You know I love you guys. But that "little prick you can deal with” ad—now that you’ve gotten our attention by running it for six months in newspapers, in magazines, on websites and on sidewalks—is just pissing away a good opportunity. The goal isn’t a chuckle; it’s getting people to take an HIV test. And getting an HIV test is a major event in someone's life. It's terrifying. It could induce an anxiety attack in a celibate drag queen living in a convent. So it’s time to treat your ads like promotion for an event. Specifically, an event nobody actually wants to attend.

So here's my advice for getting people to the worst event on earth:

Sell on benefits. The pain caused by having blood drawn wasn’t the scariest part of getting tested. The part we had to "deal with" was panicking for a week while waiting for our test results. It was the possibility of finding out we had a disease. The benefit of a finger-prick test is that we get the results in 20 blessedly short minutes. But still, what if the test comes up positive? Tell us what you’ll do: Will saints in scrubs hold our hands, can friends come along to give us a hug, will a doctor toss us a bottle of Xanax, can you install a martini bar in the STD clinic?

Next, if you want more people getting tested, tell them when and where to do it. It doesn’t matter when the Scissor Sisters are coming to town—if the gays don’t know when and where they’re playing, the theater will be empty as the LGBT Center. The HIV/STD info line printed in tiny, little gray letters is not enough. Cram the testing locations and their hours down our pole-smoking throats in the ad. In that vein, here are a few testing times from our recent back-to-school guide:

Public Health STD Clinic: Located in the basement of Harborview Medical Center on First Hill, the STD Clinic provides walk-in testing and treatment. Arrive early in the day and bring a book in case there's a long wait. Hours: Monday through Friday from 7:45 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., except Tuesdays, when it opens at 9:30 a.m. Phone: 731-3590. Address: 325 Ninth Avenue. Cost: sliding scale.

HIV/STD Hotline: 205-7873 or 800-678-1595, call Monday though Friday between 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. for clinic referrals, directions, and answers to your burning questions.

Gay City Health Project: Testing Tuesday thought Friday from 3:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., and Saturday from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. On Capitol Hill, 511 East Pike Street. Appointments recommended: 860-6969. Cost: free (donations are accepted).

Avoid trips to the clinic in the first place by having an upfront conversation about people's STD status before you sleep with them and sleeping with fewer people. And always use condoms.

And about that last point, KCPH. Your ads in the newspapers say, “No condom? … test often.” Um, everyone having sex regularly should test often. Idiots who don’t use a condom shouldn't just test often, they should slap on a condom. That line should be replaced with, “No condom? … Put one on, you little prick.”