This week, it's all New York all the time up in these letters, with questions about sexual prostitution, and shoes that cost more than writing for the internet pays in a month.

I recently discovered that my ex-roommate had been working as a prostitute and sometimes paid me the rent with money earned that way. I want to return her money because I don't think anyone should have to do such work. She refuses to take it, saying her work is none of my business. Must I accept (and keep) rent money regardless of its source? -- Mike, New York

Aw. It's so cute/scary that you live in New York and don't understand how rent works. See, your ex-roommate wasn't giving you money, she was giving the landlord money. That being said, if she wants to engage in a little suck and fuck to git 'er done, I have no problem with that.

Unless, of course, you own the apartment and were renting out a room of it to Destiny (obviously she was named Destiny.) If that's the case, I would feel pretty confident...like, Spencer Pratt confident...that you charged her more than the actual room was worth. That's just business, and I have no problem with that, either. But it makes the part with you and the high horse and the riding in on it a little tougher to swallow (nullus), you know what I mean, Louie Kritski?

As the legendary poet Curtis Jackson once said, "I get money, I-I get money. I run New York." Put that in your mezuzah.

My fiancée took three pairs of shoes to the valet service in our building to be sent out to be resoled. The service lost the shoes, took responsibility and reimbursed us for the original cost, $2,020. My fiancée immediately bought three new pairs of shoes to wear to job interviews. Later, the shoes were miraculously found, and the valet service asked us to refund their $2,020. Must we? -- A. Mehta, New York

Let me guess, the A. stands for "Asshole Who Is Engaged to a Woman Who Spends $675 on a Pair of Shoes, Which Is Bad Enough, But Then Is So Out of Touch With Reality That When Writing a Letter About Shoes to an Advice Column, He Doesn't Realize That the Fundamental Problem Remains the Same Even if He Feigned Modesty About the Cost of the Shoes and Said That They Were $90 a Pair, But Probably Realized That He Couldn't Pull Off Such a Lie When His Letter Smelled So Heavily of Cuban Cigars and Dry Martinis."

Whoops, Kill yourself. For a modest fee, let's say two pairs of shoes worth, I'll do it for you.

The real question, of course, is if she can afford $675 shoes, what does she need a job for? Or is she applying for the position of "Unbearable Super Cow"? She's hired!

Just kidding. I don't know why I'm even giving you guys such a hard time about this when I'm all to familiar with the embarrassment one feels when kicking homeless people in the face with shoes costing less than what the person who made them makes in five years.

This week, Michael Grimaldi's wife takes care of his pole, and Allison Moule puts her head somewhere the sun does not shine. And you're right; they're not afraid to use their real names.

A utility pole behind our garage was rotting and likely to fall, so we notified the utility company. Weeks passed without action. Then my wife, the executive director of a small nonprofit agency, contacted a member of her board, who heads the utility. The pole was replaced within 48 hours. Now my wife feels she did wrong. Did she? -- Michael Grimaldi, Kansas City, Mo.

Last weekend, for Memorial Day, I ended up at a rooftop barbecue in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The barbecue was being hosted by a friend of a friend of a friend, so I didn't know anyone, but I did know this: sometimes Smirnoff Ice commercials come to life. Everyone seemed perfectly at ease in their designer vintage, sitting on fake grass drinking Patron margaritas while not one but two DJs battled for most-rarest-underground-old-school-hip-hop-gem over giant loudspeakers and a LCD projector threw anime up on one of the whitewashed industrial brick walls. Whenever I find myself in situations like these in which I am clearly in a world that was not made for me, it makes me wonder what else I'm missing out on, when the barbecue ends and everyone goes back to their underwater mansions to have sex with dragons.

Your situation is kind of like the boring middle-aged Midwest version of this. Popular culture has led us to believe that the upper middle-class is filled with sexual aimlessness and moral turpitude, all key parties and impulse-purchase-sports cars and vodka tonics. In reality it's board meetings and Whole Foods and small industrial favors to save the privileged few from one more headache before they settle down for a night of television, wondering if their college-aged kids are going to be able to avoid all the mistakes that have led to this mildly depressing but not completely unpleasant place in their middle-management lives, and if not, what is in the hatch?!

Your wife did what needed being done. As a reward you should sleep with her twice this year!

I flew out of Denver International Airport shortly after a bad storm and spent three hours in the security line. First-class passengers had no wait because the Transportation Security Administration allowed them to skip to the front of the line. Security costs are shared by the airlines and taxpayers. Should preference be given to first-class passengers? -- Allison Moule, Broomfield, Colo.

What is it with you people and the Denver airport? How did it become the event horizon of your morality?

