Wayne diamante, author of Sticky Situations: Choosing the right Solvent for Hypothetical Emergency Scenarios and Mayonnaise: How much is Too Much? shares his wisdom and inner monologue with readers in Pro-Tips with Wayne Diamante. Do you have a question or need advice from a stranger? Let Wayne be that stranger. Hit him up at askwaynediamante@gmail.com.
Dear Wayne,
I have a friend who’s unfortunately turned into a home marketing nightmare. She tries to sell me beauty products every time we see each other. Most recently, I asked her to meet me for coffee: I really wanted to talk about my complications with menopause and some apprehension I have regarding an elective surgery my husband’s having done. Instead, she kept steering the conversation toward beauty products. Turns out, there are some problems wrinkle cream and a night mask can’t solve. I care for my friend, but how do I tell her (politely) to fuck off with the beauty product bullshit?
Sincerely,
Barb
Dear Barb,
Thanks for your question and I hope you’re doing OK. Call up your friend and schedule a get together in a public place, like a coffee shop. As soon as her sales pitch starts, just take whatever tube of face sauce she’s peddling and squirt it all out against the wall, tell her she sucks and that if your friendship is important to her she’ll knock off the Mary Kay bunk while you’re together. Next, tell her that if you’re interested in her products you’ll let her know. Then tip her coffee over and say, “Your face makes your ass look fat.” If the friendship is worth saving, she’ll come around.
Problem Solved,
Wayne
Dear Wayne,
What are your thoughts on the controversy surrounding Adelina Sotnikova taking the gold in women’s figure skating? It’s obvious to anyone who knows anything about the sport that the judging was rigged. Kim Yu-na’s programs were flawless, and her complex understanding of the musicality of her pieces belied a magnificent wisdom beyond her years and, if I may, well outside the bounds of a formal K-12 education. How can we clean up this sport?!
Cordially,
Serge
Dear Serge,
There are only two things interesting about figure skating:
1) The mind-boggling number of adjectives the commentators use to describe how magnificent and marvelous the EXACT SAME trick is over and over again. The skater jumps in the air, spins around and then Scott Hamilton and Sandra Bezic barf superlatives all over each other trying to describe which one of them has the bigger boner over whatever it was they just saw.
2) That people continue to give a shit about figure skating every four years.
Number two is absolutely fascinating to me. Actually, there are three interesting things. The third is the sheer improbability of every skater having to triumph over adversity. I swear to god; if I had a nickel for every time I heard one of the talking heads say, “She was going to call it quits after her spectacular meltdown four years ago, but here she is again, this time competing for Olympic gold in the blah blah blah.” But to answer your question, I don’t believe it is possible to legitimize the voting. Figure skating is inherently subjective, and, as we all know, the same turd will taste different to different people. I’m not quite sure how to wrap this up in a satisfying way for you
Good luck with everything, I guess?
Wayne
