Surprising to me that no one, including Cary Tennis, is considering the idea that Mr. Lost is pretending to be nice to his wife by exaggerating her good qualities, in compensation for his act of betrayal. Maybe she's just satisfied to have children and the heck with him. Maybe she isn't interested in Lost taking the money he spends on a prostitute and investing it in a kid-free marriage-enhancing weekend. Maybe she isn't interested any more in the missionary position, much less whatever Lost has learned from his paid companion.

My wife put our relationship as a couple so low compared to her career (primary breadwinner) and the kids (secondary caretaker) that she had me cancel the last three times I booked a weekend away. Believe me, I would gladly have hired the sort of talented prostitute Lost found except they are expensive and my discretionary budget tops out at crack-ho levels. And if I'd found one, with a little tea and sympathy (forget the screwing) I'd probably have been infatuated in days.

I did find a better (?) idea, after swallowing enough meds to stiffen my spine (it took years): I told my wife that if she wasn't interested in a romantic relationship with me, it was time to split up. That got her attention without my having to feel guilty. It may work; I'd put it at 50-50.

Oh--the linguistics lesson? One of the reasons I love Hebrew is you have to hand it to a language where the word for "whore" is related to the word for "snack bar". Both come from the root "to nourish". Lost is starving, it's just a question of why.

I remember the physically ill part. I was on zero, she was on 10. I knew almost all of them, and was especially weirded out by her habit of being in two or three intimate relationships at once. (That was unfortunately the case with ours, and IMHO wrecked it.)

If this boyfriend were inexperienced, I could understand chagrin that the letter writer hadn't "saved" herself for him. I could understand that he would be worried that she treated the gift of her body as a triviality and he wouldn't be able to accept or reciprocate on those terms. But a guy who has had twice as many partners!? His own three-way!? What are we joking about here?

Add me to the Dump Immediately vote. And the letter writer sounds like a wonderful, charming woman to me. I don't know what her number is, but they were all damned lucky.

then forget divorce, get an annulment. And even if you do want to go with her, she is sending you a message about where you fit in her life.

I quit my job and followed my wife (with our two young kids) to an overseas job of hers. It was exciting and mind-expanding. I was also unemployed for two years after getting back and fell into major depression. Jobs aren't growing on trees.

Recently she suggested doing it all over again. This time I told her she had to find me a job. She viewed that as a ridiculous demand, and I told her that she could go alone.

She's still here.

In California, and I suspect in Texas, the marriage license application asks about previous marriages. Loverboy will have to admit to at least one previous marriage then. But I agree with the advice. in fact, if she's such a great catch, why doesn't the family promise they'll support the child after Blacksheep moves on.

That'll show the 'rents he's serious about their daughter. (Just as long as it isn't Albanian for “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?”)

The mother gets to write off BOTH the mortgage interest AND the tithing. Nice work if you can get it.

At the very least the daughter should re-structure the arrangement so that SHE is getting some tax relief. I must confess that leaving Mom in the hands of that God she's bribing is tempting, too.

I suspect that most of America, like me, had never heard of Salesgenie.com before the Super Bowl. Hence, it's not surprising that the ad they showed generated more business than ads for GM, Anheuser-Busch, or other well-known companies. Heck, they probably would have gotten more business with thirty seconds of showing nothing but their name. The question Kaufman doesn't ask and isn't remotely qualified to answer is: How much new business (if any) would Salesgenie have gotten with a more clever or better-executed spot?

Can you imagine the superbugs we'd have after a few years' of people buying their own penicillin (which is quite cheap) every time they have the sniffles? And it wouldn't even help them.

See, I'd say most Salon readers are very much against prison rape and the other deplorable conditions detailed, even for murderers and terrorists. And if you erase the beginning of the article, we won't have to find out that the victim ignored known alcohol/medicine interactions, couldn't keep track of his own valuable personal items, couldn't be bothered to review common-sense immigration rules (I'm surprised he got past the check-in counter with a passport about to expire), and was then loud and confrontational. Why let it be an issue that he was crap-for-brained—and may not even have learned yet?

Enough with the no-limit games.

Look, poker is a mathematical game, and if a bunch of players with math and computers can figure out how to use the all-in tactic to take what you call skill out of the game, then no more all-in. Simple as that: go back to the maximum raise rules.

So it won't be the big dramatic showdown. That's the point.