YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
Dear Mary.. .
Q. My secretary has started laughing after everything she says. I suspect that she may be developing a so-called nervous laugh and am keen to nip it in the bud as I find it intensely irritating. How can I rid her of the habit without offending her or making her even more nervous?
D. T, Beaminster, Dorset
A. Why not practise a form of aversion therapy by prefacing all of your own remarks and queries to your secretary with a ten- or 15-second burst of meaningless chuckling? In this way you will create a sort of laughter surplus, the thought of adding to which will cause her subliminal revul- sion.
Q. I have a dear friend who is very keen on showing off her knowledge of Latin names of plants and flowers as we go about gar- dens together. The trouble is that she gets so many of the names wrong, usually by just a syllable. It seems mean to humiliate her by drawing attention to this, but on the other hand I don't think she should get away with being so unjustifiably self-confident. How should I go about cor- recting her misnomers? For instance, 'Look at the lovely sadolins,' referring to `santolina' S.C., Beaumaris A. Congratulate your friend on her knowl- edge as she goes about the gardens. Then, following one such trip, telephone her at home in the evening and ask her to write down the names of the things you saw together so that you can learn them off yourself. She will surely not be so self-confi- dent as to write them down without first checking in a reference book. In this way, you will undermine her self-confidence suf- ficiently to give her pause for thought in future. Q. How does one respond to parking space thuggery? This morning I was waiting in a hospital car park to take a space released by a friendly woman who, having realised she had put money into the wrong meter, was reparking in the correct space and had offered me the one she was vacating. Just as she was edging her way in, a yob of a man swooped into the space and gave a V- sign when we tried to remon- strate with him. What should we have done?
M.A.S., London El A. You could have followed the thug into the hospital and said, 'I don't want to worry you but just after you took our parking space out there a young lad came up to me and said he was part of some vigilante group against discourtesy in car parks. He said he was going to let your tyres down while you were in the building to punish you.' Say this with a guileless expression on your face, and you will unnerve the park- ing-space thief to such an extent that you will have inflicted a more efficient punish- ment, like the Guardian Angels on the Tube.
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