In the movie Event Horizon, Laurence Fishburne leads a team of astronauts to salvage a space vessel that had gone missing for seven years after a maiden voyage to explore the edges of the universe. When they reach the ship, they realize that through the use of its "Star Drive," the ship has traveled to hell, only to return haunted. One by one, the members of Fishburne's crew are terrorized and murdered by the ship. (This movie is not to be confused with Ghost Ship, which you can tell is a different movie because Event Horizon happens in space, and Ghost Ship happens in the ocean. Completely different.)

I saw this movie in college, twice, and it scared the shit out of me. I'm not a particularly religious person, and what I found so disturbing about this retarded piece of garbage was a concept of hell in which you could be condemned to an eternity of suffering simply by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Everyone on the ship went to hell regardless of how they lived their lives, it was simply circumstance that doomed them.

You, on the other hand, will be going to hell for a reason: You are such a whiny asshole.

Previously: I Am Drunk

• Ctrl-J: Full justify
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• F2: Edit active cell (spreadsheets)
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Mmmm...keyboard shortcuts. We've written up a few Google Docs shortcuts before, but I do believe that these are the best of the bunch. What shortcuts do you use the most often? Let's hear them in the comments.

a) Pay a student to stand in for you and nip off to the closest McDonalds you can find.
b) Call your intern/girlfriend/deputy editor and make them drop whatever they are doing to take your place whilst you saunter off and relieve yourself.
c) Surreptitiously get your "old man" out and, making sure your MacBook is hiding him from a public indecency charge, irrigate the sidewalk.
d) Flagrantly get your "old man" out and threaten to hose down the guy dressed as a clown who's been bugging you ever since you set up your deck chair in the queue.
e) Channel your inner Jim Morrison and just go for it. If the cops come over, you can tell them you're a performance artist called Pee-ter whose Golden show packed 'em in at last years Burning Man, and that you were just entertaining the crowds.
f) Think, "What would Steve do?" and serenely contemplate your inner nirvana while willing that Gotta Piss feeling to go and bug someone else (preferably the clown guy).
g) Smugly pull out your Roadbag, a $5.40 German-made device that turns your pee to gel thanks to the Polymerk powder contained inside, and go in it—before lobbing it at Krusty with a satisfied smirk.

Product Page [Roadbag via Random Good Stuff]

Got a fever? I have, and the only prescription is DOORBELL - namely, this USB one from ReBell. Connect it up to your laptop or PC and download whatever sound you want to hear when your bell is pressed. Then fix it to the wall and connect it to your existing low-voltage doorbell wiring system.

Quick question. What would you have to herald the arrival of The Fuzz/Your Mom/Repossessions-R-Us at your door? Would it be Ring My Bell by Anita Ward? Jack Nicholson doing "Heeeere's Johnny!" in The Shining? Something from Ringo Starr's solo oeuvre? Personally, I'd have another Jack - White Stripes' Jack White - doing My Doorbell if I bought this - but then again, I wouldn't shell out, because it's $100 and I'm a tight-fisted git. – Ad Dugdale

USB Doorbell [Think Geek]

THE iPHONE AND WHITE MOTHERFUCKERS:
MADE FOR EACH OTHER

Apple Jack? Nigga, FUCK Steve Jobs.

Last Christmas, I took my grandchildren to "The Nutcracker," a ballet I love. My enjoyment was severely marred by the appearance of a black snowflake and then, even worse, a black Snow King. The aesthetic incongruity was inconceivable. The entire ballet was spoiled. It is analogous to a one-legged midget playing Tarzan. Does this make me a racist? -- Name withheld, Sewell, N.J.

No. It makes you human. And thank you for the analogy. You're right! A black snowflake in the Nutcracker is exactly like a one-legged midget playing Tarzan, which I have seen happen far too many times, and it is revolting. I throw up every time, so naturally I'm constantly throwing up. I threw up now just thinking about it. Ew, you know what would be even worse? A Mexican Tarzan. Can you imagine? Are there even any dishes to wash in the jungle?

I think we can all understand where you're coming from on this one. The fact that some small town theater director would be so ignorant and racially insensitive as to encroach on your enjoyment of an antiquated and boring ballet by casting the child of someone who probably only has 60-80% of the earning power in the workplace that you do, is just fucking horrifying. What's next? Giving black people their own driver's licenses? (shudder!) Let's just be thankful that there could never be a black Snow King in the real world, not even if his name was Barack Obama.

I'm just surprised you didn't get up on that stage and swing a rope over the nearest papier-mâché tree and string that piece of shit little snowflake up by its neck and then maybe blast the Snow King with a fire hose and set some dogs on him while the sheriff stood by with his arms crossed laughing behind his reflective sunglasses. Jesus Christ, black people, it's fucking Christmas!

