Dear Ladies,

It’s summertime, which means it’s time for beaches and bikinis and hotties with the bodies. For a lot of you, that’s going to mean crash diets and double duties of Pilates boot camp. But I’ve got a few questions for those of you who feel compelled to stress out about re-attaining that beach body: Did you not see summer coming? Did it sneak up on you this year? Did you get so wrapped up in Mardi Gras that you never bothered to flip your calendar? Or maybe you didn’t notice the days getting longer. (That’s why we turn our clocks forward.) Perhaps you got momentarily confused at that bright thing in the sky that seemed to be getting warmer and warmer every day. (That’s the sun.)

Summer doesn’t have to include the rushed self-torture of a May Day crash diet or a June Gloom marathon session. In fact, I know of a sure-fire way to avoid this madness next year.

First, go grab your calendar off the wall or flip to the e-cal in your phone. Skip ahead to December 21, 2009. Go ahead and pencil this in:

BIKINI SEASON STARTS IN FIVE MONTHS.

There you go. Problem solved.

Your friend,
Eddie

Women Be Trippin everywhere and all the time. Here’s the next chapter in our list of 101 Ways Women Be Trippin.

I’m sure that girls derive some magical sense of fun from playing with dolls - changing them and feeding them and tending to the fake cries. Personally, I don’t understand how this is in any way enjoyable, but I’ve been more than willing to give my little sisters the benefit of the doubt.

I should hope that at some point in their adolescence, women would realize that even though dolls might look like children, they are not actually children. You cannot treat babies the way you treat a doll, and, as such, you cannot go naming your kids willy-nilly unless you are actually growing a tiny-person inside of you.

Some women have their baby names chosen way, way, way in advance. This is crazy for a few reasons:

1. You’re gonna have to raise that baby with someone else, namely the baby’s father. Don’t you think he’s going to have an opinion on what to name the fruit of his loins?
2. We’re talking about a human being - with feelings and a skeleton and everything! As much as you liked Trista from the first season of The Bachelorette, I don’t think it’s a good idea to name your infant after her.
3. Someday, you’re going to have a boyfriend, and when he finds out that you’ve already named your first six children, he’s going to run… fast. He hasn’t even thought about what he’s gonna wear tomorrow, let alone whether he wants to have children with you and what he’s going to let you name them.

Tips for guys: Tell your lady that you’ve always had a hankering to have a child named Atari.

WBT Podcast: Women Be Trippin on poop, especially keeping up the pretense that they don’t do it.

(Special guest: Em)

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At bars, they have those signs up that say that drinking while pregnant is generally a bad idea. They might want to change those signs to include drinking while breast-feeding, too.

Stacey Anvarinia of Grand Forks, North Dakota, pleaded guilty to felony counts of child neglect for breast-feeding her baby while bottle-feeding herself. I’m not sure what we should even call this. Is it BFUI (Breast-Feeding Under the Influence)?

I’m sure that there’s a chapter in the Idiot’s Guide to Being a Mom that discourages this kind of behavior. If there isn’t, then there should be. I hope Stacey of North Dakota learned her lesson, because now she faces up to five years in prison.

There are so many products out there with overpromises of “age-defying” or “wrinkle reducing” or products that make false claims of providing “a youthful glow” or “eliminates bags under your eyes.” They cover up, hide and mask any sign of aging. …or at least they’re supposed to.

Let’s back up a step. If you assume that these products work, and I think to some degree, they do, then you have to assume that your age is most visible on your face. From years of unprotected exposure to the sun, stress wrinkles, sagging jowels and crows feet, everything has a “solution.” Even facelifts attempt to smooth out the unpleasantries of getting older.

But if you discount surgery, there’s nothing for necks. That is to say, all the products on the market to make you look younger are for your face. But your neck has skin that has also been exposed to years in a tanning bed, stress and gravity. Maybe instead of facelifts, more women should be getting neck-tightenings. Instead of facials, spas should offer neckers. Because as much as you women use makeup, lotions and powders to pretend like you’re not a victim of aging, your neck is telling us the truth.

I can clearly recall growing up and going to my grandma’s house for holidays, birthdays, weekend barbecues, and weekday dinners. Like everyone’s grandma, mine is the best cook in the family. You can’t enter the house without eating something, and you can’t leave without taking home some leftovers.

