YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
Dear Mary.. .
Q. I am enjoying my retirement by doing voluntary work serving behind the counter in a busy little well-run charity shop. My enjoyment has, however, been somewhat marred of late by the strange behaviour of a female colleague. She is a grabber and a stroker. She will grab hold of my forearm and utter some trite phrase such as 'Take care' when the longed-for time comes for me to go home. At other times, she will take on an appearance of bovine vacuity and stroke my back and, in a contrived husky contralto, say, 'You're such a lovely man.' I like to think of myself as easy-going, calm and humorous, but these utterances annoy me intensely. I get on well with the manager but I hesitate to ask her to re- arrange the roster so that I do not have to work alongside my bete noire, since the last thing I want is to cause a 'scene'. Is there any way of dealing with this nutter without revealing my personal antipathy towards her?
J.S.R., Cambridge A. Arrange for a co-operative female friend to visit the shop during one of your shifts. Within earshot of your colleague she should make carefully rehearsed inquiries of you such as 'What time would you like your supper tonight?' or 'Don't forget your medication, darling.' Then next time your co-worker makes a touchy-feely overture, you can recoil pleasantly and say, 'Whoops! You'd better not do that. My friend might get the wrong end of the stick if she hap- pens to pop in again!'
Q. I have a very dear friend who is perfect in every way except that when she comes to dinner she hangs around the kitchen and stands right beside me at the Aga, lifting lids, tasting things and moving pans around. How can I deter her from interfering in the cooking process?
A.R., Brokenborough, Wiltshire A. Spill some sticky lemonade or Coca- Cola over your kitchen floor in a transom strip so that your friend cannot get near the Aga without walking through it. Should she offer to clear it up say, 'No thanks. I think I'll leave it there till later. It's a good way of keeping people out of my hair while I'm cooking.' Q. At dinner recently the waiter placed the French champagne in its ice bucket at the end of my table as is normal and with plenty of room for others to pass. The lady at the next table, on her way to a comfort stop, knocked the ice bucket and sent half a bottle on to the floor without so much as an acknowledgment or a word of apology. Her dining companion, presumably her husband, watched all of this in silence, as did the waiter. No one offered to replace the champagne or apologise. I was stunned and simply ordered a new bottle. What should I have done? I don't wish to be mean about things but, with the Aus- tralian dollar as low as it is these days, a bottle of drinkable French sets a chap back a pretty penny.
P.J.S., Newfarm, Brisbane, Australia A. Restaurant-goers should never be misled by a waiter's uniform into thinking he understands restaurant protocol. Yours was clearly inexperienced. You should simply have called him over and said, 'I think you'll have to let us have another bottle of cham- pagne. I'm sure you'll find your manager will want it to be on the house.' By passing the buck to the waiter in this way you would not have had to become involved in the question of whether the restaurant or the errant customer should pay in the unlikely event of there being any doubt.
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