YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
Dear Mary. . .
Q. A variation on a recurring theme. Last summer my wife and I drove from Ger- many to England in order to attend the wedding of the daughter of some old friends in the West Country. After a tiring journey, followed by a nightmarish drive into London's West End to buy the desired gift from the bride and groom's list, we finally reached our destination. The wed- ding was hugely enjoyable and our gift was duly presented at the reception. Unfortu- nately since then we have heard not a word of acknowledgment or appreciation. This seems very odd to my wife and me. How can one broach this subject without appear- ing rude? The only possible explanations would seem to be: a) our gift disappeared at the reception; b) the accompanying card became detached from the parcel, or c) sheer bad manners on the part of the bride and groom, which we find almost impossi- ble to believe.
P. M. R., Berlin A. Inscribe a new gift tag with the same sort of message as would have appeared on the Parcel you originally handed over. Pop this in an envelope along with a dashed-off
postcard reading, 'Found this gift tag when taking suit to cleaners. Must have been enjoying your reception so much we forgot to tie it on. Do apologise for having caused you this worry as you were no doubt won- dering who on earth the six plates from Thomas Goode were from! Mystery solved now. Best wishes etc.' As bad manners is the most likely explanation, this gives the offenders a convenient excuse for their late acknowledgment.
Q. A notorious local gossip has told our girl groom that I spent my honeymoon with my best man, having married my wife in hospi- tal, she suffering from a broken neck which stopped her coming on the honeymoon.
The mundane truth is that my wife and I had a conventional wedding and honey- moon, the latter without the best man. My wife had fully recovered from breaking her neck three years earlier. I don't know how many other people have heard the story from the imaginative woman. How can I set the record straight, and correct the implica- tions that I was over-attached to my best man and heartless to my wife, without nec- essarily spreading the story?
Name withheld, Worcestershire A. Arrange for a close friend to leak some new material for circulation. . . . People say it was your best man with whom you spent your honeymoon but the truth is far more extraordinary. In fact you spent it with the notorious local gossip in question, then working as a masseuse, whom you employed in a purely professional capacity to spend the whole honeymoon working on your lower back area. 'No sex, of course, just proper medical massage — in six daily sessions. But extraordinary to think of her working on him hour after hour, every day, just driving at the same spot, while he lay there completely nude!'
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