{"id":9892,"date":"2023-11-22T23:44:26","date_gmt":"2023-11-22T23:44:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/?p=9892"},"modified":"2023-11-22T23:44:39","modified_gmt":"2023-11-22T23:44:39","slug":"dear-blabby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/2023\/11\/22\/dear-blabby\/","title":{"rendered":"Dear Blabby"},"content":{"rendered":"

Letter from America<\/span><\/h1>\n

What woman would not happily, bordering on wagging-her-tail-and-peein\u2019-her-pants\u00a0ecstatically<\/span>, jump at the chance to be the agony aunt or sob sister for a major print or on-line publication?\u00a0 I, for one, would\u00a0never<\/span>say no to such an offer.\u00a0 In fact, I like to imagine that some editor in chief, somewhere out there, is considering me for this dream job even as I write these words. Any minute now, I might receive the phone call or e-mail in which I will be asked to start writing my first advice column right away.<\/p>\n

To spare myself any potential embarrassment, just in case the job offer is made to me in person, I wear a Depends disposable undergarment whenever I think I might meet face-to-face with someone who is even remotely connected to the world of publishing. That would include the woman who delivers my daily copy of the\u00a0New York Times<\/i>\u00a0to my doorstep.<\/p>\n

I know in the very depths of my soul that my any-second-now job as an advice columnist will be accompanied by the promise of lots o\u2019 lettuce.\u00a0 Beaucoup bucks. Okay, seriously: \u00a0I will be offered a salary commensurate with my experience, which I will graciously accept.\u00a0 However, even as I stake my claim to what I view as a plum of a position, the icing on the cake of journalism\u2014my\u00a0destiny<\/span>\u2014I will chortle to myself:\u00a0Experience? I have a boatload of experience!<\/i>\u00a0What woman over the age of 25 has no experience in the advice-giving department? None! \u00a0Most women are good (even great) at giving advice.\u00a0 This is not to say that all the advice women dish out is\u00a0great<\/span>(or even good), but it is what it is:\u00a0 Advice. \u00a0Most women are tickled pink to provide advice, and plenty of it. Moreover, whether their advice is requested outright or even desired at all, some women dispense their words of wisdom without a moment\u2019s thought of monetary reward.\u00a0 These ladies, the corps of volunteer agony aunts known to their detractors as \u201cnosy Nellies\u201d or \u201cBertha Buttinskis,\u201d are a dime a dozen.\u00a0 In contrast to them, I, as a\u00a0professional<\/span>sob sister, need never again poke my nose into another individual\u2019s business or butt into the personal lives of those around me.\u00a0 I am here to tell you right now that my new gig is Everywoman\u2019s Dream Job!<\/p>\n

Readers of my new sob sister column will flood my mailbox with their problems.\u00a0 So numerous will these be that I will undoubtedly have to employ a full-time staff of readers whose sole job will be to sort through the mountains of mail I will receive daily.\u00a0 My assistants will wade through that pile, reducing it to a manageable assortment of the concerns most likely to be shared by a number of similarly tormented readers, as well as unusual problems and off-the-wall dilemmas.\u00a0 Then, faced with a tidy stack of mail, I, as \u201cAunt Ethel\u201d or \u201cDear Margaret\u201d\u2014oh, do\u00a0all<\/span>columnists of this type have to have sensible names?\u2014will further narrow the numbers down to the two or three questions I will tackle in the 1000-word space allotted to me for the day.<\/p>\n

As a responsible advice columnist, I will, of course, take care to have at my beck and call a roster of experts to consult when I myself need advice in order to lord it over my advisees.\u00a0 My \u201cpro\u2019s pros list\u201d will no doubt include the names of psychiatrists and other physicians, theologians, attorneys and law-enforcement officials, diet gurus, educators, and, naturally, an out-of-work tuba player or two.<\/p>\n

