# When did you first Dope? And how? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 21, 2000, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027 "2000-09-21T18:09:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2000, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/21 "2000-09-22T15:57:15Z")
Annie-Xmas, what did Reader’s Digest have to say about Cecil Adams? ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Mr\_Elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Elbows)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2000, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/22 "2000-09-22T16:08:43Z")
Second hand bookstore in Bangkok, not many english language books but I came across The Straight Dope. Loved it, but traded it for another book the next day. 2 years later, another second hand bookstore in Kathmandu, More of the Straight Dope. I was so hooked but no one I knew had ever heard of it. Eventually it occured to me to do a search on the web and voila, home at last. ---
**Author:** ![ladybug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/46a35a/32.png) [@ladybug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ladybug)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2000, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/23 "2000-09-22T16:17:02Z")
I found out about The Straight Dope last March after seeing a link to this site on the Snopes message boards. After I checked it out I was hooked. ---
**Author:** ![Bottle\_of\_Smoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Bottle\_of\_Smoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bottle_of_Smoke)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2000, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/24 "2000-09-22T17:08:40Z")
I remember seeing a story about The Straight Dope in one of those freebie college magazines that I got when I moved into the dorms (back in 1986). I was intrigued, so I picked up a copy of the book _The Straight Dope_ at a bookstore and have been hooked ever since. ---
**Author:** ![Edward\_The\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2000, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/25 "2000-09-22T19:29:41Z")
I first found out when it was on TV a few years ago. then forgot about it as I don’t know how to read so I don’t get the newspaper of which the local one doesn’t carry Straight Dope anyway. then one day I just went looking for it. ---
**Author:** ![Welfy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e56c9b/32.png) [@Welfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Welfy)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2000, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/26 "2000-09-22T19:56:37Z")
Around 4 years ago (wow, it’s been so long!) I was working on homework online and using the AOL Research and Learn Channel. For some odd reason The Straight Dope message board on AOL turned up in my searches, and I became hooked. I remember immediately replying to a post and being softly reprimended by BugZap (anyone remember him?) on the rules of cutting and pasting. Ranger Jeff welcomed me, too. I miss the AOL board…actually it’s still in existance and a small colony of us still post there but it’s a ghost town now. _sigh_ ---
**Author:** ![Skaill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/977dab/32.png) [@Skaill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skaill)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2000, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/27 "2000-09-23T11:46:17Z")
I look after a site that deals in security fencing, one day a couple of weeks ago the stats for page views went through the roof on the page containing razor wire. These hits came from a link someone had put up in a thread about razor wire here at the dope. Had a look around the site and got instantly hooked, had never seen such an entertaining and informative community as this. Dont post very much, but spend far to many hours a day reading the posts. Just regret not having found it sooner. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2000, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/28 "2000-09-23T12:35:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Arnold Winkelried \* > \*\*Annie-Xmas, what did Reader’s Digest have to say about Cecil Adams? \*\* It had information on his Chicago column, answers to some of the odder questions people had asked (What would happen if you dived into a swimming pool full of jello?) and the background of Little Ed. Straight Dope just seemed like something I would enjoy, being a trivia expert. I was very pleased to find the first book, and get on-line. ---
**Author:** ![Anniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/cc9497/32.png) [@Anniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anniz)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2000, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/29 "2000-09-23T13:04:23Z")
A friend told me about the message boards here. She and I used to be on another message board, but she wanted to find a new place and found this and then told me about it. So I joined her here. That was nearly exact 2 months ago, it feels like much longer. And the rest is history.:):):)🙂 ---
**Author:** ![headshok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@headshok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/headshok)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2000, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/30 "2000-09-23T15:03:44Z")
Ahh, memories. It was the fall of 1991, I was a junior in college, and I happened to be perusing the reference section in a local bookstore when I saw a single copy of _The Straight Dope_ sitting forlornly on a shelf like one of those puppies you see in the pet store (you know, the ones that are so cute and friendly and smell good and you want to plunk down some cash and take one home but you somehow know that they have dysplasia or some kind of skin condition or they’ll compulsively chew up your stuff and end up dominating your life, that kind). Anyway, for some reason I thought the book might be drug-related, so naturally, I gave it a look and was hooked. I read it at home, at my part-time job, on the toilet, in the shower (that’s probably too much information), between classes, during classes, _instead_ of classes. I can’t prove it, but I think that damn book was responsible for me being placed on academic probation that semester. Thanks, Unca Cecil!😃 ---
