It’s time once again for “Ask Eric Stuff,” an occasional feature in which people ask Eric stuff and he answers them. You can submit your own questions at [old Daily Herald link no longer active], and then hope and pray the gods smile upon you and Eric replies in the column. He is unable to reply to each letter personally due to laziness.
Dear Eric: Do you remember when Rage Against the Machine held a concert in Spanish Fork? People actually feared for their lives. What was up with that? — Fearless in Fork
Dear Metal-head: Yeah, but people in Spanish Fork fear for their lives when it rains, because they think the sky is melting. Panic over a rock concert shouldn’t surprise us.
Dear Eric: Why did God tell the Mormons to go to Utah? — Michael in Tulsa
b>Dear Michael: Because a big part of Mormon theology is the importance of sacrifice and suffering. (Actual letter I will now receive from someone: “If you don’t like Utah, WHY DON’T YOU LEAVE?!!!!!!!”)
Dear Eric: Since Mormons don’t have to pay for lavish weddings, why don’t they at least feed their guests a meal? — < Always the Bridesmaid Dear You’ll Never Get Married: Those little mints and nuts aren’t enough for you, Tubbo?
Dear Eric: Why does the Utah legislature only meet for a couple months when my state legislature meets for a year? — Non-Utah Native
Dear Outsider: Because Gayle Ruzicka only bakes enough marijuana-laced brownies to last seven weeks.
Dear Eric: How do you tell a girl you don’t really want to go out with her again, ever, without hurting her feelings? — Perplexed in Provo
Dear Perple: The best way is to shout it as you slow down near her house and push her out the car door.
Dear Eric: My boyfriend recently moved to Ohio. What’s your opinion on long-distance relationships? — Stuck in Provo
Dear Stuck: They can work out very well. What are you doing Friday?
Dear Eric: What is the governmental procedure to be followed if the vice president dies? — DownWithGOP
Dear DWGOP: Widespread panic.
Dear Eric: What signals should I look for to tell if a guy likes me? — BYU Coed
Dear Fat Girl: Does he seem to ignore you? Does he date other girls? Does he avoid complimenting you? Is it difficult to maintain a meaningful conversation with him? If the answer to most of these is “yes,” then he either doesn’t like you or else he does.
Dear Eric: Why is my little brother so hyper? — Bewildered in Bountiful
Dear Bounty: Last year, Utahns in some counties voted to allow fluoride to be put in the public water supply. So much attention was focused on that bill, though, that no one noticed another one: the decision to put crack in the public water supply. (It should also be noted that the people of Utah County were opposed to fluoride. Please see the above item above Rage Against the Machine.)
Dear Eric: Someone once told me that one of the stated purposes of BYU is to provide a place for young men and women of the Mormon faith to meet and mingle so that they will get married. Is this true? Has that policy actually been put on paper somewhere? — A Little Skeptical
Dear Little: The only policies that have actually been put on paper at BYU are that the Honor Code Office treats the accused as guilty until proven innocent, and that mustaches are a sign of apostasy. Everything else, like having to stand motionless if you hear the national anthem, is unofficial.
Dear Eric: Why does Secretary of State Colin Powell pronounce his first name “CO-lun?” The spelling indicates “CAH-lin.” Why on earth would he prefer that pronunciation? — Organized in Orem
Dear Organ: To find out the answer to this question, I wrote to Mr. Powell’s parents, Rectum and Intestina Powell. They did not reply.
Dear Eric: How can you tell if a guy likes you? Should a girl play hard to get, or does that turn a guy off? — Looking for Love
Dear Looking: How can I tell if a guy likes me? I don’t know. Maybe he offers to buy me a drink or something. Oh, that was a generic “you”? Thank goodness. A girl who plays “hard to get” usually winds up “not gotten.” Men are fickle, with very short attention spans. Perhaps you — ooh, a quarter!
When I was a kid, my mom frequently would ask me, "Do you have to have a smart-aleck answer for EVERYTHING?!" I recall the correct answer being "no," but this column seems to indicate otherwise.
Actually, there are plenty of questions for which I don't have smart-aleck answers. Those are the questions I chose not to answer here.
This was the second of my "Ask Eric Stuff" columns. Where the first one mostly used the questions as springboards for typical "Snide Remarks" fodder, this one used them as set-ups for one-liners. That quickly became my preference for this feature, and I mostly adhered to it hereafter.
