Dear Doc Grammar: I’ve been trying to heard my cat (a cute tabby/Kazakh rat killer mix), but all she ever says is “Me-Ow.” What am I doing wrong?

Dear Cat Lover: You’re doing nothing wrong, in the sense of Lenin singing “everything’s wrong is right.” Or words to that effect. His mind kept wandering when he tried to fix all the holes in life.

By the way, kill the cat before she discovers you were born in the Year of the Rat. Otherwise, things will wind up Kazakh and effect.

Dear Doc Grammar: What kind of medical degree is Doc? Is that the kind that comes in a piece of paper with seals and stuff?

Dear Skeptic Tank: Don’t know about seals and stuff; you might be barking up the Phocidae. Which, admittedly, is a tree of sorts.

My degree is not a medical one; I have a Ph.D. in imagination. Which is to say, I imagine I have a Ph.D. and presto, phod for thought. But no seals. In you want a circus, you should go to D.C. when the government is in session. Or in Sessions.

Dear Doc Grammar: I can’t get my mind around this thing called school. What should I drool?

Dear School Drool: Don’t try to get your mind around something; that’s your first mistake. Your second is drooling all the time.

Turns out, the mind works best in right angles. The ancient Greek rapper Pie Thag knew this, and, just speaking hypotenusely, it hasn’t changed since. So if you want, you can go around comparing peaches and onions, that’s no skin off the rest of our Allium.

By the way, didn’t you mean “do” instead of “drool”? Or did you have an internship with Hallmark Cards and now you can only speak in rhymes? (There’s an app for that.)

Dear Doc Grammar: Our country seems to be at a crossroads. Is our country at a crossroads?

Dear Cross: You should only follow happy roads. The renowned political commentator Robert Johnson knew that.

Failing that, you should remember the great sage and philosopher Rudy Giuliani, who famously said, “The truth isn’t true.”

He sounds like a Zen Master there. At least until you read some Zen Masters. Then he sounds like a confused old man who will say any old thing:

“New York is not shipping garbage by rail to the South, New York is shipping valuable recyclables by rail to China. Who knew the railroad tracks didn’t stretch all the way to China?”

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

Dear Doc Grammar: Sometimes I feel as if me, you, and everyone is off the wall. Is there any way to feel on the wall?

Dear Off: You could try imitating bad spaghetti (not so hard to find in this country) and see if that sticks.

Or you could remember that, in Australia, the Liberal Party is actually the party of the conservatives. And Australians are about to have their 15th prime minister in 16 hours.

There’s a reason we call it Down Under.

Dear Doc Grammar: Sometimes I feel like our only hope is there might be some chocolate cake left. Is that pretty lame?

Dear Chocolate Cake: No, that’s not lame. Lame is when a horse breaks its ankle and people scurry for the euphemism app to find out what to do.

Pretty lame is when the right wing cynically uses the homicide of a young woman to further its political agenda.

“[The slaying] should have never happened … the immigration laws are such a disgrace.” The Great Buffoon

“If Mollie Tibbetts is a household name by October, Democrats will be in deep trouble.” Newt Gingrich

“The CNNs, the MSNBCs, most of the print media in this country, and the Democrats, they are all accomplices in the death of this young girl.” Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick

Actually, that’s not pretty lame, that’s just scum. Lower scum than Richard Nixon’s scum. You know you’re way surpassed pretty lame when your scum level is lower than Nixon’s.

Enjoy the chocolate cake.