Anonymous Mailbag

It’s election day, but thankfully the anonymous mailbag is here to rescue you from the depression that the 2016 election has engendered. 

As always, you can send your mailbag questions to clay.travis@gmail.com and we ensure total anonymity. 

With that in mind, let’s dive in:

“I am currently a freshman at (redacted SEC school) and was wondering if you could help analyze a situation for me. On syllabus week all of the students, and the teachers, were going through the motions. The first Friday of my History class my teacher happened to be speaking about Versailles, which he traveled to over the summer. He was showing us pictures on his Facebook projected onto the screen provided by the class of 120 students.

Keep in mind this teacher is about 30 years old, 250 pounds and about 5’10 who is balding (Hair 1/10).

Anyway, about five minutes into our lecture while showing us pictures of Versailles a little Facebook message appeared at the bottom of the screen. “Wanna fuck?” The class burst into laughter and for sure thought this couldn’t be real. After calming down the class about two minutes after the message, another one appeared saying “Let’s fuck in your classroom.” Unreal right?! Now every time we attend Friday lecture with this professor there’s an elephant in the room. What would you do if this happened to you?”

I would immediately claim that it was my wife or girlfriend and just apologize for her message popping up. Then I would say, “Yes, even people who look like me have sex.”

Bang, everyone loves the funny fat guy.

The point is, you have to address it. You’ve got an entire class of freshmen at an SEC school, every single one of them has something more incriminating on their phones at that exact moment. So they’ll forgive you. 

The only way he could really get in trouble for this is if it were a student messaging him and others saw it. And if that were true, even then, I’d claim it was my wife or girlfriend and just hope no one saw the screenshot. 

Speaking of which, a guy I know taught Introduction to American Law at a community college in some middle of nowhere town. He doesn’t teach anymore and he only did it for a year.  

He was 25 and single and he assigned everyone to write a paper on a Supreme Court case of their choosing. So on that day everyone turns in their papers except for a smoking hot freshman girl who just turns in a single piece of paper with her phone number on it.

What did he do?

He called her and they banged the entire semester. She didn’t do a single bit of school work and got an A in the class.

Yep, #hotgirlprivilege is very real.

I just love the fact that this girl even made this play. She’s like, “Why would I spend time writing some crappy paper about a Supreme Court case — can you imagine how boring those were to read and grade? — when I could just bang the professor and get an A instead?”  

Fun bar debate question for you, what percentage of single 25 year old dudes would sleep with their hot ass 19 year old student in this situation? It’s not like he was teaching at Harvard Law or needed the money from the job, it’s a freshman community college class in the middle of nowhere. 

The answer: it’s an insanely high percentage. Gotta be at least 70%.  

“My 20 year high school reunion is coming up and a few of my buddies (we’re still good friends) are planning on attending. The discussion about bringing wives came up and I wanted to get your take on it. One guy’s wife went to our same school but graduated three years after. The rest of our wives did not go to this school.

One of my buddy’s wife is still pissed because she was not invited to the 10 year reunion.

I already spoke to my wife and told her my intention of going alone. She wasn’t too happy but I think she understands. BTW, my wife is hot so it’s not like I’m trying to hide her. My logic is as follows:

1. I don’t want to spend an entire evening introducing her to people and trying to make her feel comfortable.
2. I want to maximize my time by hanging out and talking to people I haven’t seen in years without stressing over whether or not my partner is comfortable.
3. I don’t want this to turn into a “couples” thing.

What’s our play as a team here because we can’t have one wife go and not the others?”

I get where you’re coming from here, but I think it’s pretty weird to go to your twenty year high school reunion and not take your spouse. It’s one thing if she doesn’t want to go, but to not invite her at all? It definitely makes it seem like you’re trying to bang someone from high school. 

My compromise would be this — why not hang out with your buddies without your wives the night before or after the reunion? Everyone is already in town, right? That way you can talk to the people you really want to talk to and not have to worry about spending the whole night on introductions with people you don’t really like that much. 

Also, maybe this is a strange question, but wouldn’t your wife know quite a few of your high school friends? Didn’t they come to your wedding or cross paths with your life at some point in time?

I’m fortunate because my high school graduating class at Nashville’s Martin Luther King Magnet was only 135 people. So everyone knew everyone pretty well.

