Battling the bulge, berry deep thoughts & whisky is for fighting

Dear Rachel,

Caffeine ups your metabolism and helps you burn calories, right? I think that following each cookie, each champagne with a cuppa joe ought to help me burn off the excess and hit the new year fit and trim, if not a little jacked up. Want to join me and expand my sample size to two people?

– Christmas Cheer

Dear Swinging from the Garlands,

Nah, because I have another strategy already in place. It’s called “never sit down in one place for more than three minutes all season long, at least while I’m visiting with family.” Nervous fidgeting also burns calories. So does awkward pacing.

– Thanks though, Rachel

Dear Rachel,

I feel like I’ve found a glitch in the matrix. I was price comparing blueberries. Two containers, two different prices, same brand. One set was measured by volume, sold by the pint. The other side was sold by weight, grams/ounces. You cannot compare these prices without knowing the density of blueberries. And you can’t trust the ol’ hand-weigh test. Is this a sign of a tear in the fabric of spacetime?

– Feeling Blue

Dear Chuck Berry,

This gets to the core of how we understand the universe: are blueberries a liquid or a solid? And if blueberries are in fact a liquid, then am I a liquid too? We famously share most of our DNA with bananas, and blueberries can’t be that far behind. If I am a liquid, then at least I have a ready-made explanation for when I can’t hold myself together.

– Sloshingly, Rachel

Dear Rachel,

My brother and I are due for our big annual family fight. I’m an Irish whiskey man, and he’s a Kentucky bourbon fella. Now I could really care less what he drinks, but he gets under my skin acting all superior, and I end up taking the bait every year. Any coping mechanisms besides abstaining from alcohol?

– Fightin’ Words

Dear Hook, Line, Sinker,

It’s I COULDN’T care less. If you COULD care less, that means you care a statistically significant amount. So perhaps you really did mean COULD care less, because you care enough to fight your brother over, what, whether whiskey is spelled with an -ey or a -y? Whether Irish people, or Irish immigrants, make better magic water? I might recommend you down a cup of coffee after every shot to keep your act together. And not an Irish coffee, either.

– Top it off, Rachel