Are
you blue? Got
questions, troubles, inexplicable problems, wonderings on this,
and that, and, oh, that? Send
them in for our new advice guru, Ms.
Gwenda Bond.
Dear
Aunt Gwenda: Advice from a Better Time
& Place
Dear Ms. Bond,
I
share a house with my boyfriend and another guy. While we have our
regular share of visitors, one in particular takes 'guest' to its
absolute limit. Let's call this unwanted visitor ÔSteve' and characterise
him as someone who talks a lot and has a non-subtle presence. While
Steve initially came over a few times a week to hang with the guys,
he's settled into a routine over the past couple of months where
he comes over every evening specifically to hang with my boyfriend.
Apart from the fact I don't have any evening time
with my boyfriend any more, I no longer enjoy a quiet night at home
as Steve's favourite place is our lounge room. I'm happy for us
to have visitors and I genuinely like Steve, but his presence in
the house has gone from innocuous furry visitor to full-blown pain-in-the-ass
Stephen King rodent. I've talked to my boyfriend about asking Steve
to come over less often but he's unwilling to get involved. He doesn't
want to upset a long-standing friendship and believes that the situation
will sort itself out when our housemate moves out in a couple of
weeks. I'm in total disagreement with this. The moving-out housemate
finds the continued presence of Steve as annoying as I do and doesn't
want him to become a regular fixture at his new place.
I want to tell Steve to stop coming over quite so
regularly but I can't quite find the words. Please help or suggest
a witty means of coping with a very ugly situation.
Thanks,
Kitty Pickle
Dear Kitty Pickle,
The obvious solution is to throw over the boyfriend
for the roommate. You have similar taste in people and he's getting
a new place where the two of you can be blissfully alone. Your boyfriend
can date the pesky friend; you can all get together occasionally
for pie and Trivial Pursuit. Lovely.
If you're dead set on keeping the boyfriend around
because you love him, or whatever, then he should at least make
a good faith effort to procure a spine from a mail-order catalogue.
As for the ixnay on the friend-ay, you're on your own till the spine
arrives. You could just scream a blood-curdler whenever you open
the door and see the pest standing there. Or you could tell him
your doctor said that you can only be in the presence of one man's
worth of hormones at a time, so he can't be around when you are.
If all else fails, there's always the old ÒWe've gone religious
and unless you join us on Planet Zapstar Suicide Cult, we really
can only hang one night a week on what our people call the Holy
Day of Normalcy, i.e. Tuesday.Ó Or, as my grandmother did when she
had problems with contrary members of the opposite sex as a child,
you can hit him in the head with a book. I guarantee he'll come
around less.
Sincerely,
Ms. Bond
Dear Aunt Gwenda,
Karl and the rest of the boys done locked the red
button away and won't tell me where it is. What should I do to these
stinking horsethieves?
GWB, DC
Aunt Gwenda says: The real question here is
why you want to know where the red button is. Repeat after me: I
will keep my stinking paws off the red button.
But seriously, you should also teach those horsethieves
a lesson. You should fire all of them -- every single individual
in your direct chain of command, including the Veep -- then you
resign and go live the rest of your days dim and quiet on that big
square plot of tumbleweeds in Texas you like so damn much. That'll
show 'em.
Next?
Dear Aunt Gwenda,
My wife and I always spend our holidays in Western
Maine -- the part away from the water where all the bugs are. She
says she loved going there as a child and doesn't see why she should
go anywhere else. In college I used to love going to Florida for
Spring Break (where I met my first wife) but my wife won't hear
of going there. Do you think it's time for separate vacations?
Aunt Gwenda says: I think it's time for a divorce,
if you seriously want your wife to go on a Florida Spring Break
vacation with you. (And while I've got your attention . . . You
married someone you met in Florida on a college Spring Break?! Is
the wedding video available in finer video stores with the word
ÒUncensoredÓ emblazoned across the cover?)
What you need is a globe, a hat and several slips
of paper. Choose some places that are not in Maine, or Florida,
preferably where neither of you has ever been or met a future spouse,
write their names on the slips, and then draw one out of a hat.
Voila, compromise vacation somewhere cool. And yes, you let her
do the drawing. Ahem.
Dear Aunt Gwenda,
Some time ago my local coffeeshop started a discount
club where, when you buy ten coffees, they give you one free. My
boyfriend and I are arguing over whether it is fair to pay for ten
small black coffees then get the shuper-tall-latte-grande-with-cream-and-chocolate-sprinkles.
What do you think?
Aunt Gwenda says: They made the rules. Trust
me, they're still getting the better end of the deal. Do the math.
This is not an ethical dilemma, but a dire lack of
perspective. Really, what the coffeeshop's doing is rewarding your
customer loyalty. So, what kind of reward do you deserve? What kind
of person are you, anyway? Grande with sprinkles or small with non-dairy
creamer? Don't tell me, tell your reflection in the mirror tomorrow
morning, Tiger.
Dear Aunt Gwenda,
Did you just tell someone to do the math?
Shut your filthy cakehole. (And if I did, I
meant the kind of math where you use your fingers at best and a
calculator at worst. What kind of girl do you take me for?)
This good advice
dispensed in LCRW
No. 13.
If you have a moral dilemma or
unanswerable math problem, we suspect the answer lies just a few
drinks away at your local bar. However, if you'd rather hear it
from Aunt Gwenda, email or write to us and we'll send it on.
