the, uh ... silica, um, well it also, um ... increases ... because ...

I know this, but I can't remember the words I need to say to explain it to you. This is basic marine biology, first day stuff, and as a marine biologist I should have this answer in my back pocket.

You can tell I'm a marine biologist because I'm wearing this lab coat, and these goggles, and my ID badge says "Marine Biologist" on it, right beneath my name. You can tell I'm a marine biologist because I'm telling you I'm a marine biologist. Who would lie about that? Who would spend their life coveting the position of marine biologist, shadowing a leader in the field for days, learning his every move, his every thought, dressing like him, acting like him, until one day he could become him, until one day he could burst into his lab, beat him over the head with a whale bone and steal his identity? A crazy person, that's who.

I am not a crazy person. I am a marine biologist. Again, I point you in the direction of my ID badge.

I spilled some acid on my badge, that's why you can't read my name. I was using the acid to melt some garbage, a common procedure for marine biologists. I was about to write my name on my badge but you walked into the lab and began haranguing me with questions about water depths and silica content and the whereabouts of a fictional Dr. Throckmorton, a man I've never heard of, nor seen. I became distracted and failed to write my name on my badge.

My name is not important. What's important is that I am a marine biologist.

I know whales are not fish; whales are mammals. Many people don't know that, but, as a marine biologist, I know it by heart. I also know the correlation between silica content and water depth by heart, but as I said before, your sudden appearance in my lab, while I was hastily fixing my name tag, and sliding a  large, heavy sack of garbage under my desk, startled me and made me forget the most basic of marine facts, aside from the fact about the whales. This is really all your fault. In all my years as a marine biologist, I have never been so disrespected in my own lab. I'm going to have to ask you to leave.

If you're not going to leave, I'm going to have to ask you to help me carry the large, heavy sack of garbage to the incinerator. If the garbage begins to stir, or moan, or scream, or claim to be the fictional Dr. Throckmorton, do not be alarmed. Marine biology trash often moves, or moans, or lies. It's one of the perks of the profession.

If you're not going to help me dispose of my large, heavy, stirring, moaning sack of garbage, I'm going to have to ask you to drink from this beaker.

The beaker does not contain acid. The label is an acronym meaning Apple Cider Irish Drink. It's basically apple cider and whiskey. I apologize if you are Irish and the name of the drink offended you.

If you're not going to drink the Apple Cider Irish Drink, I'm going to have to ask you to look out the window while I club you with this whale bone. If you're not going to let me club you with this whale bone, I'm going to have to ask you to stop shouting for the police.

Q: Does a hot air balloon drop you off where it picks you up?

A: I have to admit, I'm not as familiar with hot air balloon protocol as I would like to be.

Sometimes when I'm up here, all alone, gazing into the windows of the girl's dormitory on 8th - the high rise -  I chide myself for my lack of knowledge.

Sometimes I even kick myself. Figuratively. I literally kick my dog. I'm not stupid enough to actually kick myself. My legs are strong; I kick hard. If I got injured, who would fly this balloon? Certainly not my dog. He can't fly anything, at least not since his untimely death.

I'm not sure how it happened, one second I'm kicking him because of my hot air balloon departure-arrival coordination ignorance and the next second  he's dead. I've thought about getting to the bottom of this mystery, maybe enrolling in some detective glasses at the community college, buying a magnifying glass, reading up on forensics, but I barely have time to eat, use the facilities, pilot this balloon and watch co-eds undress as it is. Taking detective classes and solving the Mystery of the Beloved Pet Who Asked Too Many Questions and Defecated All Over the Gondola and Whose Bark Alerted the Co-Eds will have to wait.

Maybe I could hire a detective to snoop around and ask some questions, but to do that I'd have to know how to land this thing.

That reminds me, I have no idea how to land this thing. If you want me to drop you off where I picked you up, you're going to have to build some sort of time machine, or create a false memory of where I picked you up. For instance, if you tell yourself that I picked you up in those high voltage power lines you'll be thrilled; that's where we're going to land.