Ask Amy

I was enjoying my morning ritual, of mini wheats, and OJ reading the paper on my IPad.  I could have said while I ate my avocado on whole grain toast, or scrambled eggs with a side of fruit.  But really, would you believe that? I digress, it was  a lovely Friday morning and Monty and I were eating breakfast on the patio. 

We each have our I Pads and are doing our own reading.   What that really means is while I am trying to read various articles Monty is telling me everything happening in the world of sports.  For the first five or ten years that was annoying but I’ve gotten used to it, after all I never have to read the sports page and I know who is entering the transfer portal, who committed to U of A, and all about the high school kid who is suing a southern university because his NIL payout of 18 million dollars is falling through.  He even mentions that Tiger is behind 7 strokes and why he fails to find that newsworthy. 

In the meantime I’ve read all the bold headlines and a few of the articles I think might prove interesting.  Did you know howler monkeys are dying of the heat and falling out of trees in Mexico City? I can’t think of many things worse than a city with dead monkeys falling out of trees.   I took a minute to check on the zoo news in Tucson. I’m happy to share that both the baby elephant and the new giraffe are doing just fine. The new enclosure for the sloth is growing in popularity.  I don’t share this with Monty because he is engrossed in the sports section.  

It doesn’t take me long to get through the paper, I steer clear of the political stuff, police reports, and the latest atrocities of war and of course the opinion page since everyone has one.

Just as I was settling in for my favorite advice column, I’m hit with the headline, Amy Dickinson says, ‘I’ll See Myself Out’ What? It can’t be, Amy is giving up her advice column.  Blind sided, I had no warning,  I wasn’t prepared, I wasn’t ready. What on earth will I do without the family drama?  

I’ve been reading advice columns since it was Molly Mayfield providing advice to the lovelorn back in my tweens.  Not that I was lovelorn back then but I was curious about life, and Molly seemed to have answers to everything I wanted to know.  Molly was followed by Ann Landers, Dear Abby and of course Ask Amy.  Through the years they have been my go to people. I’ve never written to any of them, but so many problems are universal there is bound to be something I really need to know.   

I understand a guy named Eric will be taking over the reins of advice columnist.  Really? Since most of the people seeking advice and reading the column are women, I don’t see how Eric is going to pull this off.  Maybe he’ll mansplain everything to us! YIKES. Men don’t ask for advice, good grief, they won’t even ask for directions!

I look forward to reading Eric’s column but I don’t think he is going to be able to pull off an answer like this one from Ask Amy in 2014.

Dear Amy: Every fall, my sister, cousins and a cousin’s sister-in-law have a weekend shopping excursion in our home city. We stay in a hotel, treat ourselves, shop for our children and go out for lunches and dinners. It is a great time to reconnect.

I have a sister “Wendy,” who we do not invite. She is offended to the point of tears when she finds we have not invited her. My two sisters and I are very close in age, but Wendy hasn’t been as close to this set of cousins as my sister and I have been through the years.

We are all married stay-at-home moms. Wendy is a divorced, working mom with one young child.

There are several reasons we do not include her. We know she doesn’t have very much money for such an outing. She also does not have many of the same interests as we do. Her life is quite different from ours. We’re not interested in what she has to talk about. She complains too much about her aches and pains, and claims to have some kind of neurological disease that some of us feel is more psychosomatic than real and which she uses to avoid getting up for church on Sundays.

She also complains about her ex-husband who left her for another woman, but everyone knows it takes “two to tango” and she is not without fault.

We’re all very active churchgoers, while she only sporadically attends services. Plain and simple, she does not really fit in with us anymore.

She takes it very personally, and last year even came over to my home unannounced crying about it, which upset my children and caused my husband to threaten to call the police if she did not leave.

Now she barely speaks to me and has told our relatives that I am a horrible person (even though I’ve helped her).

How can we get her to understand that she should perhaps find another set of friends whose lives and interests align more closely with hers? — Sad Sister

Dear Sad: First, let’s establish that I agree with your sister: You are a horrible person.

Obviously, you can do whatever you want and associate with — or exclude — whomever you want, but you don’t get to do this and also blame the person you are excluding for not “fitting in.”

The only way your sister would ever fit in would be for you to make room for her. You are unwilling to do that, and that is your choice. But her being upset is completely justified, and you’ll just have to live with that.

Perhaps this is something you could ponder from your church pew, because despite your regular attendance, you don’t seem to have learned much.

OK, Eric you’re up!