DEAR ABBY: Last year a close friend and her husband took early retirement, bought an RV and have been traveling ever since. She has always written lots of letters to relatives and friends, but now she writes daily diaries, detailing what they had for meals each day, what she bought at the discount store and the daily temperature. Then she photocopies and sends the same "letter" to everyone. Sometimes we get as many as 12 typed, single-spaced sheets (front and back) of their daily activities.
Abby, I do not have the time or desire to hear what they ate (in one letter she gave us a full description of their illness after a bad meal!) and how much mileage they made on a tank of gas. I suppose I could just toss the letter when it arrives, but I worry that she will say something important somewhere. That did happen once, on page 5, day 22, when she disclosed that her sister had died. I had to read the whole dissertation to glean that news.
All of us dread going to the mailbox to find the letter from hell. We would appreciate any suggestion you have. -- MAILBOX MADNESS
DEAR M.M.: Unless you're prepared to level with this compulsive diarist, prepare to continue receiving copies of her daily log. You don't say how many friends are involved here, but an alternative might be for each of you to take turns reading one of the "letters" and be responsible for letting the others know the contents.