I'm flying out of the country in a few weeks, but I still haven't bought my tickets! What's the cheapest, easiest way to buy tickets? I heard it was online but my friends say that you can still get a better deal from a travel agent.

-- Coach Class in Commerce City

You want cheap and easy? Go to the original home of cheap and easy: the Black Market. Yes, the Black Market has been serving up cheap, easy, convenient service for over two hundred years in this great nation alone. Long before Wal-Mart came along, the best way to get a discount rifle for shooting your neighbor was the Black Market, and airline tickets are no different.

To the trained eye, Black Market shops are as easy to locate as 7-11. There's one in every neighborhood, usually the kind of store that sells something nobody wants. It might be a store that only sells balloons for parties, or antiques in a bad section of town, or offers to give anyone a pedicure for just five dollars. Basically, if you see any store and wonder how it pays the rent, much less makes a profit, that's a Black Market store.

They're not just in the seedier parts of town either (although you'll find the worst areas of the city generally carry the best selection of products). Even out in the golden suburbs, Black Market stores thrive. Ever wonder how those five Starbucks survive in the same strip mall? Three of them are Black Market stores. (The other two are thinly disguised headquarters for the Illuminati, but that's another column.) Don't bother checking the US West Yellow Pages for a Black Market listing, because US West is itself a Black Market operation, and wouldn't dare advertise for the competition.

Once you've correctly identified the Black Market store in your area, it's time to get in the door. It's not as simple as walking through the door and asking for Black Market items, though. The storefront is nothing more than an elaborate cover for the actual inventory in the back. In my neighborhood, the Black Market store happens to be a store that sells cellular phones and high-tech gadgets (it's situated between a butcher shop and an artist's co-op ... dead giveaway). Go in for the first time pretending to browse the shelves. If you stick around long enough and feign interest in the wares, the shop-keeper will usually strike up a conversation along the lines of, "Yep, that Mexican Porn Catalog is one-of-a-kind, a steal at $50." Be careful if the conversation begins "Can I help you?" or "Welcome to Jiffy's. What can I do for you today?" Such stock phrases are a sign that you've simply discovered a poorly-planned and failing business, not a Black Market store. Black Market shopkeepers always smell like something -- fish, cigarettes, motor oil, burned nylon, Jack Daniels, festering wounds ... if they don't smell, they won't sell.

The conversation is one of the joys of Black Market shopping. It's like an elaborate but wonderful dance, with each partner steering the topic to their needs without actually saying, point-black, what they want. In more developed cities, a Black Market shop conversation can have several coded and beautifully intricate gestures: the eyebrow, the hand on the shoulder, the thoughtful scratch of the chin, and the Dreaded Turkish Stare of Disapproval, just to name a few. I highly recommend a National Geographic special on the subject, produced in the early 70s and narrated by Charles Bronson. Fortunately for the novice, in Denver the ability to hint at a need with a nudge and a wink will get you by.

So good luck on the Black Market. I think you'll be pleased to find an industry that doesn't charge an arm and a leg for first class airfare (but be careful not to make promises you can't keep, or they will come after the arm, and maybe take the leg if you cry like a baby). Enjoy your trip!

My girlfriend and I have been having sex in the backseat of my car for weeks, since it's the only place to do it without our parents finding us. It works great! The only problem is the smell, and I'm afraid my parents will notice it. Do you know how to have sex without being smelly?

-- Horny in Highlands Ranch

Dude, what do you think the fuzzy dice are for? Decoration?

Using a pen or pencil, poke a hole into each stuffed cube that goes about to the center. At the crucial moment, pull out and stick your staff into the die. If you're wearing a condom (which you'd better be, unless you want to name your first-born "Cadillac"), whip it off and cram it inside the hole first. Deposit the spunky love juice in the fuzzy die and immediately fill the hole with as many Life Savers breath mints as you can cram in there. It's a well-known fact that spooge and mint chemically bond to create the pleasant smell of banana and coconut.

Now you've rid yourself of the smell, and turned those dice into air fresheners. How many times you use this trick depends on how much you're willing to spend on fuzzy dice. Keep in mind that the expiration date on these homemade aromatherapy ornaments is about one month. After that, the sperm is sometimes known to impregnate the dice, and before you know it you'll be raising a Furbie.

When you're older, I'll tell you how to use a "No Fear" window sticker to get out of a traffic ticket in Weld County.