So Sophie,

I have been a huge fan of a certain lemon-flavored malt beverage for a long time, almost since it first came out. I recently discovered that said beverage was made, packaged, and distributed by a major brewery whose other products I hate and avoid with an almost religious fervor. I'm now torn by my love for the malt beverage and my loathing for the corporate behemoth who is its creator. Is there any to resolve my moral dispute? Will I have to turn my back forever on my favorite drink and consume inferior substitutes?

-Torn

Hey Torn,

t's always difficult to resolve differences between what we know is right and good and what we really want. This is part of what helps us to build character and develop ourselves into better human beings. What you need to do in this situation is really look at it closely and ask yourself what is really important in your life.

First, think about the reasons that you love this particular malt beverage over all others. Is it just the right sweetness, neither cheek-puckeringly tart nor cloying? Does it have that 5% alcohol by volume, rendering it more powerful than the average beer? Is the packaging attractive? Is the bottle nice and clear so that you can properly gauge when you are ready to have another frosty one brought to you?

Now think about why you dislike this wonderful beverage's evil creator. Is it because it's owned by a tobacco giant and you have very strong feelings about tobacco marketing to children and teens? Do you not care about tobacco at all but disagree with this brewery's sale to a South African brewing conglomerate? Have you not yet relinquished your bias against South African companies because of the former apartheid laws? Is your problem simply that you dislike the taste of its other products and thus don't want to admit thoroughly enjoying this one?

No matter what your reason for hating the parent company, it would be a travesty to abandon your favorite adult beverage just because of it. Accentuate the positive. Think about all of the wonderful qualities that it has and the fun times you have while you're drinking it. Look at the pictures of the two of you together and just reminisce. Don't part ways. Go back to your lemon-flavored malt beverage and be happy.

So Sophie,

I really enjoy watching Jell-O wrestling. However, I don't really know that much about its history. When did it start? Who invented it? What's it all about?

-There's Always Room

Hey Room,

hile you wouldn't think that Jell-O wrestling would be some kind of a state secret, you'd be wrong. The actual advent of the glorious sport known throughout the world as Jell-O wrestling has origins that lay buried beneath the sands of time, shrouded forever in mystery.

Wrestling itself began back in the time of the ancient Greeks, who featured it in the early Olympic games. At that time, it was a male-only sport, even though the wrestling was naked. (This later sparked a whole pile of rumors about the proclivities of Greeks that they are still trying to refute 2000 years later.) Many modern men point out that the wrestling of naked women would be a far more entertaining sport to watch, both because women are better to look at naked and there was the possibility of the fight becoming so heated that said women would be overcome with passion and start kissing. This, however, was an idea whose time had not yet come. The addition of women to wrestling was not to be.

Gelatin desserts were invented in 1845 by industrialist, inventor and philanthropist Peter Cooper (of Tom Thumb engine and Cooper Union fame). He packaged his product in neat little boxes with directions for use but didn't do much else with it. Cooks at home disregarded it and used sheets of prepared gelatin, which still needed to be clarified by boiling them with egg whites and shells and filtering it through a jelly bag before transforming them into shimmering gourmet molded desserts. In 1897, Pearle B. Wait, a carpenter and cough medicine manufacturer from LeRoy, NY, developed a fruit-flavored version of Cooper's dessert. His wife named it Jell-O and the world was revolutionized. Actually, that's not true. Waite actually feared that there was no future in the Jell-O business and sold it to his neighbor for $450.

The delightful merger of this space-aged product and the age-old sport of wrestling happened sometime after the early 1900's. No one knows when and no one knows how it came to pass but everyone likes to watch nearly naked women grope each other and roll around in giant tubs of fruit-flavored goodness.