**Author:** ![Ruffian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71e660/32.png) [@Ruffian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruffian)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2000, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/31 "2000-09-23T15:11:51Z")
Brian (DeathLlama) sent me an interesting link in an email back in the days when we had just begun dating (over three years ago). He’d discovered it on, prepare yourself, AOL…it was a featured blurb on the Welcome page. I don’t remember what specific column he had sent me, but I ravished the archives and spent the rest of the week reading _all_ of the columns available at the time, linking Bri to some of the more bizarre (and usually sexually-themed). From the AOL page, I was linked to the General Questions message board where I came in as LauraRae. The rest is SDMB history. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Nimue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/d26b3c/32.png) [@Nimue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nimue)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2000, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/32 "2000-09-23T16:30:41Z")
In the late 80’s I borrowed the first Straight Dope book from a friend _(I still have it…shhh…)_ and got hooked. It wasn’t until the mid 90’s that I discovered the weekly articles in Baltimore’s somewhat sleazy City Paper. Then last year I remembered that I missed these interesting Q&A’s, did a search, and found this site on the Internet. And here I remain. ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2000, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/33 "2000-09-23T17:43:27Z")
I found the first book in my roomate’s bookcase in 1997. Didn’t find it online until 1999. ---
**Author:** ![Eo\_Echo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ebca7d/32.png) [@Eo\_Echo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eo_Echo)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2000, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/34 "2000-09-23T23:02:25Z")
In the spring of 1989 when I was 15, a friend of mine found a dogeared copy of the first Straight Dope book in our school’s gymnasium. I borrowed it and loved it and immediately went out and bought myself a copy. Soon after that I discover it ran in the Baltimore City Paper, which at the time, was hard to find outside the city (the way the DC paper still is). So I pestered the City Paper circulation desk about it. Now there is a City Paper box on a street corner in my old neighborhood. It’s the furthest box from their publishing offices. I like to hope I’m partially to blame. And it was all for the Straight Dope. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e79b87/32.png) [@That\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Girl)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2000, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/35 "2000-09-23T23:48:37Z")
Someone handed me the book once, just to show me one item. They didn’t get it back until the end of the week, because I just kept reading it. ---
**Author:** ![MysteryFellow63427](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e4f/32.png) [@MysteryFellow63427](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MysteryFellow63427)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2000, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/36 "2000-09-24T01:40:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SPOOFE Bo Diddly \* > \*\*I just find it humorous that I found the 'Dope through a link at [http://www.sexualrecords.com](http://www.sexualrecords.com) (trust me, it’s not a porn site). \*\* SPOOFE, the dictionary of unusual sexual terms there is priceless. I can’t wait to start tossing them around. (“Hey, was I talking to you, you formicophiliac?”) I first encountered the Straight Dope in 1988 or 1989 when I noticed _The Straight Dope_ and _More of the Straight Dope_ on my dad’s bookshelf. ---
**Author:** ![TroubleAgain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e480ec/32.png) [@TroubleAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroubleAgain)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2000, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/37 "2000-09-24T06:33:09Z")
As I’ve said before, I came here via a link from [snopes.com](http://snopes.com). Someone posted a link to the message about Wally’s passing. I came over, read the thread, read a few more threads, registered, posted, and voila, hooked. I couldn’t resist a place with so many witty, intelligent, caring, sensitive posters. Oh, and the rest of you, too. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![MysterEcks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f475e1/32.png) [@MysterEcks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MysterEcks)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2000, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/38 "2000-09-24T08:14:48Z")
I just looked at the dates on Cecil’s books, and discovered that I’d been misremembering–I thought it was in college, but it was later. Anyway, in the late '80s a college friend I was visiting read a portion of _More Of The Straight Dope_out loud to a semi-party we were having–the column about what people had been known to insert up their anuses. This was absolutely hilarious, so I made it a point to get the first two books (all that had been published at the time) for myself. I found this site when I was researching something else on the web–there was a link to one of the columns on here, so I checked it out. Thus was I inflicted on…er, introduced to the SDMB. ---
**Author:** ![Geek\_Mecha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecae2f/32.png) [@Geek\_Mecha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geek_Mecha)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2000, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/39 "2000-09-24T08:40:52Z")
The local indie paper runs The Straight Dope. I picked an issue up one day, to give me something to read to pass the time. Cecil’s column caught my eye. That started it. I sought out the books, visited the website, and found the boards… here I still am. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2000, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027/40 "2000-09-24T17:29:30Z")
I had always loved books (non-fiction). My favorite section of the bookstore was reference. I bought all of Cecils books. I found the straight dope online about 2 years ago. It took me awhile longer to find the message board, but when I did, I printed almost all of it out. Now I am a member forever. Once in, its for life… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-you-first-dope-and-how/34027.md?page=3)