People are eating them up! For Abby's favorite recipes, send a long, business-size, self-addressed envelope, plus check or money order for $3.95 ($4.50 in Canada) to: Dear Abby, Cookbooklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, Ill. 61054. (Postage is included.)
Motorists, Here's a Warning: Don't Interrupt Cops at Work
DEAR ABBY: Will you please ask your readers never to interrupt a police officer in the middle of a traffic stop unless it is a dire emergency? (Directions to the nearest restaurant don't count!)
Abby, we police officers never know who we are pulling over during a routine stop. It could be a murderer, an escaped felon or a minister. More law enforcement personnel are injured or killed during routine traffic stops than almost any other type of police activity. (It's twice as dangerous at night.)
Please don't pull up right next to me as I'm approaching the car I just stopped and ask me for directions! We could both be in danger and I might not be able to guarantee your safety.
We also make stops where the element of danger is known beforehand -- such as an armed robber fleeing the scene. This is usually a planned stop where suspects are taken out of a car at gunpoint. If you should see one or more police officers with their guns drawn and pointed at someone, don't walk up and ask, "What's going on?" We are not filming "T.J. Hooker."
If a police officer is all red in the face and yelling at you and waving an arm in a sideways motion while holding a gun in the other, don't wave back. It isn't a greeting. MOVE! You are in the line of fire!
Thanks, Abby, for letting me get this off my chest. -- CALIFORNIA COP, LOMPOC, CALIF.
DEAR READERS: He's right. When officers are on duty, they are not playing cops and robbers; it's the real thing. So, please, don't interrupt an officer who is obviously busy doing his job.
DEAR ABBY: Well, it happened again tonight! Don't people realize that in this day and age, it is not safe to assume anything?
I am a 21-year-old man -- stable and successful -- and I am presently seeing a woman who is 19 years my senior. For some reason (probably because I look younger than I am), people tend to assume that we are mother and son.
Abby, you would not believe the pain and frustration it causes my girlfriend when people tell her what a handsome "son" she has! She doesn't look anywhere near old enough to be my mother.
Tonight when we came out of a restaurant and the valet retrieved my car, the young fellow who brought us our car said, "Gee, if my mom had a car like this, she'd never let me drive it!"
Please let your readers know that assumptions can be rude. I doubt there would be a problem if I was 40 and she was 19 or 20. -- HATES ASSUMPTIONS
DEAR HATES: Unfortunately, some assumptions -- when verbalized -- can be cruel as well as rude. However, when a 40-year-old man is in the company of a 19- or 20-year-old woman, the assumption is more likely to be that they are boyfriend and girlfriend. Today, when people are living longer and taking better care of themselves (physically, nutritionally and sometimes with a little help from a plastic surgeon), age is merely a number.
But on the chance that it could be embarrassing, it's wise to make no assumptions concerning the relationship between a male and female.
No News Can Be Bad News Where Cancer Is Concerned
DEAR ABBY: I read a letter in your column in the Oregonian that shook me up. It was from a woman who said that her husband had had a physical every year since 1971, checked out 100 percent -- then out of the blue he was diagnosed as having inoperable prostate cancer! No one had told him that if his father or a brother had had prostate cancer, he should take a P.S.A. blood test. After I read this in your column, I wrote "GET THIS" on the column and handed it to my husband, because his brother has had prostate cancer. So with no symptoms, my husband took the P.S.A. test and was found to have early prostate cancer!
Thank God for that letter -- and thank you, Abby, for publishing it. I had copies made and sent them to all my male relatives. I even posted one on the bulletin board at our club. You may use my name. -- BOBBI (MRS. FRED) JACKSON, SOUTH BEACH, ORE.
DEAR BOBBI: Thank you for permitting me to use your name. For those readers out there who want to know -- the name of the blood test is "Prostatic-Specific Antigen." And for those who need a nudge in the right direction -- read on:
DEAR ABBY: This is a story about two men. One of them is my friend who went to his doctor for his regular physical examination. An elevated blood count indicated that he needed further testing and, as suspected, it was found he had two cancerous polyps on his prostate. They were removed by a simple surgical procedure. Prognosis: He will probably live a normal life.
