Alistair, 

I was cleaning out some drawers with my dad’s old knick knacks in them. I found a letter addressed to me and dated about a month before he died. In it, he explains that the males of our family have lived with a generational curse, all of us dying on our thirtieth  birthday – horribly and mysteriously. No matter where we are and no matter what we do, we’re found mauled to death by some enormous beast. I have two years, which should be plenty of time, assuming I know what to do. Advice? 

Birthday Boy in Webster 

Birthday Boy, 

The thing with curses is that they can all be broken by a specific means. Kissing the right sort of person is an extremely popular method of curse-breaking. I recommend that you go public with this – tell the world about the curse and explain that you don’t know who you need to kiss (or have kiss you) but you need to get that kiss in before your thirtieth birthday. Pretty soon, people all over the world will be rallying around you, offering to kiss/be kissed by you in an attempt to save your life. Don’t hold back, my friend – kiss them all. Kiss, kiss, kiss. 

It is also possible that you need to kill a certain somebody before turning thirty. That’s something else to consider. 

Alistair