Dear Steve,

I love your column. But this week's sucked. Seriously, it was awful. It was the worst thing I ever read. I hate you for sending it to me. If I ever see you, I'm going to gouge your eyes out with a melon baller. But really, I love your column. Just thought you should know.

Well, I usually love your column. Sometimes, you spell one word wrong and that error prevents me from enjoying it. Even though I clearly knew what you meant because I am the one who corrected you. Steve, the whole reason I subscribe to your column is that I am too lazy pick up a paper where it runs with the benefit of an editor. I do want the raw version of the column, but a misspelling? Come on, Steve, you owe me more than that! After all, I am the same person who sent you an email three years ago that said this same thing. Don't you remember?

You used to be funnier, too. You used to write perfect columns every single week and now you've gotten terrible. I don't ever remember disliking one out of your hundreds of columns before now because everything that happened in the past is better than the present. Except for when I wrote you a similarly worded email three years ago. That time I didn't like it either. But I've forgotten about that completely, even though I am still upset at you for simply saying thank you and not addressing why I didn't like that particular column.

Speaking of which, that email also asked you questions that were clearly addressed in previous columns. How come you simply thanked me for writing to you and haven't addressed those questions? I am a loyal reader! I read your column every week! Except for the ones which would have answered my questions.

I also asked you to read my hastily written blog and forward it to the editors of Maxim. I heard you used to write for them several years ago. Why haven't you helped me yet? I am clearly too lazy to help myself, so I really need your help. I am also too lazy to spell check my blog, but I need everything you send me to have no typos or my head will explode. Oh, and when I asked you for help in becoming a professional writer, that book you suggested I read was way too long. What, do you really think I'm serious about this profession? I want to be successful, not work. Yeesh.

By the way, your hyphen came out as an odd looking character on my web browser. That is clearly your fault.

You really are slipping. Do you remember that one column you wrote that applied to me more than the others? Why can't you repeatedly send that same one out every week? Or if you can't do that, I have an idea - why don't your write a column about me and my friends? We have many zany antics that are extremely zany and filled with zaniness. My blog about them bores people to tears, but I bet you could find something funny and universally appealing. Wait, this isn't going to be in your column, is it? Oh, I'm so wasted.

You've also gotten too bitter. I don't think it's funny when you attack things. Except if you attack things I don't like. That's awesome. But when you compliment things I don't like, you've gotten soft. You bitter softee, you.

I'm not sure why I still read your column, considering how bitter and soft you are. And how you never write about me specifically, though I hope you don't write about this. And how you haven't helped me even though I am clearly unwilling to help myself. And how you ignore my questions just because I've ignored your answers. And how I think you used to be funnier, until you write a column I find funny again, and then every week thereafter I think you used to be funnier. Sometimes, I think I'd unsubscribe from your column if I could just read the directions how. See, I can't read English. Except if I'm correcting you. Then I'm awesome at it.

But most importantly, I just wanted to say keep up the good work. Except for this week's column, which was terrible. You obviously wrote it just for you.

Sincerely,
Your Biggest Fan

Steve Hofstetter is the author of the Student Body Shots books, which are available at SteveHofstetter.com and bookstores everywhere. He can be e-mailed at steve@stevehofstetter.com.

I am not a criminal. Sure, I have broken a few laws - illegal u-turns, underage drinking, and my nasty habit of removing tags from mattresses. But I would never do anything that could land me in prison. I'm just not tough enough to survive. I complain when I get cold.

I thought I'd become tougher over the last few years. Traveling has forced me to live on little sleep, jet lag, and fast food. But instead of becoming tougher, I just get sick more often. I know I'm a wuss - it's my cross to bear. Though if I had an actual cross to bear, I'd probably complain a lot because of the wuss thing.

You really find out what you're made of when the chips are down, when push comes to shove, and when you run out of clichés. And in some circumstances, I have risen to the occasion. (See Kippur, Yom) But the night the heat went off is not one of them.

In February of 2003, I shared a tiny two bedroom apartment with two girls. No, I didn't sleep with either of them. One was a horrible person, and the other had a husband. It was someone else's husband, but it was still a husband.

Let's call the nicer one Allie and the meaner one Kate, because those are their actual names. Yes, I lived across the hall from Kate and Allie. The room next to Sanford and Son was taken.