And as I grow up and see movies like My Big Fat Greek Wedding and have holiday meals with other people’s families, I’ve realized all grandmas are the same - Italian, Jewish, Greek, Persian, Mexican. Grandmothers everywhere derive some sort of sick pride and happiness when you eat their food. The greatest insult you could ever give a grandmother is to not eat her food. And you can never eat enough, in her eyes. You could have just eaten an entire cow and she’d still insist you can have another plate followed by homemade pie (”After all,” she’d say, “I made it special for you. I know it’s your favorite”). And so you just eat it. So the irony is, she feeds you and feeds you and then if you get fat, she’ll probably tell you to lose a few pounds, while still insisting you finish seconds and thirds.

The stubbornness that mothers and grandmothers alike have that allow them to be so unhappy if you don’t eat their food is something I will never understand. For my mother, my grandmother and any future mother-in-law, all I can do is just pretend to be hungry and that their food is the best in the world. No questions asked. Just finish everything on your plate, even if it feels like you’re going to puke. She’d be happier if you did; you’d eat more.

Women be trippin on weddings. Katie, a past podcast guest, is getting married next week year, so we asked Sarah, her maid of honor and another friend of the podcast, to tell us about the experience in all its crazy glory. Here’s the first chapter in Katie’s trip to the altar.

In January, Katie and I went ring-shopping. Katie wanted me to help her pick out the perfect ring, then relay the information to her boyfriend, Bryan. “I’m going to have to wear this ring everyday,” she said. “It’s like letting someone else pick out a tattoo for you. That’s crazy!”

This was only the beginning of the crazy.

Katie suggested that I try on rings, too, but that dream ended when the salesman asked me, “So what’s his name?” Some things are too scary even to lie about.

The salesman (who towered over me like Michael Clark Duncan) thought that ring-shopping with a friend was odd. Looking around the store, we saw excited women clutching fear-stricken men who could only see price tags and carat sizes, failing to see the importance of sparkle factor and the bragging rights that come with a ring so big it says, “My fiancé loves me more than yours does.”

What truly matters when selecting a diamond is the fit. Just like big people should never wear horizontal stripes, small hands should never wear anything too clunky or big. Slender hands, on the contrary, can get away with more bling. However, over the top clusters should be reserved for man hands, to distract. And never give a diamond to a woman with talons. (She might lose it in the wild.)

Once the ring has been bought, there is one deadly comment that must be avoided - never said to the bride-to-be unless your goal is to be uninvited to the wedding and bitch-slapped by a girl wearing a huge rock. Do not ever compare the bride-to-be’s ring with someone else’s engagement ring. I saw this happen, and it was terrible.

Remember, diamonds are as unique as f***ing snowflakes.

WBT Podcast: Women be trippin on looking good for their ex-boyfriends. We interviewed Marissa from Tangents & The Times about her fairly recent break-up and the measures she took to make the dude regret it.

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Apparently, women face a real gift-dilemma when it comes to breaking up. What should they do with all the gifts that they got from their now-jerk boyfriends during the span of their relationships?

Out of Your Life and Ex-Boyfriend Jewelry have arrived on the scene to help women during these tough times. Ex-Boyfriend Jewelry is like Craigslist for the recently dumped, where ladies can pawn off their jewelry while sharing sob stories about their last relationship. Out of Your Life is a newer site - essentially an online pawn shop - that will pay you for whatever jewelry you send to them.

In both cases, aren’t we going a little overboard, ladies? I think that these elaborate web sites that re-affirm the sisterhood are kind of bogus. If you hate your ex so much and all the jewelry that he gave you, then just take it to a brick-and-mortar pawn shop. There are seven within walking distance of my house, alone. It’s not like these places are tough to find.

But no, women insist on using these Thelma-and-Louise sites to show solidarity with the female-nation.

This is one of those things that I think I’ll never understand because there’s just no male equivalent.

Dear future hook-up,

Let me set up an analogy:

I’ve been brushing my own teeth since I was 4. I haven’t had a cavity in years. I do a pretty good job and know how to clean my own teeth. I know how much toothpaste to put on, know all the little crevices to scrub, know how long feels like a good brushing, and know how to brush my own tongue without gagging. So if someone were to brush my teeth, and try to emulate the way I’ve been doing it for years, it couldn’t possibly be as good.

Which brings me to my point:

I, as well as every other guy out there, am an expert when it comes to handjobs. So if you’re going to try and emulate my years of experience, your practice should not come from sanding a block of wood. Because nobody likes rough, dry sandpaper on their wood. So if that’s what you’re offering, sorry to be picky, but I’ll probably just pass.

I know what you’re going to say in advance. Some girls don’t want to give blowjobs, and clearly they don’t all want to bone. That’s all fine and good, but a handjob is fun for no one. It doesn’t get me in the mood for anything besides a nice, cold shower.

Thanks in advance,
Jake