Dear Abby: Why on earth would anybody want to embarrass a guest for daring to open the medicine cabinet? Did it ever occur to hosts that a guest may have a legitimate reason to open the cabinet?
Sure, there are snoops who may be curious about your private life, and drug abusers who are looking for prescription drugs. But what about guests who are looking for mouthwash because there was too much garlic in the dip? Or someone needing hand lotion, aspirin or dental floss?If there are personal items such as medications, cosmetics or contraceptives, they shouldn't be in medicine cabinets when guests are expected.
To booby-trap a medicine cabinet with marbles that will come tumbling out and make a racket to deliberately embarrass someone is unbelievably childish and rude.
If somebody did that to me, I would also walk out of the house - never to return.
- Denny in Boulder
Dear Abby: Will you please help me inform people that they should never talk to, pet or try to feed a Seeing Eye dog?
These dogs are working, and when they are distracted, they can't help the person they were trained to assist. This is a constant problem for people who have Seeing Eye dogs.
Some people say if you ask the owner if it is OK to pet their dog, it puts them in an awkward position because they hate to say no. Is it OK to talk directly to the sightless person about his or her dog?
- Karen Flynn, 13,
Azle, Texas
Dear Karen: You are right. When people see a person with a Seeing Eye dog, they should understand it is not just another person with his or her pet; the dog is working. They should not try to pet the dog.
A comment such as, "My, what a beautiful (or well-trained) dog" is permissible, but beyond that, no questions, please.
Dear Abby: I have read that you are something of an expert on the American presidents, so perhaps you can come up with the anti-war remarks made in a speech delivered by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was severely criticized for it because he was a West Point graduate.
- Curious in Abilene, Texas
Dear Curious: I am far from an expert, but I have enjoyed learning about the American presidents, and the quotation to which you refer was made by President Eisenhower when he spoke before the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1953:
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. . . . This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."
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