Allie, despite the whole home wrecker thing, was a nice girl. She didn't know the guy was married when they started dating, which makes things more the guy's fault. Kate, on the other hand, was NOT a nice girl, and most other problems were HER fault. She was one of those people who told stories about a terrible fight, and everyone she told clearly knew she started it. And then she'd get upset when people wouldn't take her irrationally quick-to-anger side.

It was my turn not to get along with her. I really tried. I was always polite, paid my rent early, and didn't keep anything I owned in the common area. The common area was a kitchen/living room hybrid, known to me as my kitching room. Or her kitching room, because I didn't put any of my stuff there.

One day, the heat in our building stopped working, though the management company was nice enough to provide a space heater. One space heater. For a two bedroom apartment. In fairness, they may have figured the apartment was so damned small that one heater would be enough.

I ran the heater in my room the first night because Kate and Allie were on vacation. They were both back visiting their parents in Canada, which was probably warmer than my room. They were also looking into visas to stay in the United States - theirs had expired, and they were trying to figure out how to stay in America so Kate could fight with more people.

They arrived back in the apartment on day two, after I placed the heater in the kitching room so we could all share the warmth. I was out working, so they took the heater into their room. That's fair - they could heat their room enough so they could sleep, and then it'd be my turn. Or that's what would happen in a civilized living environment.

I got back from my last show at 3AM, when it was nine degrees outdoors and probably four degrees in my room. I walked in to the girls' room to get the heater. The girls' room, which was now about 90 degrees because they'd been running the heat so long.

I didn't realize that Kate had set a trap by wrapping the heater's cord around her wrist. It worked; she caught me blue-handed. Kate yelled at me to leave the heater with her and Allie, neither of whom were using their blankets because their room was so hot.

Not wanting to evoke the rath of a rathful person with lots of rath, I layered up and went to sleep, wearing four sweatshirts, three pairs of jeans and socks, and a wool hat. It was a real pleasant evening. And the best part was when Kate woke me up a few hours later to yell at me some more.

I didn't want to write this column immediately because, as mad as I was at Kate, I didn't want to get her in any real trouble. After all, she was violating US law at the time and, though she should be punished, I don't imagine deportation to Canada or prison would have been appropriate.

Though it does get cold in both places.

Steve Hofstetter is the author of the Student Body Shots books, which are available at SteveHofstetter.com and bookstores everywhere. He can be e-mailed at steve@stevehofstetter.com.

When you have a passenger in your car, is it your responsibility to have music acceptable to the passenger? It depends on the circumstances. The answer is clearly yes, when anyone is driving but me.

I kid, I kid. I also do what I can as a responsible driver to avoid Ashlee Simpson. And Kelly Clarkson. And Justin Timberlake. And really most solo artists right now. I never realized it before, but wow do most of them suck.

If you like their music, I don't apologize. I'm sure we could find something else we agree on. I love old school hip hop. If you don't listen to Tribe Called Quest, I like classic rock, too. If you're not a fan of CCR, how about something more current? If you say no to Green Day, we could try some sports talk. If you avoid ESPN, what about comedy? Richard Pryor isn't for you? Fine, get out of the car.

That's the responsibility of a driver. To try find something both parties agree on. I say both parties and not all parties because if you're in the back seat, the driver doesn't like you enough to care.

It is the driver's prerogative to play whatever music they like, as long as it doesn't upset their passengers. Though the driver gets more leeway on a long road trip because the driving is tougher, and there are fewer good radio stations. Try driving through the Appalachian Mountains sometime without satellite and see if you can pick up a station that doesn't play faith-based country music. If you're into that, that's your prerogative, but you won't find it playing in my car.

"I lost my girl and my dog cause of bad behavior; thank god I still got my truck and my savior."

Speaking of "prerogative," I learned that word from Bobby Brown's "It's My Prerogative." Apparantly, it means the ability to do what you want to do. But it's a song you won't hear in my car. Except when it's running through your head, like it is now. Take that, Ashlee Simpson fans. "Everybody's talking, all this stuff about me"¦"

The driver of a commercial vehicle, however, should listen to what the passenger wants. It is bad enough that I can't control the smell or the climate in most cabs. But I'm not paying $85 a mile to hear Sri Lanka's greatest hits. Though they're still preferable to Ashlee Simpson.

