Anonymous Mailbag

Yes, yes, I know it’s Friday, but with the President Trump interview on Tuesday of this week and all the work I’ve been undertaking to try and save college football, I haven’t had time to write the anonymous mailbag until now.

So I’m bumping the usual Friday mailbag in favor of the anonymous mailbag.

As always send your anonymous mailbag questions to claytravis@gmail.com, anonymity guaranteed.

So without further ado, let’s dive right in to the anonymous mailbag this week:

“Got a tough question here: Went to a small religious college in the Midwest in the mid-80’s and had lots of friends. One girl, who was a friend (we went out on 3 dates, didn’t even kiss) had a troubled emotional upbringing (I knew this at the time) and had daddy issues.

We eventually both graduate, went our separate ways, got married and raised families. Well, about 12 years ago she calls me out of the blue and offers to run away with me (apparently stress in their marriage), including offers for sex every day if I was game. Told her no thanks, went home and told my wife (she also knew her troubled past – saw it as a very sad situation). Props to my wife for not going volcanic.

Fast forward to today this woman (still married, they patched things up) and her husband have moved to New York (Facebook sleuthing). Am I wrong to still be concerned about her or contact her to see how they are doing? Will this be perceived as trying to make a move? Or just drop the whole thing and have a great story for my kids how Dad still has game?”

This is not a tough question.

You still want to bang this girl and are trying to pretend you don’t by claiming to still be concerned about her. You’ve even gone so far as to Facebook stalk her and check on her marital status and where she lives.

It has been 12 years since she contacted you. If she is not fine, what makes you think a Facebook message from you, a virtual stranger to her now after over a decade with no contact, is going to suddenly cure her issues?

This isn’t about her at all, this is about you.

Her contact with you sounds like a psychological issue. That is, what she offered doesn’t sound like it came from someone of a sound mind. (Maybe she’s manic depressive and was in a manic phase? Maybe it’s something else.)

Regardless, if she’s still with her husband, it appears she must have worked things out with him. Meaning, she’s moved on in her life from what she told you 12 years ago, so should you.

As for telling the kids, I don’t think this is a story you should share with anyone. I don’t think it makes you look more attractive that a woman who may have been struggling with a mental illness wanted to run away with you. To your credit you didn’t take advantage of her offer, but based on your email it sounds like you’re regretting that decision. (Or at least trying to have your cake and eat it too).

I’d put this story out of your mind and leave this woman alone.

If you doubt me, pretend your wife finds out that you reached out to this woman after 12 years to “check on her and make sure she’s doing okay.”

Do you think your wife is buying that line?

Yeah, didn’t think so.

Move on.

“I work at a private college in athletics. The school is providing optional COVID19 testing for all athletic department employees. If you choose to opt out of the testing, then you were required to email the AD. (I felt that this was possibly a HIPAA violation by itself). The following week the AD sent an email to the whole department of the schedule for testing of those who want to get tested. The AD included names for everyone getting tested. So, everyone in the department knows who is getting tested and it’s pretty easy to determine who is not getting tested. There were only about 10 of us who opted out. Now, the whole department knows I opted out of the COVID test.

Everyone I talk to makes it seem like this isn’t a big deal. Especially in today’s age, where everyone is judging people for their opinions on COVID. I feel like if this was an HIV test instead of COVID, there would be hell to pay if coworkers knew you signed up. Is this a violation of HIPAA?”

I don’t like to give legal opinions on issues in the anonymous mailbag because I don’t have time to research them to the fullest extent of the law and these issues can be highly technical in nature. If you feel like your school behaved inappropriately, I’d consult an attorney in your local jurisdiction who may have an expertise in this area.

It does seem clear, however, that your AD’s email was designed, at least in some small measure, to praise those who are being tested and shine a light on those who chose not to be tested. This, unfortunately, is emblematic of our national obsession with testing. Testing, standing alone, is not particularly helpful or useful because it only tells you that you aren’t positive on the particular day you’re tested. You could test negative on Monday and test positive on Wednesday.

