A lady wrote to Dear Abby...

...to ask how she should respond to people who ask her why a woman as pretty as she is isn't married yet. Abby gave her an adequate answer. But my father taught me a much better answer to such questions.

When a person asks me a stupid question, I look them straight in the eye and ask, "Why would you ask anyone a question like that?" It's a great way to shut up a jack-ass without going off on them and looking like a jack-ass yourself.

Once when I was at work, a supervisor grabbed my arm as I was passing by her. She was sitting on a chair at the nurses station and I was walking out of it. As I passed her, she literally grabbed my forearm and held onto it as she asked me a question. I resisted the urge to rip my arm out of her hand and smack her. Instead, I just looked at her and asked, "Why would you grab me like that and restrain me from moving?" She dropped my arm and looked rather embarrassed.

There were a bunch of other nurses and a couple of doctors standing in the nurses station at the time. I made my point and made her look foolish without acting like an idiot myself.

My father is such a smart man. I wish that I would have started listening to him a lot sooner in life. Had I done that, I would have spared myself a LOT of pain and bullshit.

Meg