In fifth grade, I vowed to say No to Drugs. More correctly, I was forced to vow to say “No”, or I would not be allowed to walk the stage at fifth grade graduation (which would have been social suicide, of course). So, I did, and my little fifth grade self truly believed that I would never take a shot of tequila, smoke a joint and I was absolutely never going to eat fungus that grows on cow sh!@#t. Ever.

Let’s just say, without giving too much away, that my fifth grade self would probably be a little disappointed in my 21-year old self. Woops!

However, up until this point, whatever drugs I did choose to poison and/or pleasure my body with (depending on how you look at the situation), I always thought I had full control of when/where/how they were getting in my system.

I was wrong.

An Associated Press investigation that spanned a five-month period found that 24 major metropolitan areas have drugs in their drinking water. Yes, the stuff that everyone claims is safe to drink and/or at least okay to use to wash our hands and rinse our mouths with after brushing. Well, it’s also teeming with a large range of prescribed and over-the-counter drugs – from sex hormones in San Fran to over 56 different types of pharmaceuticals and their byproducts in Philly.

Disgusted yet? It gets worse. Read More »

Cigarettes? Just say no. Candy from a stranger? Just say no. The creepy man that kept inching closer to me outside of Port Authority at 1 AM? I just said no. (Seriously, he was like an inch from me and I just got in his face and was all like “NO.” After that I invested in some pepper spray.)

It has been engrained in our minds from childhood that there are just those things in life that demand that firm, final two-lettered answer. But what do you do when you want to say no, without actually saying no?

Usually it’s some sort of awkward situation, something along the lines of that guy in your Philosophy 100 class with bad hygiene and an even worse dandruff dilemma who asked you out for Friday night, or maybe it’s when your sister gives you the 3rd degree on whether or not you ate her leftover tiramisu (oops).

Sometimes it’s a job offer that you just really aren’t up for, (that summer promotion from salon assistant to shampoo girl seems more like a punishment) or perhaps it’s just your best friend asking you to join her on her annual family vacation to the Outer Banks…cool, except that there’s no way you could last more than five minutes in the same car as her abnormally gassy grandfather.

This is where the option of the silent no comes into play, the runaway bride type principle that it is always better to ignore an offer than to reject it. I mean it makes sense, right? There’s no easier way to get out of a sticky situation scot-free than to avoid it. Read More »