Dear Abby

I read Dear Abby almost daily and I have for years.

Now that that's out in the open, I just have something to say about it.

The daughter that took over in Abby's stead is really mean. And not funny mean, she is mean mean. For instance, just today a woman wrote in and said that she felt that her mother-in-law had violated her and she was wondering if she was justified. One thing that disturbed her is that whenever the mother-in-law came to visit she demanded to stay in the master bedroom. Abby said something along the lines of 'until she is sleeping between you and her son in your bed you don't have any reason to be upset' and 'stop being so sensitive'. She could've have said, 'turn the other cheek', 'make your guest room awesome so that she would rather stay there' or 'just give her some space'. There is a plethora of kinder more sympathetic things to say. But since when was the daily newspaper a place for sympathy? (That's what I imagine she would say if she read this). I just want to know why Abby Jr. has to be so rude, may I mention this is just one occurrence of which I assure you there have been many. So I have briefly thought of a couple different options.

1. She feels as though she is compensating for the fact her name is actually Jeanne.

2. Abby c/o Jeanne is sick of the family business and has become very irritable and impatient with the general public's inability to decided whether or not it is appropriate to bring their own allergy friendly hors d'ourves to a dinner party.

or 3. Jeanne is just a mean person not fit to be printed but managed slip in through a neglected legacy column.

No matter what the actual cause of Abby's harsh words, she is a mean girl. If I were to write in to her column I would say:

Dear Abby, 
Since it has become painfully obvious that you completely neglect the social necessity of tact, I have taken the liberty of enclosing the definition in hopes that you will incorporate it to your daily writings and life. If your writing says anything about your personality, I can only imagine the color of your day to day conversations.


Tact. Noun. A keen sense of what to say or do to avoid giving offense; skill in dealing with difficult or delicate situations.
-Saying what everyone is thinking out West.


But that's just me. Read the column and find out for yourself. It's usually in the C section of the Desert News right around the comics, aka the other part of the newspaper I read almost daily which has conveniently filled the void since I no longer read the obituaries.