As a savvy advice columnist, I will always recognize a troll when confronted by one.\u00a0 It is a sad truth that some go-to columnists are inadequately equipped for this.\u00a0 It is my considered opinion that troll-spotters are born, not made. This particular insight was a gift given by God at my birth; experienced or not, an advice columnist either has it or doesn\u2019t.\u00a0 The host of a wildly popular late-night call-in radio show back in the early 1990s actually affirmed that long-held belief of mine one morning in 1993, when I dropped off my two oldest children at school.\u00a0 An 11th<\/span>-grade boy, flanked by several high-school girls, approached the car and greeted me as usual.\u00a0 He then added (as if he had been dared to do so), \u201cI didn\u2019t recognize you with your clothes on.\u201d\u00a0 At that point, the giggling gaggle of girls surrounded my son, Drew, as he emerged from the car.\u00a0 Their squeals, the type normally reserved for a celebrity sighting, echoed in my ears as I put my car into gear.\u00a0 Before I drove away, my own children gave me sheepish grins and Keelan, the older of the two, whispered to me, \u201cI\u2019ll explain later.\u201d In the span of 10 seconds, I had gone from a state of mild shock to intense curiosity.<\/p>\n

\"alt\"alt<\/span><\/span>Later arrived and my explanation along with it.\u00a0 Apparently, as my daughter Keelan told me, her younger brother Drew was a regular caller to the radio show mentioned above. Indeed, he had acquired quite a substantial (albeit local) following of his own, so frequent and wacky were his calls to the show in question.\u00a0 On the evening before, Drew had called with his latest trumped-up concern; he informed the host and his guest \u201cexperts\u201d that his parents were avowed nudists.\u00a0 \u201cI get a bit nervous about having my friends over to the house,\u201d Drew began, with just the right degree of sincerity in his voice.\u00a0 \u201cMy parents aren\u2019t, like, skeevy \u2018pervs\u2019 or anything like that, but I, like, never know if my mom is going to waltz through the room my friends and I are in, and, like, well, she might be pushing a vacuum cleaner and wearing nothing but a dust cloth tied like a bandanna around her neck,\u201d he whined to the panel.\u00a0 The host and guests had swallowed Drew\u2019s tale of woe\u2014hook, line, and sinker\u2014and proceeded to give him appropriate advice while the high-school kids in Manhasset, New York, were soaking their pillows with tears of laughter.<\/p>\n

But that is mere radio advice, my friends.\u00a0\u00a0My<\/span>kind of agony aunt can be found only in print.\u00a0 I will have time to separate the wheat from the chaff, the serious correspondents from the jokesters.\u00a0 My son and his ilk, including a Manhasset High School alumna, Kate Reilly (who is raising the not-so-ancient art of “trollery” to the level of a laugh-a-minute science) would never get away with his brand of drollery on\u00a0my<\/i>\u00a0watch!\u00a0 As a sob sister extraordinaire, I will have the luxury of time to consult with my team of experts (promising them mention by name in my column\u2014the kind of publicity no amount of money can buy). I will send members of my ever-growing staff on research expeditions to the most lavishly stocked medical and legal libraries the worldwide web has to offer.\u00a0 I will review their mediocre preliminary drafts of responses to the questions of my readers and then beef up those responses with my own trademarked witticisms.\u00a0 I might resurrect stale old expressions of yesteryear.\u00a0 Forget Dear Abby (or was it Ann Landers?) and her \u201cwet noodle\u201d remarks; they will pale in comparison with those you will see in\u00a0my<\/i>\u00a0column! I\u2019ll be the bee\u2019s knees\u2014the cat\u2019s pajamas\u2014cookin\u2019 with gas.\u00a0 I will be heralded as the Pez dispenser of cheap advice and will be paid handsomely to do what I like to do best!<\/p>\n

Does anybody here have a\u00a0problem<\/span>with that? \u00a0If so, just let me know and I\u2019ll put my team straight to work.<\/p>\n

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.<\/span>” mce_’ + path + ‘\\” + prefix + ‘:’ + addy95420 + ‘\\’>’+addy_text95420+'<\\\/a>’; \/\/–><\/p>\n

Follow us on Twitter – @DigiPrintNews<\/p>\n

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Copyright \u00a9 2013, DPNLIVE \u2013 All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Letter from America What woman would not happily, bordering on wagging-her-tail-and-peein\u2019-her-pants\u00a0ecstatically, jump at the chance to be the agony aunt<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9839,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-and-style","category-living-in-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9892"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9893,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9892\/revisions\/9893"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}