Some Best Friend

With best friends like this one, what wife needs enemies? TELL OR NOT TO TELL wrote in to Dear Abby:

I lived with my best friend and her husband for a few months after moving to a new state.

What could go wrong?

They recently went through a rough patch and she took a vacation to cool off. In her absence, and under the influence of a great deal of alcohol, her husband and I slept together.

We all know alcohol lowers inhibitions. That is why women who feel that they need and excuse to fornicate will drink, and why men will try to get them to drink. However, it is not an excuse for behavior, certainly not for this adultery.

We decided it happened only because we were drunk and decided never to speak of it again.

We'll see, now won't we?

The problem is -- it happened again, this time with almost no alcohol involved at all!

Ah-HA! I swear I didn't read ahead.

I'm reluctant to tell my friend about our trysts. I think telling her will do more harm than good. On the other hand, the guilt eats at me every day to the point that I cry over what I've done to her. Her husband doesn't want to tell her, ever. What should I do?

There was a time in which I would definitely say "Tell". But now my question is – do they have minor kids? If they do, shut up and deal with your guilt without bothering your friend (to whom you have not been much of a friend). If they don't have minor kids, tell her. She may not believe you, but at least she'll be warned and can decide whether or not to leave before making children (if she is in that age window) or counting on him to be there with her through retirement.

ALSO... never be alone with the guy again.

The kicker would be if the wife had sex on her vacation. In addition to alcohol, vacations are another way women rationalize fornication. "It doesn't count if it happens on vacation or out of the country." But if the letter writer and the wife are really best friends, the wife would have likely told the letter writer about the vacation sex or any other time she cheated on her hubby. And the writer would have mentioned that.

Joe Kurihara (Allegedly) Knows How to Get Smashed

So a dad leaves a wedding with his three-year-old kid, drunk or about to get drunk (the dad, not the kid). Then the kid ends up spending more than 24 hours missing as a result. This is Howard Blume's story in the Los Angeles Times.

Young Dylan Kurihara was found in his father's car, sleeping and strapped in his car seat, by Pasadena resident Rowdy Metzger, 39.

Metzger joined the search because, "he said he had some kids about the same age and needed to get out and see if he could help," said Pasadena police Cmdr. Darryl Qualls.

Good for Metzger.

Police said the boy was a little thirsty but otherwise in excellent condition and was taken for a checkup to Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena.

That's a good place to go.

The child and the car turned up at 10:40 p.m. Sunday in a parking lot under a commercial building in the 500 block of East Green Street, only two blocks away from where police arrested his father, Joe Kurihara, the night before for public intoxication and resisting arrest. At the time, officers did not know he had his child nearby. Nor did Kurihara mention it.

He later told detectives that he was so drunk that he had no memory of his child being with him.

Father of the year? He had to be drunk as a skunk. At least he strapped the kid in.

Police had searched the area already but missed the car because it was not easily visible from behind a barrier.

Note to criminals: You have a new hiding spot for your contraband. (I kid... being a cop in Pasadena is no easy task.)

Dylan Kurihara was last seen leaving a wedding party with his father, a 23-year-old West Covina resident, Saturday evening.

Witnesses, including the boy's mother, last saw the child with Kurihara at 9:30 p.m. on Saturday.

The parents, described by police as an "on-again, off-again" unmarried couple, had been attending wedding festivities at a Masonic lodge.

Young, unmarried... and highly irresponsible.

When Dylan's mother didn't hear from Kurihara for hours, she began to call police stations and hospitals. She reached Pasadena police about 8 a.m.

So the search for the boy didn’t begin until after that. Three-year-olds have personality and awareness. I can't imagine what the heck that kid was thinking strapped in there without water, without food, without seeing his parents, and without a bathroom break. Thank God the vehicle wasn't left out in the sun on a hot day.

Dogs traced the scent of the boy or his father to the Rose Bowl Aquatic Center, about two miles from the parking garage, officials said. But that turned out to be a blind lead.

Maybe the dogs wanted to go swimming.

Kurihara has two other recent arrests on record, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

Baldwin Park police arrested him at 9 p.m. last Thursday for an unspecified misdemeanor charge and released him at 4:39 a.m. The same department had arrested him on another unspecified misdemeanor charge at 7:28 a.m. on Aug. 10, releasing him about three hours later. For each offense the bail amount was set at $1,155.

Go ahead, ladies – make more babies with him.

1. Don't have kids out of wedlock. (Or, if you do, give them up for adoption.)
2. Choose wisely, then marry.
3. Treat your spouse kindly.
4. Be responsible for your children.

How much better would the world be if people followed these rules?

Giving the Finger (Or Losing the Finger)

I've written before about my in-laws and their drinking. My MIL is great - when she is sober. My wife is very familiar with her mother's stages of drunkenness, so we almost always leave her presence before things get too bad.

Sometimes, after a family dinner and after we've left, my MIL will go into a drunken rage.

Recently, she and FIL got into it during one such instance.

A door was slammed.

Off came the tip of one of my MIL's fingers.

She ended up having the entire portion of the finger at the last knuckle surgically amputated.

Good times.

I wonder how long it will be before she asks again why we don't leave the kids there?

Hey Ocifer, That Other Driver is Drunk!

From the Orange County Register comes this coverage of an accident in Fullerton, a city that neighbors Anaheim. Adam Townsend reports.

Two suspected drunken drivers crashed into each other at Gilbert Street and Rosecrans Avenue at 2:26 a.m. Sunday. Police arrested one driver, Alice Moya, 20, at the scene, said Fullerton Police Sgt. Andrew Goodrich in an e-mail.

The driver of the other vehicle, Sae Koh, 55, was seriously injured, Goodrich said. He was found to have also been driving under the influence and was cited at a hospital, Goodrich said.

Wouldn't life be a whole let better if drunken drivers only ever hurt themselves or each other?

Drinking Women Stay Thin

According to a new study, there is a correlation is women between drinking in moderation and not getting fat. Shari Roan reports in the Los Angeles Times on the study.

Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston examined data from 19,220 women enrolled in the long-running Women's Health Study. The women, all originally of healthy weight, provided health and lifestyle information over an average of 13 years.

After doing their best to adjust for other factors that influence weight, the researchers found that compared with women who did not drink, women who drank 15 to 30 grams a day -- the equivalent of a drink or two -- were 30% less likely to be overweight or obese at the end of the study period.

Category 4 guys already look for women who drink because drinking gives them an excuse to put out. Leykis advised his "students" to leave – end the date – the moment a woman reveals she doesn't drink, as the pool of easy women who don't drink on dates is too small to be worth playing the odds. It is a bonus that these women will be less likely to gain weight.

On the Los Angeles Times website, the readers seem to have picked up on this.

"covertmoose" wrote:

I have a better reason: the women who party worry more about their personal appearance than those who don't.

Quite possible.

Leykis did advise his students to avoid beer, instead opting for hard liquor or wine. The goal was for the woman to get buzzed, but not send her to the restroom sick or with a full bladder. I would be curious to see if there are weight differences between women who mostly drink beer and women who mostly drink hard liquor or wine.

As for married guys, this is all the more reason to enjoy a glass of wine with the wife.