for 4 October 2000. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Tim Cavanaugh
Special Guest Editor

Terry Colon
Art Director

Heather Havrilesky
Senior Editor

Joey Anuff
Publisher

greetings:

for no good reason, a thought pierced my slack-jawed idiocy while reading today's filler. it occurred to me that evolution seems to favor smaller, faster, and more efficient things. given that preposterous hypothesis, and given the fact that evolution can affect all parts composing the whole, i hereby propose the theory of the smaller, faster, penis as being evolutionarily advantageous. not only would a smaller faster penis be able to work more efficiently, it would also, ostensibly, operate under heisenberg's uncertainty principle, allowing 'randomness' to work for said smaller, faster, wiener. my question is this, however: what subliminal (or subliminable in the honorable george w. bush's smaller, faster, vocabulary) message did you implant in filler that would have caused me to think this?

merely curious,

allen
<alllee@cs.indiana.edu>

Oh sure, blame it on me. The fact is, I would never have suggested that a smaller faster penis is better. I think Freud might give you more insight into where this "message" came from. But you know, choose your delusion.

Polly

Hi,

I am a computer person. There is no sexy way to tell a woman that you are a computer programmer/engineer/technician/analyst. I've tried them all. None work. Help.

P.S. — How do I really go about getting Suck apparel? Being too connected for my own good, I can get suck mentions and links on plenty of sites all over but I'm not sure this is enough. Specifically, I want a Suck.com hat. Make this happen and I will suckle your penis.

Alex Graveley
<graveleya@yahoo.com>

I was recently in Evansville, Indiana, and a woman there told me a joke. An older couple are sitting at a table at the country club. A pretty young woman comes in, and touches the man's arm and talks to him for a while, then leaves. His wife turns to him and says, "Who the hell was that?" He says, "Well, that was my mistress." She's shocked and disgusted and says she's divorcing him immediately. He says, "Go ahead and divorce me. But think about it. Are you sure you can live without the Lexus, and the nicest house on the block, with the pool, and the country club membership, and all that jewelry, and the shopping trips, and the trips to Europe?" She thinks about it for awhile. Then another old guy walks in with a younger woman, and the wife asks her husband who it is. "That's Bob's mistress," he says. The wife replies, "Well! Our mistress is a LOT better looking than theirs is!"

What a sick, sexist joke, huh?

So, maybe you should get a Lexus.

Onward: I don't have a penis, but if I did, I wouldn't refer to "suckling" unless I wanted people to think that I was very, very small. I'm not sure why I'd want people to think that, or why you would, but I'm really beginning to think that Lexus is just the thing for you.

Polly

Polly,

Today's Filler was so concise, to the point, and so generally free of divergence and confusion that I am worried. Are you feeling okay? Was there a substitute Polly? (Polly Ethylene? Polly Nomial?) Or was this part of some automated Filler generation experiment? Filler seemed almost mainstream this week.

On a side note, my long suffering friend, Andrea the payroll princess, would like you to please explain this riddle to her. She is convinced it must be funny and I haven't been able to help her out.

Q: How do you recognise a computer expert on an oil rig?

A: He is the one throwing crusts to the helicopters.

Thanks,

John MacW
<jrm@best.com>

Ah, that reminds me of a great joke I just heard.

Q: How do you recognize a computer expert on an oil rig?

A: He's the guy with the little dick trying to parallel-park his Lexus.

Just basically a mean person,

Polly

Dear Polly:

I read all your columns (or most of them, anyway) and I thought today's was one of the all-time best. Last night, my wife and I were discussing the subject of explaining what you do to strangers and folks at parties/church/the gym/whatever and today I read your column. I used to work at Broadcast.com and Yahoo!, and made the mistake of leaving for a "better" job at another Internet start-up which is about to go bust — or, I hope it goes bust, since I was lied to by the ceo/founder who got me to join the company in the first place!

My dad always told me that most people really don't care what we do, that we imagine that they are so much more concerned than they really are, and that most people, even the apparently together people, have their own insecurities to deal with. But, it's tough to just be oneself, and not try to be "important". I've been seeing a career counselor for a few months, and she is really good. She told me that she has a lot of clients who are in hi-tech as programmers and such, and they hate it, but everyone tells them that they're in such a hot field that they can't leave. I've also been struggling with the isse of trying to do something "meaningful", and she said I'll probably always have that hang up, but that I just need to try to do something that I imagine would be cool or fun to do. That would be easy if I didn't worry what people thought!!

Have you ever read the book Class, by Paul Fussel? It's great, and it discusses the theme of trying to impress people and move up the social ladder, with the irony that most people really don't care about your car/college decal/job/house, etc.

Thanks for the great columns. I appreciate them each week.

Best,

Jeff Swan
<jeffs@fieldsource.com>

You know, Jeff, your dad is absolutely right. Most people don't care what we do, they have their own insecurities to deal with. For example, at your last office party, you were chatting away with someone in engineering about your job, thinking maybe he was thinking about what a low-level scrub you were, when, actually, maybe he was worried about, you know, the weather, or, you know, the fact that the sock in his pants was about to fall out the bottom of his pants' leg. In fact, maybe that's why he diverted your attention by suggesting you two take a spin in his brand new Lexus. Sly dog!

