Q. My daughter has left her appalling husband and come to live with me while her new house is being made ready. Today a parcel arrived with the usual sort of impenetrable wrapping which needs to be cut through with secateurs. I attacked the packaging with gusto and threw it on to the fire. Only then did I see the delivery note which showed that the parcel was not for me but for my daughter. Inside was a battery-driven ‘erotic aid’. Clearly I cannot mortify my daughter by handing her the device, but nor can I repackage it and put it through the post again as it would then be postmarked from our part of the world — which is quite a remote little pocket of England. What should I do?
Name and address withheld
A. This sort of embarrassment happens all the time with deliveries of erotic aids. The suppliers will be familiar with your plight and sympathetic to it. If you telephone them and announce you will be returning the device, they will agree to dispatch another on receipt of it. You may have to pay new postage and packaging charges, but you can be confident that no office blunderer will include paperwork identifying you as the originator of this new order.
Q. I would welcome your help with a difficult social situation in which I found myself recently. I was attending a meeting that was preceded by a wine reception. On entering the reception room I spied a glamorous and elegant female colleague, went over to greet her and kissed her on the cheek. She was talking to another not instantly recognisable lady whom I quickly ascertained was a contemporary who I know equally well, but who until recently had been, as they say, a woman trapped in a man’s body. The change was now complete and she was in her full glory. In these circumstances was it appropriate for me to greet her, having recognised her, in the same way as I had my other friend? This is what I did but I found it rather awkward, as this was the first time I had met her in her new identity. What is correct form in these circumstances? A handshake seems a little formal having just rubbed cheeks with my other friend.
J.W., Woking
A. The correct form is to treat the transformed person as a member of the sex to which they aspire to belong. Fortunately you did the right thing by instinct.
Q. Further to the problem (31 July) of the lady who wished to avoid travelling to bridge parties with an alarming driver, I have the opposite problem. I am almost the only person at my university who does not drink so I am constantly being asked to chauffeur everyone around in my car. I don’t mind that much but petrol is very expensive now and because all my friends are so drunk they usually forget to contribute towards it. Next term how can I jog their memories or abdicate from the chauffeur role without being a bore?
Name withheld, Edinburgh
A. Find a two-seater car which is more fuel-efficient than your vehicle. Tell your friends you are thinking of swapping for budgetary reasons. If the penny does not drop then go ahead and swap for a two-seater. At least you will have the pleasure of one-to-one contact as you hit the social circuit.
If you have a problem write to Dear Mary, c/o The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP.
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