I had my wife at our ten year reunion and it was a really fun night. I think it would have been really weird for her not to be there given that we still live in Nashville.

The same would be true for our twenty year reunion, which is next year.  

Also, the twenty year reunion is probably the second toughest age high school reunion to go to, because at the ten year reunion everyone is still pretty young and lots of impressive things could still be on the horizon for everyone.

It’s hard to be a failure at 28. 

But by your twenty year reunion, you can pretty much tell who’s bombed in life. Lots of divorces have happened, bunches of people have started to fall apart the physically, the odds of you being a failure at 38 and a tremendous success at 48 are pretty slim. But there’s at least a tiny smidgen of hope. You’re still young enough to change things.  

By the thirty year reunion, which has to be the toughest reunion of all, it’s undeniable. You’re either a success or a failure. I mean, how many people are total failures at 48 and complete successes at 58? It just doesn’t happen very often.

Once you’re 58, you’re old and people have started to die; so from here on in, you’re a success if you’re still alive. 

Anyway, take your wife to the reunion, go out with buddies on another night. 

“I’m in my late thirties, own my own business, am married, and have two beautiful daughters.

Around 7 years ago, my business took a major hit when a major customer of mine filed bankruptcy, and left me with a huge debt. In an effort to try and save my business, yet also provide for my family, I took on another job. Running the business during the day, and working the other job at night. Believe me, this was rough. Little time to spare for family, and no time for anything else.

Luckily for me, I thought at the time, we had a friend that lived right across the street, and she was recently divorced, with no children, and was needing some time to get her life back in order. It seemed to be the perfect set up. My daughters were infants at this time, and were a real handful, and our friend seemed to want to be there to help my wife with them, and anything else. About 3 months into this, I started noticing that a couple nights a week, when I got home from work, around 11:30 PM, my wife and our friend would be sitting out on the patio having some wine.

Of course, I am totally beat at this point, so I may chit chat for a second, then off to bed I go. Well, over the next few months, this late night drinking becomes more frequent, and the volume of wine consumption also goes up considerably. At this point, I’m beginning to notice a problem, but as I stated earlier, I’m dragging ass by this point every night, and all I really need is sleep.

At 1 year into this dueling job situation, I am almost comfortable enough with the financial state of the business, to leave the other job behind. At this point, I feel that my wife has a serious drinking problem, and the sooner I can be home, the better, but I decline for another 3 months just to build our nest egg back up a little. So, at 15 months, I turn in my notice, and decide to return to a normal life, leaving the 18 hr days behind me.

The first week back, my eyes were really opened to the severity of the problem. My wife, now alone for nearly a month because our friend/neighbor had found a new love interest, had become an alcoholic. I don’t really know what to do at this point. She would come home from work, open a bottle of wine, fix dinner, hang out with the kids for a few minutes, open another bottle of wine, put them to bed, and then it was on. 3-4 bottles of wine a night on average, sometimes more. This was nearly 6 years ago, and the problem has only gotten worse. I’ve threatened to leave, but I don’t want to hurt my kids. She is a good mom, and I know that she loves our kids, as well as myself, but something has got to give. We have basically no social life anymore, because who wants to be that guy with the drunkest person at the party? I drink on occasion, but not near as much as I’d like, because someone has to be responsible, right? It seems I’m in hell!

What should I do?”

Not gonna lie, based on how this story started I was hoping this was going to be about your wife turning into a lesbian with her hot divorcee friend. 

Major bummer. 

Okay, if your wife is drinking three or four bottles of wine a night, she’s definitely an alcoholic. 

She has to recognize this is not normal behavior, right? In her sober moments would she acknowledge that the amount of wine she’s consuming is far beyond acceptable levels? Or is this a conversation you haven’t even been able to have with her? 

If she’s able to keep a job, take care of two kids, even cook dinner for the family, and carry on with her normal life, she’s a highly functioning alcoholic. So she may not be inclined to recognize her problem as much as most would. She thinks she can handle it.

It sounds like she started drinking socially — probably to help fill the void in her life while you weren’t there — and along the way this has turned into a much more substantial habit.

I’d suggest a friendly wager because it isn’t as confrontational — what if you told her that if she can only drink one bottle of wine a night for the next month that you will take her on a vacation anywhere she wants to go in the country? (Or if it’s not a trip something that you know she would definitely want to do.)

