DEAR ABBY: In reference to "Sonia in Spring Lakes," who wrote complaining about "Jake," her 50-plus-year-old boyfriend who got too chummy with the hostess of a party that he took Sonia to:
You compared Jake to a bumblebee in the garden of life: entertaining to watch at a distance, but guaranteed to deliver a nasty sting if you got too close.
You advised Sonia to tell Jake to buzz off, which reminded me of the following poem:
"This is the story of the little bee
"Whose sex is very hard to see.
"You cannot tell the he from she
"But she can tell, and so can he.
"The busy bee is never still
"And has no time to take the Pill.
"And that is why, in times like these,
"There are so many sons of bees."
-- SIDNEY ROSEN, BRANDON, VT.
DEAR SIDNEY: At the risk of appearing "waspish," that poem appeared in my column in 1988, submitted by Jim Harvel, an Arizona beekeeper. But thanks for the reminder. You're a honey!