In order for testing to really make sense you’d have to test every couple of days for months.

And most places can’t afford to do that.

Plus, even if you feel sick, I’m not sure what you gain by getting tested. By the time you get your results you are probably going to already be well. And if you are sick enough to need to go to the hospital then you’re going to get tested there and confirm you have the coronavirus. Basically I’m not sure what you gain at all from getting tested once.

Leaving aside medical privacy issues, your AD’s email seems unwise. You raised HIV as an interesting example. What if your athletic department provided voluntary STD screening for free for all employees? I don’t think your boss would send out a mass email with the STD testing schedule for all employees. What about voluntary mental health screening? Again, I doubt your boss would send out the email with everyone included who was receiving voluntary mental health screening.

What your AD did was make this testing seem far from voluntary.

Now in defense of your AD he might, however, send out an email with the schedule for flu shots or people giving blood. So he could be arguing he’s treating covid testing as more akin to a flu shot or a blood drive.

But I don’t think that’s as good of an argument.

Depending on the size of your athletic department, I also think your belief that people are keeping track of who is getting tested might be a bit exaggerated.

My personal opinion here is if the AD feels comfortable sharing the testing schedule for everyone then everyone should just get tested as a part of the job. There are plenty of workplaces making testing mandatory. Your school made it voluntary, but then by sharing the list made it seem more like it’s mandatory. That doesn’t seem right to me.

But ultimately I’d just move on if I were you. I don’t think there’s much to be gained by making this an issue going forward.

“I love your honest and straight to it opinions so I figured I would ask you this. I am a doctor in residency with a few more years of training to go. In the process, I have dated many women but one has stood out above the rest. I dated her at the end of medical school and then have restarted talking to her again. The reason why it ended previously is because she is a single mom and I was not comfortable about it at the time because I knew how my parents would react.

We ended it after a few months of dating but stayed in contact on and off the past 2 years or so while we each dated other people. Despite the different people I dated, talking to her again now regularly has made me realize how much I care about her and how I do not want to let her go again. We are each in our late 20s. The child does have some medical issues which makes the decision even more complicated. I have noticed I was way more unhappy without her in my life than I am with it but just about everyone I have spoken to about it has been not super supportive. She is a responsible person who got accidentally pregnant when she was in her very early 20s. I know you were not in a situation similar but what is your opinion and how would you recommend I deal with my parents and family’s opinions and persuasions.”

First, you aren’t getting married. You are entering into a relationship. There’s no guarantee that relationship will end in marriage. So I don’t see why you can’t date the woman you think will make you the happiest.

I don’t know this woman at all, but I think it’s fair to say the easiest thing to do when you are in your early twenties — or younger — and get pregnant is to have an abortion. (I don’t mean the easiest thing mentally, I just mean the easiest thing in terms of your life going forward. It is, without a doubt, easier not to have a child than it is to have a child. No one has a kid because they want less work and responsibility).

I’m not judging anyone who makes this choice — in fact, if I were the parent of a girl in her teenage years I’d probably advise this choice — but I think everyone reading this would acknowledge that becoming a single mother after an accidental pregnancy is an incredibly difficult path to take.

And it’s not like she made a choice that was so bad you can’t ever get past it. She had unprotected sex and got pregnant. Given that most people have sex before marriage now, how many men and women out there have had pregnancy scares or gotten pregnant. In fact, how many men are marrying women who have had abortions before? It’s probably a fairly high percentage. Yet those women may or may not ever tell their partners about their abortions.

So let’s pretend this woman is the exact same person she is now, but she had an abortion back in her early twenties — which she never told anyone about — and never had a child as a result of that abortion. What would your parents think about her then? Presumably, they’d be fine with the marriage.

Yet that decision would have been easier — at least in terms of her responsibilities — than becoming a single parent.

