DEAR ABBY: I am receiving physical therapy at a center with a huge TV on the wall. It is on the entire time, playing stuff like sports and home improvement shows. I find it tedious, stressful and distracting.
Importantly, due to my declining hearing, the TV makes it difficult to understand the young physical therapist I’m working with. I have told her several times now that because of the background noise, I need her to face me, not the TV, so I can hear her. She tends to forget this fact. I have even asked about playing music instead of the TV, to no avail.
I would go somewhere else, but this is the only place my insurance pays for. I dread going there because of this. Am I wrong to want a quiet environment in which to heal? — PEACEFUL IN FLORIDA
DEAR PEACEFUL: You are not wrong. Your physical therapist appears to have a listening problem. Rather than continue to complain to this employee, talk to the manager of the therapy center and explain the problem.
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DEAR ABBY: One year ago, I convinced my daughter (64) to move here to Florida to be closer to me. I bought her a small mobile home to live in, and I don’t charge her any rent. Before she moved down here from Minnesota, she agreed to pay the lot rent and her own utilities.
Recently, she met a man and fell in love. She has been single and self-supporting for more than 20 years, but she says she’s lonely and wants someone to talk to when she gets home from work. She thinks this man fits the bill. He is 60 and doesn’t have a job, a car or a place to live. He has been staying with a friend for the entire two months she has known him. He has given her an engagement ring after two months, and they plan on marrying later this year.
My daughter asked me if I’m happy for her. When I told her if she is lonesome when she comes home from work, she should consider getting a pet, she laughed. I do not think two months is long enough. In my opinion, her fiance should at least have a job — and a car would be nice so she wouldn’t have to take the bus to work every day. What should I tell her if she asks me if she should marry him? — CONCERNED MOM
DEAR CONCERNED MOM: She won’t ask, because she knows she won’t like the answer. However, if she does, give your honest opinion — and tell her that I share it. A legal union with this man who has nothing would be foolish and self-destructive. Instead of planning a wedding, his time and energy would be better spent looking for work.
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DEAR ABBY: This may seem like a silly question, but when filling out paperwork that asks if I am married, divorced or widowed, I’m not sure what to put down. I was divorced, but then he died. Does it matter which answer I choose? — BEFUDDLED IN INDIANA
DEAR BEFUDDLED: This is not a silly question. It is one I have been asked before. The correct answer is that you are divorced. If your ex-husband remarried after your divorce, the woman he married is his widow.
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Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren. For nearly four decades, Jeanne Phillips penned this column, which was founded in 1956 by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at http://www.DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 270135, Kansas City, MO 64127.
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