I subscribe to both a print and online version of one of our daily newspapers. The other one I just subscribe to as an online version. I read the print one with breakfast even though I have a smart(er than I am) phone as well as a tablet. I grew up with newspapers at the breakfast table and at my age, changing is just another new trick this old dog will not attempt.
I read everything, basically to get me through the meal, including the legal notices which are often not the most fun you can have with your clothes on as an exercise in phonics and meaning. As a reward for cleaning my plate, and kind of a dessert that breakfasts could really use come to think of it, I treat myself to a quick perusal of the advice column.
I enjoy the columns because more often than not they make me feel better about my own life. Sometimes I try to imagine what the person who wrote to Dear Abby or Ann or whoever was thinking when they sent the note off since when it arrives in my newspaper, it can often be starkly stupid if not downright dumb. (And that characterization is why the very short-lived Dear Bill Advice to the Lovelorn syndicated column went plywood in Indiana).
Other times, based on how I react to the letters, I try to imagine how the columnist must have reacted prior to composing an answer and attempting to be helpful. Sometimes I'm surprised, but I'm never disappointed.
Here's one that I knew, from the opening line, was going to be a doozie (I'm old; I'm allowed to use fossil-like words), though I applaud the attempt at something more elegant than "I'm cheating on my spouse." See for yourself.
As John Prine once noted (though I'm not sure he'd made this lady's acquaintance), "You are what you are, and you ain't what you ain't." Perhaps more so now than at any other moment.
-bill kenny
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