Dear Pam and Just Say No

Sometimes I think people already know the answers to their problems, but they just write to Abigail Van Buren, aka Dear Abby, to get her confirmation for what they already know they want to do. They need her permission somehow, like a mother's OK.

When people used to ask me to do something I didn't want to do, I would delay my answer and say I'd think about it, hoping they'd read the writing on the wall and let it drop. However, they'd usually say, ‘I'll call you back about this later; maybe you'll change your mind.” So now I just say I don't want to do it, and if they persist, I say I won't do it. Needless to say, I don't get many requests these days.

Artists, caterers, chefs and liquor stores get lots of requests, and most give in. Once I got a request to paint polar bears on canvas shoes all day for free. I know what you're saying to yourself, "It's for a good cause!" However, I was to bring my own hair dryer so I could do it fast, after practicing the painting of the polar bear, in just the right white paints that I was to purchase myself and carry to the event in an empty beer carton. "You must be quick; they'll not want to stand around waiting all day; they'll want to go to lunch," they told me! "But what about my lunch after all of this feverish blow drying? Isn't there a chili contest going on at this same event?" I asked. "You'll have to bring your own lunch and be quick about it!” they told me. "But we'll advertise the hell out of you!"

Yeah, advertise that I'm a fool to all the others who want work for free. Do I look like Geppetto, the little Italian woodcarver? No, my nose would grow long like Pinocchio's if I said I want to work for free. When was the last time at a silent auction that you saw any lawyers offering free time to prepare wills or plastic surgeons offering free eye lifts?

Then there were the people who asked me to paint a picture of the Wizard of Oz and Dorothy's red glitter shoes. It's easy; just drop it off at our back door – but no free tickets to the event. I'm not the wizard of free painting, I told them.

Yet another charity event awhile ago was artists setting up a table where people copy a work of their art and drink wine at a bar or restaurant. I was approached about performing this really stupid activity. Besides, I'd get drunk, and why would I want a group of people copying my art en masse, thus revealing the mysteries of my creation? And, by the way, I had to pay for their supplies so they could copy me! Plus, breeding a whole crop of copycats! It's harder than you might think to do art. It was for a political cause. The asker said they assumed I was a Democrat. I'll never tell. And don't assume. But art is a lot like politics, by the way.

No, I don't need Dear Abby to tell me what to do or say anymore, or even my mother, who used to say to any complaining, "Buck up, girl!" I was recently asked by an upstate museum to be an Ambassador of Art. The plan was to procure artists from upstate to come down here. I was told my participation would grow more and more intense, and I would attend meetings on one of those "Hollywood Squares"-type Zoom meetings. Don't they know I'm a Luddite? No one listens to me at those kind of grown-up things anyway! More work for free, and there are enough artists already down here. "They smile in your face and only want to take your place," as the song goes. I didn't need Dear Abby to tell me what to say to that!

A couple of weeks ago, Jeff was cornered at a meeting and almost strong-armed into doing a secretary taking notes and typing kind of thing. He acquiesced, but tossed and turned all night about it. I have enough trouble getting him to type these columns, and have to pay him $10 to boot (which I'd better say he richly deserves, by the way). He was in a bad mood all week, and even walked out of a haircut appointment when an old lady horned in on his time. "We only have 10 more minutes to go," they told him. Not believing them and not knowing the logistics of a blow-dry, he left. He now knows he's in Mayberry and Aunt Bee always comes first here. Anyhow, I just told him to tell the meeting people he didn't want to do it, and wouldn't do it, and he did. Crisis solved by Dear Pam again.

My favorite part of The News Journal is the final entertainment section with the Dear Abby column and the horoscopes, although those are becoming a bit too esoteric. I want to know practical things, and before I secured my very good husband, I may have wanted to know what the future was for romance, but now there's a mythological centaur called Chiron that gallops through the hemisphere and influences my day one way or the other, for better or worse. It's really bad when Chiron is in Uranus!

Between these two features side by side in print that I read upon awakening every morning, I'm glad I know how to say “No!” every day of the week.