I broke up with a long-term girlfriend about two years ago. Last week, while totally drunk, I thought it would be a great idea to see whether I could still log on to her e-mail account, since we told each other our user names and passwords way back when. (Yes, I know I’m going straight to hell for this.) But that’s not the problem. Her e-mails revealed that she’s been in an emotionally abusive relationship for about a year. Her boyfriend e-mails her that her family is crazy, that her friends are worthless and should be cut out of her life, that she’ll never do better than him. He insults and swears at her. Whenever she protests, he backs off, tells her that he’ll commit suicide if she leaves him, and begs her for forgiveness. Then he goes back to his old ways a few days later. She and I aren’t in contact anymore, ever since she told me a few months ago that she wanted it that way. She claimed that she needed to get over me, but now I know that her boyfriend made her tell me this. What the hell do I do? She’s a gentle person who’s being destroyed by this asshole, but I don’t think anyone knows about it except him and her–and now me. Do I speak up, thereby risking, given his temperament, my own safety? Or do I mind my own business and accept that the world is sometimes shitty? –Snooping Ex
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Thibodo gave one other good reason why you might want to contact your ex: “Part of me thinks she has a right to know he’s been snooping in her e-mail so she can change her password. That’s something all victims should do regularly.” For more information about domestic violence, go to www.ccadv.org.
As a microbiologist, I feel compelled to inform you that you made a fallacious statement in a recent column. You said that even stinky piss is close to sterile and can’t make you sick. You’re wrong on two counts. First, “stinky piss” can be a symptom of a urinary tract infection, meaning that the piss would have bacteria in it, rendering it unsterile. I concede that a UTI isn’t the only cause of stinky piss, but it’s a major one. Second, urine is sterile–until it leaves your body. As it leaves your urethra it picks up some bacteria that live on your skin, called normal flora. Now, these little guys are fine hanging out on your skin, but if they were somehow to get into your eyes, mouth, or, say, carpet-burn abrasions on your knees, they could cause a nasty infection. So my advice to those who love golden showers is to make the showerer clean his/her hoohoo with an antiseptic wipe, akin to the kind you use at the doctor’s office before peeing in a cup. –Miss Information
