YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
Dear Mary..
Q. For the past four months I have been looking after the business affairs of our neighbours, who have been on sabbatical in Vienna. This task, which I offered to do, involved opening their mail every day and forwarding the bills. (I paid for this and they reimbursed me.) It was quite a lot of work each day. Upon their return there was no gratitude shown and nothing in the way of a gift from their trip was forthcoming. Am I wrong to expect something? If not, What can I do or say to let them know how irritated I am at this state of affairs?
M.B.H. Davis, California
A. You are wrong to expect a gift but right to expect some show of gratitude. The mys- tery of your neighbours' failure to evince one could well be linked to conceit. Having, no doubt, been chuckling to themselves for months about how much you must have been enjoying snooping through their Papers, they may have quite forgotten that ill fact it is they who are in 'debt' to you. So Why not punish them by colluding with another neighbour, who should ring them UP saying, `I may be going away for three months and was thinking of asking M.B.H. to open my mail every day and sort things
out. I understand he did if for you, so I was just wondering how much I should offer to pay him as it's such a responsibility and will be eating into his time so much and I couldn't expect him to do it without being paid. How much did you pay him?'
Q. I have moved to a house in a busy sea- side town. I have already met roughly 10 per cent of the permanent population of 2,000, but during the summer holidays con- ditions become really intolerable with the arrival of roughly 200 more people whom I know from school, London, former lives etc. This means that every time I leave my house I am ambushed by at least five peo- ple, all of whom are perfectly nice, all smil- ing and friendly and expecting to have a lit-
tle chat. Thus, a trip to buy milk which should take seven minutes ends up taking 42 minutes every time. What can I do, Mary? I am beginning to feel paranoid.
Name withheld, Aldeburgh
A. You should not have bought a house in Aldeburgh in the first place but should have taken a leaf out of the book of Philip Larkin, who deliberately lived in Hull to ensure there would be no potential for social intercourse. Given that you have made this initial mistake, however, I will now outline a method to enable you to deal with any future sightings of well-wish- ers. Do not slacken your pace, instead quicken it, but counteract this by allowing your face to become suffused with an expression of radiant delight and bon- homie. Cry out a warm greeting but wag your head philosophically as you pass to imply an assumption, on your part, that your acquaintances will not wish you to hold them up by stopping for a conversa- tion. Lovely day!' you might cry out. won't hold you up.' You thereby put the ball in their court, but by the time they have picked it up your figure will be fast disappearing over the horizon.
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