Just goes to show you, no one really cares who's got the hottest mistress.

Polly

god i hate it when you're so spot-on with your pissy observations. a friend of mine came into town this weekend from washington state...that's right, he works for microsoft. not only does he work for microsoft but he's now got a position of import that allows him semi-regular access to...that's right, big bad bill. at some point he asked me, "what is it that you do?" me? sputter, flail, stutter, did i mention that i'm the father of triplet boys?

thanks polly

Lance Sulton
<lsulton.triplei@medimedia.com>

First of all, your name says it all. Secondly, how much cuter and more fun are your triplets than Bill Gates? Thirdly, you could become King of the Universe and your "friend" would still be blathering on about how Bill really prefers cinnamon sprinkles to chocolate in his triple nonfat no-foam latte. I hate that guy. I'll kick his ass for you. I mean, come on, semi-regular access to Big Bad Bill? What is this, a bathhouse?

Suckle this, you robber baron bastard!

Polly

Apparently, during World War 2 if you were working on something top-secret and someone asked you what it was you did for the government, you could give the smart-ass answer "I make wheels for miscarriages." (You know, my stepmother always used to warn me, "Nobody likes a smart-ass." But the funny thing was — nobody liked her!) "Lion-tamer" is another surefire occupation, as is "chrononaut" (my dream job.) "Chrononaut" may be literally true, too, for those who spend their days reading old books, shopping for ancient used crapola at the thrift shop or listening to long-dead musicians on CDs. But the answer "writer" is the worst conversation killer there is. "That must be interesting" can be met with "Actually, it's a dog's life" (pilfered from Keep the Asphidistra Flying)--just as "are you working on a novel?" "Yes, but it's a piece of shit." (pilfered from Animal House). Yeah, chrononaut! That's the best answer. What exactly was Jennifer Lopez's job in The Cube--cerebronaut? Psychonaut? That's going to be the second big growth field of the 21st century. Imagine an amazing journey into the brain of Jennifer Lopez!

Updating my resume,

Richard Von Busack
<regisgoat@earthlink.ne>

Let's see, how can I beat those same two stupid jokes into the ground even more? I think of two stupid jokes at the start of the day and then just spit them back at anyone who writes in. Isn't it fascinating to see a cutting-edge comedian at work?

That's what I describe myself as: Cutting Edge Comedian. When anyone asks me what I do (which they always do, since I'm stunningly attractive — tall and thin — and naturally they wonder if I'm in the entertainment industry ["If you're not, you should be!" they always squeal]) I always say: "Ah, well, I'm a cutting edge comedian. I write wildly hilarious jokes that appear weekly on Suck.com, the longest running daily site on the Internet, the graphical portion of the World Wide Web." That always shuts them up, but mostly because I take out the keys to my Lexus and twirl them ostentatiously on my pinky finger.

But then I found out "Lexus Driver" is a code name for "Guy with a Suckle-able Penis," so I stopped doing that.

Everybody hates a smart-ass, particularly one can't stop beating a dead horse,

Polly

Great stuff. You guys continue to amaze. What a great free read, and no advertising. The mysteries of economics. Time for another Caddyshack fix.

DD
<Nullen@aol.com>

One of the great things about Suck continues to be the lack of advertising on its pages. Sometimes I wish Our Publisher would relax his moral standards and get some, though. I, at least, could use the dough. But the guy just hates money. I think he wrote a book about how stupid it is, or was that a golf instruction video? I'm a little confused these days.

Slotcar H.

Slotcar,

Just a couple of thoughts;

1. You totally ignore the Meatballs franchise and its effect on popular culture. You mean to tell me you don't sing the "C*I*T*'s" song at family gatherings. That you don't chant Spaz, Spaz, Spaz, Spaz at every hot dog eating contest. That when you watched Chris Makepeace in My Bodyguard, you could not help but think of him as Woody the Wabitt.

All I can think is you choose to ignore think cinematic high-water mark due to some sort of old school Haley Mills hand in the warm water incident that is too painful for you to revisit.

2. I am not annoyed by the gopher. My peers and myself cheer for him like the shark in Jaws, like Jason, like Freddy, like Death in a Sweedish movie. So take my advice Mr. Hatebath and step off the gopher.

Your Faithful Reader,

Joseph A. Iacovelli Esq.
<Joseph_Iacovelli@rsausa.com>

Esq.,

Both Chris Makepeace and I thank you for writing in. I was too busy rooting for your mama at the last hot dog eating contest I attended to chant "Spaz," but as for the gopher, you're right. He is like Max von Sydow in The Seventh Seal. Murray's death match with him is like a game of chess played on a golf course of light- and dark-green checkerboard squares. The gopher haunts Murray still. Look at Groundhog Day. Gopher, groundhog, what's the difference? Why is Murray's career so mixed-up with woodchucks whose colloquial names start with the letter G? In this context, the unfunny Murray-vehicle Larger Than Life, with its elephant co-star, starts to seem like a desperate attempt for the star of Meatballs to decisively split with ground squirrels by taking up with a pachyderm.

Slotcar H.

I was at the grocery store the other day and saw a Talking Gopher from Caddyshack! It jorbled more than talked, really. Thought you might care.