If anything, the woman you think you may love, made the harder choice because she felt it was the right choice. Even though the easier choice that would have caused her much less responsibility and financial stress was also available to her. How often do people make the harder choice because they think it’s a better moral decision? Especially if it’s possible to make the easier choice and most people will never know about it?

If you love this woman and believe your life is going to be better with her than without her then I think you need to stand up to your parents and tell them this is your choice. (But I also think you should live together for a while before you decide to get married. You need to know exactly what you’re signing up for, especially since her child has some special needs.)

If she’s a good mother and a good wife for you then eventually your own parents will come around to recognizing you made a good choice. If it doesn’t work out, they’ll still support you, but will both agree that you should have listened to them and known better.

Trust me, as a parent I understand the desire for your child to marry someone who has never been married before and has never had a child. That’s the ideal scenario I think most parents foresee for their children. That’s probably even more the case in your parents eyes because you’re a doctor.

They want you to have the perfect life — great job, great home, great wife, great kids — and you marrying a woman who already has a child probably conflicts with the picture they have in their mind of what your life will resemble. But here’s the deal, that’s their idealized version of what your life should be like.

You may not want that.

And eventually you have to make choices that make you happy, not that make your parents happy.

Finally, let’s take this entirely out of the world of heterosexuality. What if you were gay? How would your parents respond then? Would they still expect you to end up with the perfect trophy wife or would they acknowledge that their expectations for your life weren’t what the reality was going to end up resembling?

Ultimately everyone out there has to be do what makes them the happiest, even if it isn’t what your parents think will make you the happiest. (And I say this as a parent who knows exactly what it feels like when your idiot kids won’t make the “smart” decision even though you think you know what’s best for them. Oftentimes what we parents know is what would have been best for us, but our kids aren’t us so it might not necessarily be the best for them.)

“I work for a public school district as a supervisor in the South. Recently our district has consolidated offices from multiple locales to one location. This location is an old school building renovated into office space. It is nice by my standards, but here is the problem. The bathrooms are the same type you would have used in elementary school. Wide openings with NO DOOR! Add to that the walls are cement block making the reverb very high. Meaning you can easily hear a fart (or other sounds) emanating from the men’s (formerly boy’s) bathroom 25 feet down the hall.

I am 1 of only 2 men in the building so it’s relatively easy to know who is turning out the turds in there. Just last week I was completely mortified by a particular bathroom situation. I took my customary seat upon the porcelain throne when suddenly I could hear female voices so close I would swear they were in the bathroom with me. Immediately, I squeezed the brown shut off valve closed. As the pressure built I was trying to calculate how close they actually were to me. If I could hear them, surely, they could hear me, right?

Remember, NO DOOR!

I was in a stall just around the corner of a cement block wall. I had to wait them out. So, I doubled down with such a heavy ass clench I would be sore in the morning. The seconds seemed like eons. BUT THE BITCHES KEPT TALKING. What about? Hell if I know! Pressing educational issues, last night’s anal sex session with their secret lover, coupons for toilet bowl cleaner? I could only focus on NOT releasing the hounds! Then the moment of reckoning. Oh FUCK! I couldn’t hold it back any longer. It was GO time! The excrement was gassy, greasy, and fast thanks to the previous night’s Taco Bell run. I am pretty sure I grunted a little as the explosive poo hit all sides of the toilet. Have you ever heard your air laden turd drop echo? Yeah, that happened. Clay, the aftermath was hideous, yet I felt a relief very few can understand. The ladies outside the bathroom stopped talking and quickly click clacked their heels back down the hall. Since that morning I have stayed late and come into the office early trying to avoid “the look”. I am not sure which ladies were witnesses to the best shit of my life, but I have a feeling they know it was me. So I ask you, oh great Dr. of Deuce, what shall I do (do)? What can I do to recover from this, and just as important will I ever be able to crap at work again?”

