Everything you'll need to know about planning a wedding can be found in Abby's booklet, "How to Have a Lovely Wedding." To order, send a long, business-size, self-addressed envelope, plus check or money order for $3.95 ($4.50 in Canada) to: Dear Abby, Wedding Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, Ill. 61054. (Postage is included.)
DEAR ABBY: I am totally disgusted with magazines these days. I've been keeping a running tally and I refuse to renew subscriptions to magazines that are one-half to three-quarters ADS!
I read my magazines from cover to cover, except for the ads. (My radio, newspaper and television give me all the advertising I can stomach.) Abby, I remember when magazines contained interesting book-length novels that were serialized month to month -- also some wonderful "special offers." Can't you urge the publishers of magazines to bring them back? I realize that ads bring in big bucks, but so do subscription checks! Aren't publishers interested in making their readers happy?
The full-page ads and parts thereof added up to:
May 1991 Ladies' Home Journal, 111 3/4 pages of ads; June 1991 Home, 47 out of 116 (I will renew); June 1991 McCall's, 74 1/2 out of 142; May 1991 Redbook, 92 out of 170; June 1991 Redbook, 52 out of 130; May 1991 1001 Home Ideas, 46 1/2 out of 96; June 1991 Victoria, 34 2/3 out of 126 (I will renew); September 1990 Reader's Digest, 75 out of 237 (I will renew).
Abby, can you add voices to people like me who are calling for a change to these policies? -- BEVERLY GARBER, HARRISONBURG, VA.
DEAR BEVERLY: Now that you've made me "ad" conscious, I counted the number of advertisements in Lear's -- 30 out of 100 pages were ads. (I will renew.)
DEAR ABBY: I have a friend who is an intelligent, single woman in her late 20s. She dresses well and is proud of her slim figure. We frequently have dinner and see a movie together. She loves pepperoni pizza, so very often we go to a pizza parlor, where she orders two large pizzas, one after the other! Then she goes to the restroom and -- you know the rest. (She forces herself to throw up.)
I know this can lead to serious health problems. Do I have the right to tell her she should stop doing this before it ruins her health? -- SORRY FOR HER
DEAR SORRY: Yes. Compare it with the "right" to warn a person who is stalled on the railroad tracks that a train is coming.
Your friend appears to suffer from "bulimia" -- a compulsion to overeat.
She should see a doctor who will refer her to a professional who specializes in eating disorders and behavior modification.
DEAR ABBY: Please do a kindness to animals and publish this for all your readers to see:
Always make sure that your discarded glass containers are clean or covered with a lid.
All empty tin or aluminum cans should be crushed because a hungry little animal looking for food could push its head inside the container and be unable to get it out.
What a horrible way to die! -- E.J. IN NAPLES, FLA.
Veterans Deserve Our Thanks, Wherever They Had to Serve
DEAR ABBY: I served in the U.S. Navy from February '87 until February '91. I served the better part of that time overseas in the Philippines working as a postal clerk at the Fleet Mail Center, Subic Bay.
I still wear my dog tags all the time, and sometimes people will see them and ask, "Were you over there?" (meaning Saudi Arabia), and I say, "No, I was in the Philippines most of the time." Then they say, "Oh," like "No big deal."
I can speak for most of the people I worked with that it was no picnic. Several coup attempts took place while I was there. (A Marine sergeant was killed about three blocks from my house.)
Abby, I would like people to know that even though we weren't "over there," we did our part during the Gulf crisis. -- SAILOR TAYLOR
DEAR SAILOR: You make an excellent point. Every man and woman who served in any branch of the armed forces -- whether or not they were in a shooting war -- did their part.
Time away from one's family is no picnic, whether one is serving in "the Gulf" or Gulfport, Miss.
DEAR ABBY: This concerns "Illinois Victim," who was being beaten by a man in her yard, and the neighbor who didn't even call the police. His comment ("I didn't want to get involved") interested me.
Some time ago, I saw a driver who appeared to be drunk cause a serious accident. I immediately called the police to tell them I had seen an accident; no one even wanted to take my name or telephone number. After 10 calls, one hour later, someone grudgingly took my name and phone number, saying, "Someone will call you."