I am not suggesting that all cab drivers in America are foreign. American cabbies listen to terrible music, too. I don't like music at all in a cab. Though lately it's been drowning out the sound of the cabbie's cell phone.

All the music in a cab sucks, I just happen to pick one example. Just like plenty more music sucks than Ashlee Simpson, Kelly Clarkson, and Justin Timberlake. That Justin Guarini guy sucks, too. Maybe solo artists named Justin suck. Or maybe just solo artists who are manufactured, antiseptic, and have nothing real to sing about.

I also find cabbies listening to news radio. Even THAT we disagree on, since the only news radio I like is the BBC. I find it much more informative when the stress is on the second syllable of "Bagh-DAD."

This morning I took a shared ride van to the airport, and the driver was listening to cool jazz the whole way. Though it could have been smooth jazz - I am not versed enough in crappy imitations of real jazz to know the difference. If he wanted to listen to Miles or Duke or Louis or Ella or Billie or Count or just about any of the great jazz musicians, I'd be okay with it. But he wanted to listen to some guy randomly tapping on a saxophone with no regard for beat, measure, or eardrums.

With three other passengers seemingly enjoying this cat scratch fervor, I couldn't protest. In this case, I was the minority - the driver was playing music that most of the van enjoyed. I wondered if all three other passengers were deaf, and I had boarded the wrong van. But there was nothing I could do - it was their prerogative, and I couldn't say what I wanted to say. Which was, "this music sucks! For the love of anything holy, change it! Or kill me now!" Saying that probably would have been rude.

After the flight, I picked up a rental car and programmed all 12 pre-sets before even leaving the lot. There are only 11 stations in Columbus, Ohio I actively want to listen to, but I left a country Jesus station in there. I may need another column sometime.

Steve Hofstetter is the author of the Student Body Shots books, which are available at SteveHofstetter.com and bookstores everywhere. He can be e-mailed at steve@stevehofstetter.com.

If your SPF is higher than your pants size, you might just be a redhead.

Now that a hack premise is out of the way, let me explain what it really means to be redheaded.

People assume that because the cartoon coloring of our hair is the same as the cartoon coloring of fire, redheads must be fiery. That's ridiculous. Not all brunettes have dark sides, and not all blondes are cowards. But evolution has made redheads fiery. If you spent your entire life getting your cheeks pinched and asked "where'd you get your hair?" you would be fiery, too.

I love the question, "where'd you get your hair?" The same place you got yours: from your parents. Even if someone has never studied bio, I think our society has come far enough to understand that the stork is a myth.

My parents don't have red hair, but two of the three children my mother gave birth to do. There are actually four kids in my family, but I don't think you can count my adopted sister in this equation. When two parents have a recessive red-headed gene, odds are that one in four of their kids will be redheaded. But my folks have two of three.

People jokingly suggest that perhaps I'm the product of a different father, that maybe my mother was cheating on my father with Ron Howard. But if the assumption is that I need redheaded parents to have red hair, then wouldn't I need to have a different mother, too? Yes, I am the love child of Lucile Ball and Archie Andrews, dropped off in Jamaica, Queens for my parents to raise. That's why I often hatch hair-brained schemes and have a grid drawn on the side of my head.

I am constantly told I look like this person's red-headed acquaintance or asked if I'm related to that person's redheaded friend. Yes, all redheads look the same and are related. And we all go to meetings, where we discuss how much we dislike Professor Flutesnoot and Principal Weatherbee. And the reason you think I look like your redheaded friend is because you have no idea what either of us actually looks like. You don't need to - you can spot us right away with no recognition of facial features. I had a goatee for two years. And when I shaved it, maybe four people noticed. Two of them were other redheads.

Apparently, I look like Conan O'Brien and Craig Kilborn and that guy in your 7th grade English class because he was tall with red hair, too. The one redhead I never hear that I look like is Mark McGwire. And not because his forearms are the size of my chest, but because he wears a hat.

Having red hair also doesn't mean I'm Irish. I do jokes about how there are Jewish redheads and no one believe it because there are so few Irish Jews. Harrison Ford is one of them. But I don't look like him, either. See? He's Irish without red hair. You might already know that if he wore a hat less frequently.

