A few years ago on a cruise, I was talking with a woman who’d mentioned that some other woman’s outfit was “cute”. I figured that this was a perfect time to paraphrase a Zits™ comic that mentioned that what some females call “cute”, some males think of as “sexy as heck”.

The woman seemed unimpressed. “Did you think my swimsuit was cute today?”

DANGER! DANGER! INCOMING!

“Yyyyyeeeeesssss?”

“Did you think it was sexy?”

I was doomed. There was no right answer. I reviewed how I got into this mess:

“Did you think my swimsuit was cute today?”

There’s no right answer to this. If you say yes, then you open the door to more doomed dialog. If you say no, then you’re an asshole.

“Did you think it was sexy?”

Ditto

There’s only one right answer. I should’ve excused myself from the table and jumped off the ship.