Houston (AP) - Police warn all male clubbers, party-goers, and unsuspecting bar regulars to be alert and stay cautious when offered a drink from any woman. A new date rape drug on the market called "beer", is used by females to target unsuspecting men. The drug is generally found in liquid form, and is now available almost anywhere. "Beer" is used by female sexual predators at parties and bars to persuade their male victims to go home and have sex with them. Typically, a woman needs only to persuade a guy to consume a few units of "beer" and then simply ask him home for no-strings-attached sex. Men are rendered helpless against this approach. After several "beers" men will often succumb to desires to perform sexual acts on horrific looking women to who they would never normally be attracted. After drinking beer", men often awaken with only hazy memories of exactly what happened to them the night before, often with just a vague feeling that something bad occurred. At other times these unfortunate men are swindled out of their life's savings in a familiar scam known as "a relationship". Apparently men are much more susceptible to this scam after "beer" is administered and sex is offered by the predatory female. Please! Forward this warning to every male you know. However, if you fall victim to this insidious "beer" and the predatory women administering it, there are male support groups with venues in every town where you can discuss the details of your shocking encounter in an open and frank manner with similarly affected, like-minded guys. For the support group nearest you, just look up "golf courses" in the yellow pages.

Last week I took some friends out to a restaurant, and noticed that the waiter who took our order carried a spoon in his shirt pocket. It seemed a little strange, but I ignored it. However, when the busboy brought out water and utensils, I noticed he also had a spoon in his shirt pocket. I then looked around the room and saw that all the waitpersons had a spoon in their pocket. When the waiter came back to check on our order I asked, "Why the spoon?"

"Well," he explained, "the restaurant's owners hired Andersen Consulting, experts in efficiency, in order to revamp all our processes. After several months of statistical analysis, they concluded that customers drop their spoons 73.84% more often than any other utensil. This represents a drop frequency of approximately 3 spoons per table per hour. If our personnel are prepared to deal with that contingency, we can reduce the number of trips back to the kitchen and save 1.5 man-hours per shift." As we finished talking, a metallic sound was heard from behind me.

Quickly, the waiter replaced the dropped spoon with the one in his pocket and said, "I'll get another spoon next time I go to the kitchen instead of making an extra trip to get it right now." I was rather impressed. The waiter continued taking our order and while my guests ordered, I continued to look around. I then noticed that there was a very thin string hanging out of the waiter's fly. Looking around, I noticed that all the waiters had the same string hanging from their fly.

My curiosity got the better of me and before the waiter walked off, I asked him, "Excuse me, but can you tell me why you have that string right there?" "Oh, certainly!" he answered, lowering his voice. "Not everyone is as observant as you. That consulting firm I mentioned also found out that we could save time in the restroom. "How so?"

"See," he continued, "by tying this string to the tip of... you know... we can pull it out over the urinal without touching it and that way eliminate the need to wash the hands, shortening the time spent in the rest room by 76.39 percent." "Okay, that makes sense, but... if the string helps you get it out, how do you put it back in?"

"Well," he whispered, lowering his voice even further, "I don't know about the others, but I use the spoon."