My oldest sister and I don't always see eye to eye, though that could be because I'm a foot taller than her. But when it comes to responding to people about her hair, she couldn't be more on point. Whenever anyone asks about where she got her hair, she says, "my little brother." If that wasn't enough, a man came up to her and my mother at a super market when she was a toddler. When my sister was a toddler, not my mom. That'd be bizarre if my mother was a toddler and she already had a kid.

Anyway, a man came up to the two of them and said, "hiya red!" My sister responded with an emphatic, "hiya gray!"

And we all congratulated her at the next meeting.

Steve Hofstetter is the author of the Student Body Shots books, which are available at SteveHofstetter.com and bookstores everywhere. He can be e-mailed at steve@stevehofstetter.com.

My name is Steve, and I am your father. I know you're not born yet. I don't even know who your mother will be. But I wanted to tell you that you can not necessarily do anything if you just set you mind to it. That's a load of crap.

Someone once told me that I could do anything if I set my mind to it and I spent that entire summer trying to make my sister's head explode. I've got much more practical advice for you: if you don't actually pursue your dreams instead of just dreaming them, you'll end up working at Walmart. In the pet food aisle. At night. On weekends.

You are not entitled to success. You are not entitled to happiness. You are not entitled to have a better life than your parents. You are not entitled to anything beyond breathing. And even that, you kind of owe me for.

You will have access to video games and DVDs and the internet and action figures, but I don't have to buy any of them for you. I probably will, but only if you're not a terrible person. If you're one of the mall kids who shrieks that you're not loved because your parents don't buy you every last TickleMeSpongeBobBarneyRanger, you will be reminded that I may put you up for adoption at any time and start over.

You will have access to a free elementary and high school education, but I don't have to pay for you to go to college. I probably will, but you can help with grades and extra-curricular activities and the loans you take out based on your future earning potential. If you get Ds through high school and wonder why you ended up paying your own way through junior college, it's because your future earning potential is $8 an hour. And that's only because the minimum wage will probably go up by then.

You will have access to unlimited information about politics and world history. And I will help you interpret it. But if you choose to form your opinion of your country's socioeconomic climate based on five minutes of MTV, you will end up electing politicians that only care whether or not you buy what's being advertised during the next commercial break. If you're even smart enough to vote.

Remember that you are lucky to be born in an era when you have more to play with than a rock and a leaf. Remember that you are lucky to be born into a country that sends you to school instead of to work. Remember that you are lucky to be born into a mindset in which you will not be killed because of your political views. In most states anyway.

College will not be waiting for you when you graduate high school. A job will not be waiting for you when you graduate college. And a social security check will certainly not be waiting for you when you retire. That last one kind of stings, doesn't it?

The phrase "you can do anything if you set your mind to it" is misleading, because you also have to put in the work. Most people who feel they are entitled to something are entitled to nothing, twice. No one is entitled to anything. Also, those who base their lives on a sense of entitlement are jerks. And no one wants to give anything to a jerk.

I will prevent you from watching inappropriate television so you can not blame your temper on anything but being human. I will ground you so you learn that listening to appropriate authority is the fastest way to get what you want. I will even hit you once - but only so a stranger doesn't hit you much harder. And if you threaten to call child services and report me for abuse, you will learn the meaning of the term "double jeopardy." And it is much more upsetting than sitting through a movie with Ashley Judd.

I will not get you a cell phone when you turn twelve. I will not get you a new wardrobe when you turn fourteen. I will not get you a car when you turn sixteen. What I will get you is a personality, forged by years of actually having to put work in to achieve results. You will thank me when you're old enough to know what I've done for you. When you are old enough, your spoiled friends will still be whining that they have tons of angst. And they'll do it over their cell phones during the drive home from clothes shopping.

I will, however, love and support you in all your efforts, as long as they are efforts. You will be great kids. I know that because I will raise you to be. I'm going to set my mind to it, but I will also put in the work. That's how you get things done. And If you disagree with me, there's a cleanup in aisle four.

Oh, and if you get the chance, tell your mother I say hi. I bet she's really hot.

Steve Hofstetter is the author of the Student Body Shots books, which are available at SteveHofstetter.com and bookstores everywhere. He can be e-mailed at steve@stevehofstetter.com.