When I can't sleep, I like to open ICQ to random chat and just see who drifts into my sphere. If you're looking for Marn on ICQ, look for a profile states my age (really, really old), that I am married, and that although I am not a prude, I'm looking for clean chat.

    I have a standard brush off for the gentlemen who ignore all this and approach me with a line something like, "Baby, I have eight inches of what you need".

    "I want a picture with a ruler, please," I say, say I.

    Sadly, we live in a world where truth in advertising is STILL not given the respect it should be given. For four years my ruler request has been enough to reduce the person at the other end to silence.

    A few weeks ago I was again approached by a gentleman who was convinced he has what I need. (It's a giving world, the chat world.)

    In return, I gave him my standard brush off and figured that would be that. Only he initiated a file transfer for a picture called "me.jpg" and I accepted because really and truly for four years my polite brush off had worked and it NEVER crossed my mind that ...

    So I open this picture and there he is.

    With a ruler.

    This is a man who clearly puts the "tri" in tripod.

    We are talking more truth in advertising than I've ever seen in my life.

    It is a very, very good thing that my spousal unit had not chosen that moment to pop his head into this room. There are some things you just CAN'T explain to someone who hasn't been part of the wonderful world of chat.

    One of them would be why you are looking at a picture of a naked man with a ruler and laughing so hard that you might pee your pants.

    And you know, somehow I don't think that's quite the effect the man who sent me the picture was hoping for.