Devil to Rod Roddy: Come on down!

Game show announcer Rod Roddy, the booming, jovial voice of The Price is Right, is dead at 66. Reports indicate he had suffered from breast and colon cancer in recent years. And you thought that the only trouble with the T&A on that show came when Barker's Beauty Dian Parkinson sued the host for sexual harassment.

By the way, that last link wasn't work-safe, but I know you always wanted to see that, didn't you?

In other unfortunate health news, the similarly named Ruddy Ruddy may have herpes. At least, that's the hope of direct-mail distributor Young America, which has optimistically mailed a free sample of Heala fever blister/cold sore treatment. "Enclosed is the Sample you requested," the box says, but I assure you in the strongest possible terms that I neither requested any herpes medication nor have any need to.

But, hey, if you have herpes simplex, who am I to judge? Sure, I might point out that you're clearly too stupid to figure out a more complex case of herpes, but frankly, it's bad enough that your mouth and genitals are covered with cracked, weeping sores. I'm here to help you. You can probably get your very own free sample of Heala by writing to:

Young America
PO Box 200
Young America, Minnesota 55553-0200

Note that the company apparently has an entire town to itself -- an entire community that I'm guessing is crawling with herpes cases. If the tourism industry ever gets subjected to stronger truth-in-advertising laws, Minnesota will have to change their nickname from "the land of 10,000 lakes" to "the land of 10,000 contagious, oozing blisters."

Now, dear herpetic reader, because I've helped you, you can help me by rubbing an envelope all over your seeping, sore-covered mouth and sealing it with a kiss. Then mail it to the cretins at RealSimple, who, like Harlequin, are trying to pull some kind of sleazy advance billing stunt on poor old Ruddy Ruddy.

First, they sent the October issue of the magazine, and a letter thanking Ruddy Ruddy for taking a look and inviting him to settle up his account if he wanted to. Later came a letter saying "payment is now due." Now they've sent the November issue and a second invoice, which is due on November 4, 2003 -- barely a week after the letter arrived. Not only are they sending Ruddy Ruddy a product he never asked for and certainly never signed up for, but they're getting increasingly pushy in demanding payment.

Clearly they deserve to have a few cases of herpes on their hands -- literally.