Can she do that? If she can’t only drink one bottle of wine a night then it’s a sign of a major problem and you can confront her about it. If she can cut back her drinking, then she’s still capable of dialing back her consumption and isn’t as far gone as you’ve feared. 

Given the fact that you have two young children you need to figure out a solution soon. 

Good luck. 

“I have been married for eight years and I have three kids 5 and under. My wife is willing and wants to have sex any time! If we have sex less than twice a week, she starts asking if something is wrong. If I merely roll over and cuddle she starts getting frisky. So all these guys who talk about not having sex once you get married I am amazed at.

There is a caveat here though. She only wants to have sex in traditional missionary style. Does not like or is not interested in anything else and is turned off by any other suggestions.

My question, do I risk turning off this sex anytime for a little variety, or do I count myself among the fortunate and not mess with the proverbial golden goose? Your advice is much appreciated and wanted!”

Have you asked her why she only wants to have missionary position sex?

That seems really strange. As if she feels bad about liking sex, but in her mind it’s okay to like it so long as she’s in the most submissive position possible. Does she like to be dominated? Have you thought about role playing? You can be the teacher and she can be the student who doesn’t do her homework on the Supreme Court cases.  

In all honesty, I’d press her on why she doesn’t want to change positions and try to get her to change out other positions. But if you’re having regular sex with a mom who has three kids five and under I wouldn’t press too hard. 

The fact that she’s finding the time to regularly sleep with you at all is pretty outstanding. 

You might not be able to have your cake and eat it too. 

“My fiance got me hooked on reading your posts and it would be a thing we did together – read the mailbag and get each other’s opinions on the subject and also guess what your reaction would be. We would try to come up with questions to ask you too but never came close to submitting anything.

Well I found my question…

What are your thoughts on exes? And I’m sorry if this question has come up in the past that you’ve already addressed. I recently just discovered hundreds of pictures from my fiance’s past on the computer. Yes, I do know about his last 4 major relationships and found pictures from all of them in his files. Maybe he doesn’t realize he still has them and forgot or doesn’t care and hasn’t looked at them in years but is this something I should bring up to him? I found myself holding back tears as I was making myself suffer looking through them all. I don’t want to be that jealous girl or whatever. It’s just a little hurtful.

One of the pictures I came across was of the ex taking a selfie in her bra and panties. Ugh. One of the pictures I found was a word collage that I assume he made an ex because he sorta made a similar one for me…

We’re getting married next fall. Does marriage change things at all? Like once we’re married do you think he’ll get this epiphany and get rid of everything that’s related to ex-gf’s? I noticed he liked an ex-gf’s Facebook profile picture awhile back – am I being too petty/too crazy? Like does that kind of thing stop after marriage?? He doesn’t talk to this girl ever or at least not that I’m aware of. It was a nice picture of her, kind of provocative – but is it necessary for him to ‘like’ it on Facebook?

The thing I wouldn’t want is for me to bring it up to him and he would get all defensive or make me think I was being stupid or crazy. I mean I get it, I got the guy. I got the ring. I shouldn’t have to worry. He compliments me and does make me feel good about myself but I just think “No I don’t want to hear it because I’m sure you’ve said the same thing to your other girlfriends.” Ugh – it’s a sucky feeling.

I would love to hear your advice on this. I know he’s the one, I think I just have to deal with this issue because maybe it’s more in my head. I also know that if I approach him about this and use your advice and say that Clay Travis even said so he would be pretty proud and might even come to his senses….”

Okay, my first question is this — why were you looking through his computer files? And then scrolling through his old pictures? What did you expect to find there? Odds are he’s just never deleted his old pictures. Especially since these pictures aren’t very incriminating.

I thought you were going to say that a ton of the ex-girlfriend pictures were nudes, but if only one of them was of his old girlfriend in her bra and panties then I really think you’re overreacting here.

Here’s the brutal truth: guys jerk off to memories of their ex-girlfriends or the girls they’ve hooked up with before all the time. (Yes, even your boyfriend or husband who is currently lying to you and claiming that he never does this.) That doesn’t mean they prefer them to you, it just means guys like variety when we’re pleasuring ourselves.