I think you just own it. Walk proudly down the hallways. If anyone ever mentions anything, just acknowledge that you are occasionally a super loud pooper.

The more honest you are, the more women want to bang you.

I honestly believe this is true.

So many guys spend so much time lying about everything that what women want more than anything is honesty. So if you own your poop explosions I honestly think every woman there will be more attracted to you.

But let’s pretend you want to shift the poop blame. How could you do it?

Since you know there’s one other guy, you tell every woman you work with in casual conversation, “Is it crazy that I can’t poop at work because there are no doors on the bathrooms here? I just can’t do it. Shouldn’t we get bathroom doors now that there are no kids here?”

This, of course, requires that you lie about pooping at work, but this immediately makes them realize there’s only one possible poop explosion culprit — NOT YOU!

Second option, more lies. Tell your female co-workers:

“Boy, did you hear about (insert other guy’s name here)? He had a nasty gastrointestinal bug. Poor guy felt awful. Hit him at work on (insert day of your poop explosion). Glad he’s feeling better now.”

If the ladies care about the poop explosion enough to remember when it happened, they will all blame your co-worker.

So you have a choice here, honesty or lies, truth or falsehood.

Good luck, pooper.

“My wife works for a major media company. One of the big ones. In the last few months they have endured two rounds of layoffs and those that survived had their salaries decreased. Yet after both of these layoff announcements the company was proud to announce major donations to diversity organizations, highlighted by a $100 million pledge to “fight social justice and equality.”

How is this acceptable? How do you tell your employees you need to cut costs because money is tight and then do this? Many of the affected employees are minorities — don’t you think they’d rather have their job or their full salary instead of some empty donation to appease the Twitter crowd?

Please explain this madness to me.”

When we graduated law school one of my buddies went to work at a law firm that almost immediately laid him off. They claimed their revenue just wasn’t high enough to keep the two new associates they’d hired.

Then shortly thereafter they added another suite at the Titans stadium. That second suite, with all the tickets for the year, cost more than his yearly salary.

So they picked an additional football stadium suite over him, while claiming they couldn’t afford to keep him on staff.

Which was brutal.

The point here is, if your business is struggling have the decency to actually make decisions that reflect the business is struggling.

You should only be donating to charity — or adding football suites — if the business is doing well enough to take care of all the employees before you donate to charity.

Here’s one of the big problems with the woke era that we currently find ourselves in: the executives aren’t doing what’s best for the company, they are doing what’s best for the executives to keep their jobs.

Let’s use the NFL and the NBA as an example, there’s no way on the planet that Adam Silver and Roger Goodell don’t know social justice activism is awful for their businesses. I mean, just awful. Witness what happened in the MLS game this week when players kneeled. The crowed booed and began to chant USA, USA, USA.

NBA ratings are tanking compared to other sports that returned and the NFL saw its ratings drop 19% in the wake of Colin Kaepernick’s protest.

But if Roger Goodell or Adam Silver come out and say this publicly, guess what happens? The media crushes them because they are highly paid white guys who have majority black leagues. These guys know that. (So do the owners, by the way, which is why most of them are silent now about the protests during the game.)

If the NFL commissioner were, for instance, Condoleezza Rice, she could come out and say, “Our players are going to stand for the national anthem,” and no one could accuse her of being racist. But if Roger Goodell says it right now he might lose his $40 million a year job. Same with Adam Silver.

And there are many Goodell’s and Silver’s making tens of millions of dollars running companies right now too. These guys are all so terrified of the blue checkmark brigade on Twitter and of the activists inside their own companies — good luck firing a woke employee for being woke right now — that they are making decisions that aren’t in the best interests of their companies in order to make sure they keep their jobs.

It’s absolutely insane, but this is the world we live in right now. The executives are focused on surviving instead of ensuring that their companies thrive.

…

Thanks for reading the anonymous mailbag.

Send your questions to claytravis@gmail.com, anonymity guaranteed.