YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
Q. I seek your guidance on the most appropriate way to answer a rather awk- Ward question. It concerns those rare occasions when one is occupied in the bathroom; the telephone rings and one Way or another you answer it. Invariably the caller wastes no time in asking whether You are in the bathroom. I have been caught twice recently, the first time on a Portable telephone at home and the sec- ond in a very well-appointed hotel room bY a colleague. Both episodes left me feel- most uncomfortable, as to answer Yee could be taken the wrong way, while t, suspect lying would be of no use given trle marked echo effect which gives the Fame away in the first place. Hoping to be Defter prepared next time, I await your wise counsel.
Perturbed, Sydney, NSW Australia 4- Hold your nose each time you answer. a telephone in such circumstances. This will co, ufuse the caller into asking whether you 'lave a cold rather than whether you are in a bathroom. Still holding your nose, spin out the process of denying that you have
Dear Mary. . .
one. 'There must be some sort of sonic dis- tortion on the line,' you can say. 'Do you want to call back?' This will give you time to move to another room and take the call there, enquiring, 'Is that any better?' with your nasal grip released.
Q. My wife and I recently celebrated our joint 40th birthdays with a party at a highly unusual venue in south-west London. When opening our presents the following day, we found an extremely generous and expensive present, but were shocked to dis- cover within its box a message card and birthday card to the people who had given us the gift. We were very amused by this discovery, but it has not affected our enjoy- ment of the gift at all. How can we let these friends of ours know without offending them that we realise their gift was second- hand, but that we are not upset in the least by such a cheapskate action?
P.M., London SW13 A. Many years have passed since the days when guilt might be felt when handing on a present to someone who would appreciate it more than you. Now virtually every home has a present cupboard stocked both with gifts bought at random with no particular recipient in mind and gifts received but unwanted. In top circles, recycling ranks far above going out to buy something. Recy- cling is not only 'green', it often enables a donor to graciously give goods to the value of double or treble, in monetary terms, what they would have spent had they gone to a shop to buy something 'new'. Given that you like the present, it could therefore afford you only the most Pyrrhic pleasure to tease your friends about its provenance, and it would be churlish to try to get one up on them in this way.
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