No need to rehash drunken party talk

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/12/2016 (3218 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: My wife is a feisty person, which is a part of the reason I married her. She reminds me of my granny, a plucky little lady from Newfoundland who was about five feet tall and had the vocabulary of a sailor. She loved me madly and taught me lots of stuff as a child, such as how to play poker for pennies, tell jokes, sing crazy songs and generally be the life of the party. It has served me well in life.

My wife is just the same as my grandma, but sometimes she goes too far. We’re relatively young and I don’t want to crush her feelings, but she embarrasses me sometimes, like at my work holiday party last week. To be fair, my boss was fairly drunk, as was my crazy wife. I caught her telling my boss he should have more parties with free booze and loosen up the stuffed shirts around here so they would get along better at work. She’s absolutely right, and my boss seemed to take it OK, but I wonder if she went too far. Should I apologize to him in some way? — New Sales Rep, Winnipeg

Dear New Sales Rep: Leave it alone and stop sweating. Bosses don’t judge their employees by how their spouses behave at the annual holiday party, especially if they were well into the sauce themselves. Your boss may or may not remember exactly what he and your wife were talking about, just that it was stimulating and fun.

Anything you could say would end up making you sound fearful and worried about your position, and probably elicit an awkward response. If you hear anything from the boss or co-workers about your wife’s uninhibited behaviour, just say, “She’s a live wire, all right!” showing you know very well the kind of person she is, and that you enjoy her.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I’ve been feeling very festive and neighbourly, so I went to the drugstore and bought chocolates. Then I went next door on either side, and across the back lane and across the street in front of my house and brought candy to my neighbours. With one exception, they invited me in for a little chat and it was so much fun.

These neighbours are not strangers, though not really close friends. In winter, we don’t see each other at all for four months. They tend to hide away because of the cold, and so do I. In the summer we wave, smile and chat a little over the fence, but those warm little 15-minute conversations we had this week were more intimate than any of our warm-weather waves or garden chats. I really enjoyed them and learned a little about their families, too. This is just an idea for people who are only thinking about their blood-related families, when neighbours are an important kind of family, too. — Mrs. Chocolate, Fort Rouge

Dear Mrs. Chocolate: What a sweet thing to do, and I’ll bet people got a kick out of it. You’re right about extended family. Now so many families live far apart, our neighbours should be a kind of family too, especially in the winter when things can go wrong and it can be a little bit dangerous. Good on ya!

Miss Lonelyhearts
Advice Columnist

   Read full biography