Superman's Advice to the Lovelorn

Dear Superman,

                   Speak, human.

I am 14 years old and I just got asked out to a movie!  He is the shy boy who sits behind me.  He rarely talks, but whenever I need a pencil he is always the first person to offer me one.  He seems nice and a bit cute.  I am sort of nervous.  Do you have any advice for me on how I should handle my first date?

--Sophie from Denver

Dear Sophie,

I have a few suggestions for you.  Follow them all or consider your life to be forfeit.

Are you trained in the use of firearms?  If so, bring a .22-caliber handgun in a lightly packed purse.  If he tries to pin you down in the backseat of his father's car, for example, as the "shy ones" tend to do, you would not want to reach for your purse and accidentally mistake a perfume bottle for your life saver.  Its only effect will be to transform a teenage rapist into a perfume-doused murderer.  Then when the Denver Post headline reads "Teen Spirit Murderer on the Loose" the blame for the moniker will rest on your corpse.

If you are not trained in handguns, shame on your parents.  Instead, bring mace.  In all cases, and this is very important--use the mace.  In every case mace acts as a deterrent, even if the boy only wants to give you roses.  That bouquet could be harboring an airborne knockout drug.

Finally, do not let the boy take you above the ground floor of any building.  Problem is, the boy will want to take you to an upper story of the nearest skyscraper.  Skyscrapers are irresistible to criminal masterminds.  His reason will be to show you the view.  Whenever a man says those words, replace the word "view" with "penis."  Inevitably you will resist, he will become angry, and you will be flung head-first from the building.  Now, if we were stuck in the 1970s, when Superman was popular and loved by the masses, the son of Kal-El would simply swoop in at the last second to catch you and deposit you gently on the city streets below--in some cases next to a hot dog vendor who would say something witty and enduring like, "Whoa!  I didn't know cocaine could do that."  However, we're in a cynical world these days.  The last few Superman movies have bombed.  The world has no place for Superman.  For this reason, Superman will be playing video blackjack in Atlantic City as your body becomes instant fruit salad on the sidewalk.

If you ignore all of my other advice, bring a parachute.