Strange ideas...

Leafing through a magazine left on the train last night, I got sucked into the "ask the doctor/agony aunt/Mrs Mills" page. Same old issues - too much sex, not enough sex, he's cheating on me, I want to divorce him, my child is constantly arriving home in a police car, he is seventy years older than me but I don't think the age difference is a problem, my mother doesn't approve of the way I cook cabbage...


I used to think it would be fun to write one of these pages. Mine would go something like:

Dear Doctor,
My husband is losing hair from the top of his head and we haven't had sex for months. I read about chemotherapy on the internet and I'm worried he may have cancer. He obviously doesn't trust me as he hasn't told me this himself, and I think he might be seeking comfort from another woman. Our relationship is over. I hate him. I want him out of my life - should I leave him or kill him, or how would you recommend finishing him off?
Tracey.

Dear Tracey,
Your husband is probably just losing a bit of hair and sex drive. I suggest you cook him a nice meal and tell him to go out for the day with his friends whilst you take a long, hot bath. This won't actually fix his inherent ageing or make time run backwards, but it should mean that you are unarmed when the men in white coats arrive to take you away, and he doesn't have to witness the scene.
Best of luck,
Doctor.


and just for fun, I'd write to myself...


Dear Doctor,
My otherwise highly intelligent friend can't distinguish between a person (a particular person who is short for a human and has short hair) and a cat (which is normal size for a cat, and whose fur is a similar length to her friend's hair). I suspect the problem is one of the following:

1. she has very poor eyesight;
   
2. she has some abnormal brain chemistry;
   
3. she has early dementia;
   
4. (the thinking-outside-of-the-box-solution (and why would my brain be in a box, anyway?)) her friend is actually rather like a cat.

Could the symptoms be due to excessive consumption of Diet Coke? Should I encourage her to drink water instead, perhaps eat more oily fish, stop referring to her friend as Tiddles, and get the friend to stop climbing up the curtains??
But Why?

Dear But Why?,
Your friend's behaviour is very concerning. Could you tell me more about the symptoms?
Doctor.


Well, Doc, I was first alerted to this behaviour during a conversation this morning:

Stray: Thanks for the tea. Is Badger in?
Me: Erm, not sure. Don't think so - haven't heard her...
Stray: Oh, actually, I heard her squeaking earlier - yes, she is in.
Brain knocks this bit of information against a few other pieces collected that morning, in particular the notable lack of noise of squeaks, clicks, clucks, and collisions of head/limbs with immovable objects, and decides further questioning is required to ascertain the truth.
Me: Squeaking... Was she doing her 'Frank' [sex-pest ginger cat] noise, by any chance?
Stray: Yeah.
Brain digests this information. The evidence that Badger was in the house was that Stray had heard something this morning that sounded rather like a cat. However, Badger usually wakes me up when she comes in. I hadn't woken to the noise of a returning Badger. I can also usually hear the after-effects of tic-ing as her head or arms flail against the headboard/wall combination which is poorly insulated from my ears. And also, the lights left on for latecomers were still on when I got up that morning - Badger is rather good at turning lights off. The only hint that Badger was home was the sound of a cat miaowing...
Me: [Trying to phrase this in the most gentle way possible] That's odd - the lights were left on - she usually turns them off when she comes back... You said she was making her 'Frank' noise - might it be possible that you heard Frank miaowing and mistook it for Badger?
Stray: Erm... yes...


Dear Doctor,
My otherwise highly intelligent friend can't distinguish between a person and a cat...


Perhaps some of those letters really do refer to real situations...