DEAR ABBY: I was having a snack in a restaurant a few days ago. A mother and her two young children were sitting at the next table. The younger child -- a boy about 3 -- picked up the salt shaker and licked the top of it. The mother instructed the older child to take the salt shaker to an unoccupied table and exchange it for another salt shaker.
Should I have spoken to her about it, or taken it off the other table myself and turned it over to an employee? I feel I should have done something, but I didn't. -- FEELING GUILTY, KILGORE, TEXAS
DEAR FEELING GUILTY: You should have informed your server or the manager of the restaurant about what you saw, so the item could have been removed and sanitized. And shame on that mother for what she was teaching her older child. Mother of the year, she's not.