Division of Labor

Dear Madame Toujours,

I swear sometimes, I could just kill my husband Robert. He comes home from work, drops into his lounger in front of the TV and turns on the news. He eats whatever I put in front of him, growls at the kids and goes to bed. He seems to think he's an exemplary dad if he mutes the TV long enough to ask the kids whether they've done their homework before they go out on Friday nights. He would never dream of helping them with their homework, and if I weren't here to feed them, I swear he'd let them starve.

Sometimes I get so fed up, I think the kids would be better off with no father at all. Heck, they'd probably see more of him if we divorced. He'd have to have custody at least one weekend a month.

Sincerely,

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Chere Mme. Go,

You should assuredly stay with M. Go unless there is something you are not telling me about such as excessive snoring in the middle of the night. Otherwise, to be leaving would be to deprive the children of the very important role of the father in the lives.

Possibly you are wondering what is this role. Very many women, they are looking at the husbands dozing on the sofas and they are saying, "He is not feeding the children. He is not grooming the children. He is not checking to see if the children have the fever. What is he being good for?"

Maman, she is not seeing what is the large picture. Le pere is serving important role as the source of terror for les enfants.

Maman, she is thinking that everybody should be loving her little darlings unconditionally. This, it is being very nice in the moderation, but consider if there is only Maman with no Papa:

The children, they say to themselves, "Maman, she is loving me unconditionally. I feel very good about myself. Since I am already achieving everything that is being expected of me, perhaps I will become addicted to drugs and join a gang."

Whereas, with le pere, the children, they say, "While it is true that Maman is loving me unconditionally, Papa will terrorize me if I am failing in the math. Perhaps I will get a job and my own apartment."

Here is the balance, n'est pas?

Ironically, while it is possible for Papa to nurture les enfants and also to be the source of terror and dismay, for Maman it is impossible. She cannot pour the cereal, check for the clean underwear, feel for the fever and impart the terror of the damned all at the same time. Either the little children, they are not being convinced, or they are ringing up the child protecting agencies and reporting that Maman, she is the brutal monster who is not fit to be raising the dogs.

Bon Chance, Mme. Go. Be grateful to M. when he stirs upon the sofa, slits open the single fiery red eye and is snarling, "Do what Maman is saying, or you will not be sitting down for the week." Possibly nobody is believing that he will actually be exerting himself, but they are terrified anyway.

Getting the Business

Dear Madame Toujours,

I have a problem. You see, I'm new in town, and I don't really know nobody. Then a couple of weeks ago I meet my new guy Stiffy. I really like Stiffy a lot, and it's really cool to have a man around again since my baby son Elvis' daddy run off and leave me. The thing is, Stiffy's buggin' me to loan him a couple hundred bucks. I don't have no money, but he says I can get it outa the register at the Quick-Shop where I work. He needs the money for this big business opportunity that he heard about from this guy he knows, and the owner of the Quick-Shop won't miss it. I said I was afraid I would get caught, but Stiffy says there is no way I can get caught, but even if I am, nobody will arrest me because I got nobody to look after little Elvis if I was in jail. Stiffy says I would know this if I had been smart enough to finish high-school, and I guess he is right. I was never very smart in school, and Stiffy knows a lot of things I never heard of.

I am sure Stiffy is a what-do-you-call-it: an ornament to my life. He is always telling me how I am the only one who understands him, and I know he cares about me, so he would never ask me to do anything that could get me in trouble. Anyway, Stiffy's been so sweet to me, I feel like I should help him. The thing is, Stiffy says says if his business thing works out, I will be in on the ground floor like an investor which would be really good because it's really hard to buy nice things on my income. I asked him if we should have like a contract, but Stiffy got real mad and says if his handshake isn't good enough, we aren't the friends he thought we are. I don't want to lose Stiffy, but isn't this really like a business thing? And shouldn't you have contracts and stuff like that for a business thing? What do you think?

Sincerely,

Gonna be a Businesswoman

Chere, Mlle. Businesswoman,

Bien sur, the contract, it is the very important detail. I am very pleased that you are thinking of it. However, you should be having the little bit more information before you are investing in M. Stiffy. For example, I am suggesting you should be asking to see the formal business proposal before you are investing the monies. Will the few hundred dollars be the sufficient capital? Are you the only investor? What exactly is the business that M. Stiffy is proposing? Is he considering all of the expenses: the overheads, the inventories, the bribes and kickbacks? Possibly, you are not feeling that you are knowing enough to understand these things. This is not the big problem. Find the lawyer or the accountant who is giving the free community services and ask him to look at the plan of M. Stiffy. He will tell you if this is the good investment.

Bon Chance, Mlle. Businesswoman. M. Stiffy may be wishing to consider that if he is marrying you, then nobody can be forcing you to testify against him in the courts.

Coyote Woman Chihuahua Man

Dear Madame Toujours,

I am having a problem with my AKC champion Chihuahua Barney. Last week we were walking in the woods. We happened to look up just in time to see a shadow flit across our path. She paused for just a moment, a slender coyote bitch. Her nose was long and fine, her tail bushy. She looked us over with scornful indifference, and a moment later, she had disappeared into the brush. Barney gave a shrill cry of passion. He tore his leash from my hand and plunged into the underbrush in her wake. I called for him and ran after him, tearing through thickets terrified I would find him torn and bleeding, or worse, never find him at all.

Eventually, I caught up to him. He circled a clearing, sniffing desperately for some trace of her and trembling in his little leather jacket and studded collar.

I thought that would be the end of it as I carried him home under my arm, but ever since that day, Barney has been inconsolable. He lies by the front door with his tiny chin on his itty paws and cries for his lost coyote woman. He's losing weight. He won't sleep. I don't know what to do. I tried introducing him to a very attractive Chihuahua girl named Lupe, but he turned up his nose. He wouldn't even flirt with the cute lady pug down the street. There must be some way to dissuade him from this star-crossed love before it destroys him. If anyone would know how to do it, it would be you.

Sincerely,

Feeling like Mrs. Montague

Chere Mme. Montague,

Oui, very many times, the gentleman persons, they are contracting the powerful passions for the dangerous women, although they are mostly not having to worry that la femme, she is devouring him when he is wooing her.

Clearly, M. Barney, he is suffering the common difficulty of the smaller gentleman. Always, he is overcompensating for the diminutive size by wearing the intimidating clothings and strutting about in the confident fashion. Naturally, his ego, it is challenged by the wild woman who is being unfettered by the trappings of the civilizations. Is he having the manliness enough to command her love? He must try. M. Barney, he is feeling the cry of the inner wolf, and you cannot be tempting him with the mild, domestic females.

It is important in this difficult time to be boosting the faltering ego of the gentleman. M. