YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
Dear
Mary... Q. A friend of mine gets flu every year at about this time, yet persistently refuses to have a flu jab, saying he is too busy to go to the doctor. Since the flu usually results in his missing about two weeks' worth of work and feeling under par for most of the rest of the winter, I am beginning to lose patience with him. How can I ensure that next year he has the jab?
H.M.M., Hereford Road, London W2 A. Assuage your irritation by ringing your friend's GP now and booking an evening surgery flu jab in his name for October 2001. Then ring your friend and invite him out to an early dinner on the date in ques- tion. Be mysterious: simply say, 'It's a spe- cial occasion, so I'm asking you well in advance to keep the evening free.' When the day comes round, turn up in a taxi to collect your friend and go via his GP's surgery to the restaurant. He may be furi- ous at your control freakery in the short term, but he will thank you in the long.
Q. My wife recently organised a 40th birthday party for me. I was very fortunate to receive many generous presents brought by friends on the evening. It now appears that I have two expensive gifts which, for whatever reason, provide no identity as to the bearer. Obviously not everybody attending the party brought a present. How do I find out the identity of these benefactors without running the risk of either embarrassing people who did not bring a present or, worse still, looking as if I expected to have a present in the first place?
T.D., Battle, East Sussex A. Dull though the following solution is, it is the only practical one. Ask your secre- tary to telephone all those guests to whom presents cannot be Pelmanised, explaining that you are not ringing yourself because you do not want anyone to think you expected a present. She should soon solve the riddle through the process of elimina- tion.
Q. My children's live-in nanny has been with us since my first child was seven months old. Nanny likes to keep herself busy but, now that my youngest child has gone to full-time school, there is very little for her to do all day since all other aspects of our housekeeping are covered. She is due for an increase in wages, but my hus- band already feels faintly resentful about her receiving a full-time salary for, effec- tively, working only a third of the time. I still need her to collect the three children from school, to look after them on the unpredictable days when they are ill and, of course, all through the holidays, so what can I do, Mary?
Name and address withheld A. I see that you live in a fashionable square in central London. Your solution is therefore easily arrived at. Circulate every house in the square with an advertisement on your own headed postcards announcing that your nanny can be available at certain times of day simply to wait in for trades- men. Since a rent-a-portering agency has just opened up offering this very service at £25 an hour, your nanny could delight everyone, including herself, by charging only £10 per hour for waiting in for such tradesmen who famously never come. In this way she could happily forgo her salary increment but still boost her income in a co-dependent manner which should be guilt-relieving for yourselves.
Mary Killen
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