Nobody called until six months later, when I got a subpoena through the mail demanding that I appear in court. In large letters was this threat: "IF YOU FAIL TO APPEAR IN COURT A WARRANT WILL BE ISSUED FOR YOUR ARREST."
Abby, in the school where I teach, if a teacher takes a day off, the teacher must pay the substitute. I got a substitute for the day of the trial, only to be called that morning at 8:30 a.m. and told that the case had been postponed! It was too late to cancel the substitute, so I lost that day's pay.
Yesterday, I got a notice for the next court date, which means I will have to hire another substitute. Now do you wonder why no one wants to "get involved"? I am being treated more like a criminal than a witness! After six months, I hardly remember what happened, and because I wanted to be a good citizen, I am now being penalized. Please comment. -- SUN CITY, ARIZ.
DEAR SUN CITY: As an eyewitness, your testimony could be crucial in this case, so please don't abandon your responsibility as a good citizen.
And by the way, whatever happened to one's constitutional right to a speedy trial? "Justice delayed is justice denied," said William Gladstone, who was prime minister of England in the late 1800s.
But, of course, our courts were not as clogged in the late 1800s as they are today.
What teen-agers need to know about sex, drugs, AIDS, and getting along with their peers and parents is now in Abby's updated, expanded booklet, "What Every Teen Should Know." To order, send a long, business-size, self-addressed envelope, plus check or money order for $3.95 ($4.50 in Canada) to: Dear Abby, Teen Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, Ill. 61054. (Postage is included.)
DEAR ABBY: I have a wonderful husband. "George" and I have been married for 16 years. Last summer George was going through a mid-life crisis and began shutting me out and spending most of his time at work.
A young woman -- 10 years his junior, married and temporarily separated from her husband -- began buying George lunch, complaining that she was unhappy at home, her husband was a poor lover, etc. She started praising my husband and feeding his ego.
Then one day she told him that her car was in the shop and she needed a ride home, so he drove her home and she invited him in "to talk." She asked George to kiss her. He did, and before he knew it, they were in bed. In the middle of the act, George said he realized that he was in the wrong place with the wrong woman, so he got out of bed, took a shower and came home to me. (This was his version.) He confessed, begged for my forgiveness and we prayed together. He said it was the worst sexual experience he ever had -- he didn't even complete the act.
George went to confession and told the priest everything. The priest said that technically George did not commit adultery because he did not complete the physical act. Is this true? I want to believe him. -- GEORGE'S WIFE
DEAR WIFE: Adultery, in traditional Catholic theology, does not depend on the completion of the physical act. (" ... anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." Matthew 5:28.)
George's "mid-life crisis" is a cry for help, and his lapse of faithfulness is a symptom of an ailing marriage. But since he has been a faithful husband for 16 years, you should be less concerned about the biblical definition of adultery, and more concerned about the state of your marriage. You could both benefit from counseling.
Forgive him, unconditionally, and he will remain in the right place with the right woman, and your next 16 years should be even more wonderful than your first.
DEAR ABBY: After reading a couple of articles in your column about funny wedding nights and foldout couches, I'd like to tell you about our honeymoon -- more than 45 years ago. After World War II we were married in Connecticut and drove to California with our best man. Three on a honeymoon! We decided on this because my husband, Dick, and his best friend, Walter (their real names), were both still stationed at Hamilton Air Force Base in San Rafael, Calif.
We never had any reservations and rooms were hard to get, so we all slept in the same room every night, and they dragged in a cot for our best man. We got a lot of funny looks, but we knew everything was on the up and up, so we just laughed.
Poor Walter sat through a lot of lousy double features in an effort to give the newlyweds some time alone together.
To this day, we still laugh about our off-the-wall honeymoon. -- ANN SNOW, NAPERVILLE, ILL.
DEAR ABBY: The letter from the woman who was upset because her husband's friend didn't know how to use a fork properly reminded me of the following: Anton Chekhov, the great Russian writer, once said: "A well-mannered person is not one who knows which fork to use first, but one who doesn't notice when others use the wrong one." -- A STARS AND STRIPES FAN
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.)