YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
Dear Mary. .
Q. An old acquaintance is keen to come and stay with us in the country. She is an interesting and glamorous person and a lik- able one I also owe her a small debt of gratitude. The trouble is that I know from the past that she is something of a klepto- maniac, and I hate the idea of finding things gone after her visit. What can I do?
Name and address withheld A. You can be totally relaxed for the dura- tion of the woman's visit. Only arrange that a child under two years of age toddles into your house at some point during her stay. Then, just as your visitor is about to set off for home on her last day, start fussing about a watch you cannot find. Say, 'I must ring- up the mother of that naughty toddler, I saw he had it in his hand.' You may then make a telephone call, which you will have rehearsed with a willing participant, during which you cry, 'What? He put it in the lady's bag? Which bag?' This will give you an excuse to conduct a full customs-style examination of your neighbour's luggage before she leaves. This method has the ,advantage that if any goods have been klepped' and are uncovered in the luggage You can all go along with the pretence that the toddler 'packed' them, and in this way avoid the embarrassment of exposure.
Q. I recently found a £20 note just sitting in a cash dispenser inside a bank in Regent's Street during the lunch hour. I looked around but there was nobody standing near- by. Perhaps it was a phantom expulsion trig- gered by an electronic fault in the computer. In any case I am a non-thieving type of per- son and did not wish to appropriate money which might well have belonged to somebody who desperately needed it, and who might have returned for it later, so I handed it over to a bank clerk. He looked rather shifty and I felt he was probably going to take it for him- self. What should I have done?
A.S., London WI A. You should have said to the shifty clerk, `I have found an amount of money in the cash dispenser. Should someone return for it you may give them my telephone num- ber. If they state the correct sum I will hap- pily return it to them.'
Q. My seven-year-old daughter is going through a phase of testing me to see what forms of punishment, if any, I will mete out in response to various acts of bad behaviour. As I cannot bring myself to smack her, nor lock her in her room, how should I regain my authority?
KL., SW11 A. Why not take a tip from a writer of my acquaintance who simply overpowers his daughter like a gentle giant and binds her legs and arms with stockings for a number of minutes depending on the severity of her crime? He sets a kitchen timer ticking for the appropriate number of minutes so the child does not suffer unduly, as she can watch the arrow zeroing back to the point of her release. He finds this method of humiliation effective, and not unduly cruel.
Mary Killen
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