My mother is an amateur cat breeder who sells undocumented Persians. When the last buyer, a veterinarian, discovered a congenital heart defect in two of the kittens, I asked my mother to get the parents checked or to discontinue breeding. She refused and does not plan to inform future buyers. Would it be wrong to have the cat spayed on my own? -- Daly Clement, Saco, Maine

It's the season of giving, so let's skip the part where a veterinarian is buying undocumented Persians.

It's fine to go behind your mother's back and have her prized pets spayed, thus denying her of income and the freedom to make her own decisions, however much you may disagree with them. Fuck her, she only gave you life and a dumb name. But then how you will you fill your house with a bunch of furry, constantly shitting lumps of indifference to keep away the unbearable darkness of your impossible loneliness? A sad, crazy lady alone with a thousand cats and a million forgotten dreams in a big, empty, childless house is already heartbreaking, but a sad crazy lady alone in that house without any cats? You should just kill yourself.

Earlier: You Can Never Go Home Again, if You're Lucky

The theater group at my mother's seniors' community typically does a lot of editing -- removing expletives and cutting scenes so plays don't run too long. If they didn't, they could not do the plays at all. But what's worse, my mother recently changed a line in a play she is directing, Neil Simon's "California Suite," to improve it. Isn't she wrong to do these things? LANE GALLOWAY, SEATTLE

Really, 2007? Is this really how you're going to greet me? Fine. Fuck you then. I guess it could be worse. This could have been that question from last week about TENNIS COURT ETIQUETTE! That was the biggest Christmas gift of all, not having to dignify that one with a response.

Well aren't you lucky, Lane! Apparently Santa brought you a whole lot of too much time on your hands for Christmas. I am sure that throughout the years, your mother has given you nothing but permanent psychological scar tissue with her constant dissatisfaction with and nagging about all of your choices and failed promise, but when you publicly turn the Walleye of Sauron that is your insufferably dull needling criticism back on her, you're actually hurting me. My New Year's Resolution is to hate you, and I think it's going to stick.

Anyway, if you're really worried about the artistic integrity of the THEATER GROUP AT A SENIORS' COMMUNITY, I think the solution is simple. Find out what seniors' community Neil Simon is living in, have his death bed wheeled into what I'm imagining is a dun-colored cinder block room filled with folding chairs and the smell of existential despair, and see if he complains about the bastardization of his work in what's obviously a place of serious dramatic interpretation and chronic illness. If he does, have the doctor pull the plug on old mumsy and collect your inheritance. If he doesn't, have some red Jello and shut the fuck up.

I was injured in the line of duty and had to retire on a disability pension from a police force in the Midwest. After years of rehabilitation, I want to resume my career. I cannot pass the physical to reclaim my original job, but I did qualify for a job in a police department in another state. Is it O.K. to receive a disability pension from one force while doing similar work for another? NAME WITHHELD

You, sir, are an American hero, and I salute you.

I think.

I mean, you don't actually specify how you were injured in the line of duty. It could be a Season One of The Wire thing where you went undercover for the re-up and got popped because you didn't tape the gun tight enough under the passenger seat in an old beat up Buick and as soon as someone sat down the tape came off and you couldn't get to the gun in time so you got got. Or it could be a Season One of The Wire thing where your fat lazy Irish friend took early retirement and you're so fucking fat lazy and Irish that you started drinking on the job, trying to work up the courage to pitch yourself down a flight of stairs for that sweet disability check and a chance to sit on your ass.

Do you see where I'm going with this? I'll give you a hint: it's a room in my apartment with a TV, because I just remembered how much I like The Wire and how little I actually care about whatever it is you were talking about in your boring letter.

Earlier: I'm Dreaming of a White Power Christmas

My ob-gyn phoned, urging my support for a ballot measure requiring parental notification for teenage girls seeking abortions. I subsequently received calls from two antiabortion organizations asking me to support the measure. I suspect that my doctor gave them my number. Is that legal of her? Ethical? Kristin Fidler, Portland, Ore.

Man, I would have loved to have been listening in on that first phone call. "Hey, Kristin, it's your obg-yn here. Listen, I was just looking at these important notes I'd taken about your vagina, and it got me thinking: when teenage girls get pregnant they should have to tell their parents, you know, like by law. That way the parents could construct a time machine and go back to just before Cheryl let Rod fuck her in the back of his dad's Celica and have him murdered. Or, if they're poor, they could just traumatize their child with whatever kind of promise of eternal damnation their particular brand of fundamentalist Christianity assures them is in store for anyone with functional genitalia and a brain. Seeing as I know you intimately, what with all the time I've spent examining your vagina, I thought you might feel the same way on this issue. Can I count on you, girlfriend?"

The ideal course of action would be the classic ding-dong-ditch where you put a fetus in a paper bag on her porch, ring the doorbell, set the bag on fire, and then run away. The look on that woman's face when she gets fetus all over her brand new pumps from DSW would be priceless. But where are you going to get a fetus? In January?