The other one is my brother, who had ample warning of the same problem for a year, but who kept putting off a visit to the doctor until it became absolutely necessary. By then, the cancer had spread through his system and he required radical and painful surgery. Prognosis: We buried him last week, and it was so unnecessary! Please excuse the tear stains. I miss my brother. -- GRIEVING IN THE OZARKS
DEAR ABBY: Last weekend I went camping with my family and a friend. I met a really special guy who I fell for right away. The problem is, I told him I was 17 (I am 15).
He is 17. Now I am worried that he will be mad at me for lying and think I am too young. The reason I told him I was older is because a lot of guys think I'm too young even before they get to know me. I look 17 and am very mature.
I don't think age should matter if two people really like each other. How do I convince him that I like him so much, and that I'm sorry for lying? -- SORRY I LIED IN YUBA CITY, CALIF.
DEAR SORRY: Age does matter during the teen years, and so does the degree of maturity. Some 17-year-old "boys" are men -- and much depends upon his degree of maturity at age 17. Liking him so much that you lied about your age is not much of a defense, but my advice is just to be straightforward and tell him what you've told me. Lying about one's age is, in itself, immature. But if he likes you enough, perhaps he'll be forgiving.
To get Abby's booklet "How to Write Letters for All Occasions," send a long, business-size, self-addressed envelope, plus check or money order for $3.95 ($4.50 in Canada) to: Dear Abby, Letter Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, Ill. 61054. (Postage is included.)
Woman Who Fears Doctors Searches for Painless Cure
DEAR ABBY: This refers to your answer to "Out of Ideas," whose wife refused to go to the doctor for checkups.
Your answer was very glib. I, too, refuse to go to the doctor -- my reason is fear, pure and simple. I am so frightened of hearing something bad, I just don't go at all. The word "tests" is enough to send my blood pressure soaring. In fact, I can't get an accurate blood pressure reading due to fear of doctors.
I'm not as bad as "Out of Ideas'" wife; I've gone to the doctor on occasion when I've had uncomfortable symptoms that drove me there. But the experience was sheer torture. The doctors kept saying, "Calm down, calm down" -- but I simply couldn't. I'm in my 50s and I've never had a mammogram, and I never go for regular checkups.
I would be delighted to learn how to overcome this deep-seated terror, but so far, no luck. I think you should consider this in relation to "Out of Ideas'" wife. She may need help, and it has nothing to do with her intelligence. -- SCARED TO DEATH
DEAR SCARED -- and I hope the "to death" is just a figure of speech. I told "Out of Ideas": "Short of hog-tying her, there is nothing you can do. Every intelligent person realizes that routine physical checkups (physical and dental) are essential to maintaining good health; and early detection, should there be a problem, has saved many lives."
The help that both of you need is psychotherapy to overcome your fear of doctors. Literally tens of thousands of women could have added years to their lives had they caught a malignancy sooner.
DEAR ABBY: Our retirement center runs a trip to the shopping center once a week. Recently I noticed one of the residents put a tube of lipstick in her purse instead of in her shopping cart. I was behind her in the checkout line and saw that she didn't declare the lipstick. Since then, I've been watching her. The week before last, she slipped a bottle of fingernail polish into her bag. Last week, it was toothpaste.
If I speak to her about her pilfering, I know she will deny it and say all sorts of unpleasant things. Still, I am uncomfortable now that I know she is shoplifting.
Shall I tell the store manager? Or maybe tell the other village residents? Or just mind my own business? -- IN A QUANDARY
DEAR IN: It would be a kindness to tell the woman privately that you saw her shoplift the lipstick, nail polish and toothpaste. Tell her you fear that if she does it again, she will be caught and asked never to enter that store again -- or worse yet, arrested. This would be not only embarrassing, but a blow to her family -- and it would reflect badly on the retirement center.
DEAR ABBY: More about "dinner" and "supper": So you'll know where I'm coming from, I live in Winona, Minn., a small city in the heart of the Mississippi's famed Hiawatha Valley.
Here when we eat our evening meal at home, it is virtually always "supper" and is our principal meal of the day.
However, when we go "out" to eat, we never call it "supper." Nobody here ever goes "out" for "supper," but everybody goes "out" for "dinner" now and then. -- ROD HURD
Everybody has a problem. What's yours? Get it off your chest by writing to: Dear Abby, P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, Calif. 90069. For a personal reply, please enclose a stamped, self-addressed envelope.