So if he were keeping old photos of these girls naked, that would just be his spank bank. I’m too old to have been single when guys got tons of pictures of naked girls sent to them, but I would imagine that every young husband’s most difficult decision in life is what to do with all these old nude photos of ex-girlfriends. Because I would imagine it’s just too painful to delete them and never see them again.  

As for liking the Facebook photo, I think that’s more dumb than nefarious. If he were really trying to hook up with his ex-girlfriend there are easier ways to pull that off than by publicly liking her profile picture. Sure, he shouldn’t do it because it’s weird and seems kind of pathetic, but that’s just stupidity on his part.

Here’s what I would suggest, tell him that you wish he didn’t still have pictures of his ex-girlfriends on his computer and that if he’ll delete them you’ll let him take pictures of you instead.

I bet he deletes those pictures.

Also, you need to chill out. If you’re this insecure about your relationship that you’re checking your boyfriend’s old pictures and noticing what he likes on Facebook, something else is going on here. You’re not as confident in him as you claim. 

“Clay,

My spouse and I are in our mid-30s with two kids and a third on the way. By the time football kicks off next season we will have three kids under the age of four in our house. I know from your past columns that you are a proponent of having one parent stay at home if it is feasible.

My question is: what is the financial threshold for a parent to stay at home. When one parent hits a certain tax bracket, should the other parent have the green light to stay at home with the kids? Or perhaps it is a certain ratio – when the breadwinner parent makes X times more income than the contributing parent, the contributing parent should consider staying at home.

In my situation, my spouse and I are at $100K and $250K annual income respectively. Having a stay at home parent would make life incredibly easier for everyone in our household and we should certainly be able to get by on $250K. On the other hand, giving up an extra $100K a year for the luxury of a stay at home parent seems like an awful lot.

When does it financially make sense to have a parent stay at home?”

You and your wife both make really good salaries so I understand how this is a difficult decision. 

My wife and I were both working when we had two little kids and I would get our three year old up and dressed and then get our baby up, dressed and fed and then take them both to day care. You can imagine how much of a mess this was. Dad is never that great at getting everything organized and taken care of. A bunch of times I forgot the bottles for our baby. So I’d drive the kids to day care and then turn around and drive home for the bottles and drive back.

And I’d be trying to do all that while worrying about my radio show and my writing job.

The traffic was awful in downtown Nashville and every time I got stuck behind a car that was moving too slow or turning and blocking the road while the light was green, I would say, “Fucking damn it.” I didn’t realize how common this was until my wife took the boys to day care one morning and said, “So your son said fucking damn it, a bunch of times in the car with me this morning.” 

And I was like, “No idea where he might have heard that.”

That morning my wife turned to our three year old and said, “What did you say?”

And my three year old said, “Daddy says fucking damn it when the light is green, but the cars in front of him aren’t moving.” (I mean, what a genius this kid is. He figured out the exact right time to say fucking damn it just by watching me. I was so proud).

Meanwhile my wife was getting up at dawn and working all day and then picking up the boys at the end of the day, but she wasn’t able to be around them very much. So we were both miserable.

And then finally I made enough money for her to quit and our life was immediately orders of magnitude better. I mean, it was literally the best decision we ever made. Now my wife was working as a high school guidance counselor so she was making around $45k a year. So by the time you factored in what day care cost, she was basically working to pay for day care.

(Seriously, to hell with what college costs, day care is a much bigger issue for most people I know. I could have had both my kids in college at the University of Tennessee and been paying half what day care cost.)

I was probably making around $200k then, so less than you are now. 

So, back to your decision. With three kids you’re going to be paying at least $40k a year for day care, probably more if you’re in a decent sized city. Given that you guys make $350k a year, that’s a high tax bracket, so her take home pay on $100k is probably only $65k at best. So while it seems like you’re making a bunch more money for her job, you’re really only bringing home $25k more a year once you factor out day care costs.

Then the question becomes: is your life really substantially different with an extra $2k a month?

If she would prefer to stay home with the kids rather than work, then I’d say you’ve reached the point in time where that makes sense financially. She could always go back to work in five years when the kids get old enough for school.

The other option, which you didn’t mention, is I’d hire a nanny if I had to pay for three kids in day care. It might even be cheaper and if you get the right nanny then your wife could keep her job and the stress level in your lives would still diminish. 

…

Thanks for reading the anonymous mailbag.

And, remember, go vote.

We’ll be live with Outkick the Show tonight.