No, I think your best bet is to put her phone number up for auction on eBay. That shit is hilarious.

My partner and I sell T-shirts via the Internet that we print with short slogans -- some we thought up ourselves, others we found on Web sites of quotations. Occasionally we get angry letters from people who claim to have devised one of these slogans. Our intellectual-property lawyer says we have no legal obligation to compensate these people, but is there an ethical obligation to do so? Mark Mackaman, Redmond, Wash.

Oh, YUCK. This is why I wish that it were somehow possible to burn the internet to the ground. It would be like that scene in Badlands where Kit and Holly have murdered Holly's father and then doused the house in gasoline. And as they walk off into what will become a cross-country manhunt, the house in flames behind them, they don't necessarily know where they're going to go or what they're going to do, they just know that the internet can't hurt them anymore.

I honestly don't know what's worse, that you sell "Vote for Pedro" t-shirts on the internet, or that you do it with "your partner." And while I'm sure that you came up with "I'm Not As Think As You Drunk I Am" and "Funkin Gonuts" all on your own, I genuinely hope that someone brings a lawsuit against you that is so financially devastating that your partner abandons you and you start drinking heavily, eventually severing all personal ties and living on the streets. Then one day I will be walking down the street and see a bum wearing a shirt that says "I Used to Sell T-Shirts on the Internet With My Partner, But Then We Were Financially Ruined, and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt," and I'll point you out to Scarlett -- because when this happens I will be with Scarlett Johansson -- and be like "Ew, look at that gay bum." And then Scarlett will be all, like, "Ew, I know." And then we'll do it.

Earlier: Well, This Year Is Clearly Going to Suck

Although he knows I still have strong feelings for him, my ex-boyfriend applied for a training program at my workplace. May I ask my supervisor to prevent this? The company has many other offices around the nation where he could train without it being at my emotional expense. -- name withheld, AUSTIN, TEX.

As someone who has had his fair share of coconut girlfriends, I know how difficult it can be living in a world where people you have slept with continue to draw breath. Yuck. There should be somewhere that you can send them all, like an island out in the middle of the ocean with no sustainable food or water so they are forced to eat each other. Lost, except without any of the mystery or intrigue, just desperate acts of cannibalism. And a smoke monster. That being said, since you were the girl in the relationship, it's obviously all your fault.

I don't really care whether it's abandonment or daddy issues that tore you guys apart, but face it: you're a jerk. Let me ask you this: why did you get a job at a company where your ex-boyfriend would someday want to take a training course? (As if any of that even makes sense. What are you? The admissions counselor at ITT Tech?)

Instead of asking your supervisor to prevent this, since he's probably already onto your little mindgames, you should just keep having pitiful, drunken, late night hookups with your ex in the hopes that he'll love you again. He won't, but it has to beat sitting at home in your Hanes Her Way sweatpants eating Safeway ice cream and trying to find a rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond that you haven't already seen a million times.

As the owner of a new small catering company, I must generate contacts. While catering an event at a venue where I hadn't worked before, I mentioned to the manager that any business she could send my way would be of financial benefit to her. My wife says this is tantamount to offering a bribe. Was my proposition ethical? -- P.L., FLORIDA

Your wife sounds boring. You should tell your wife that as the spouse of the owner of a new small catering company, she must shut the fuck up.

And stop acting like a bribe is a bad thing. What are you going to do, let the other small catering companies in your area run roughshod over your dream of providing people who don't care tiny food they don't want? In the cut-throat world of finger foods, you've got to break a couple of rules if you're going to become the regional kingpin of asparagus wrapped in prosciutto. Since you're new to the game, I highly recommend watching the quintessential small-time-caterer-who-rises-to-the-top-of-the-heap film, Scarface.

Seriously, though, can you people quit it with the mini-quiches. That shit is so stupid.

I have the good fortune to look considerably younger than my age. When I travel on business I could take advantage of seniors' discounts, but I would have to produce evidence of my antiquity in front of my younger colleagues -- a bunch of 20-somethings who would love to have my job. Instead I pay full fare, and my employer reimburses me. Is this ethical? Is there a better solution? -- A. W., BROOKLYN

It's funny when old people talk about how much younger they look. Younger than what? A senior citizen? Okay, congratulations. The "bunch of 20-somethings" who would love to have your job--also, I don't know how they used to do it when you were in your twenties, just after the War, but these days you don't get someone's job that you want just because you find out they're older than they look. But sure, grandpa, whatever you say--might not know just how close you are to death, but I can assure you that they won't like you any less if they find out the truth. How could they? You're already so condescending, self-content, and peacocky that I'm sure you're pretty roundly hated by people of all ages.

I would tell you to drop dead, but why rush the inevitable.

Earlier: Nobody Puts Baby in the Dumpster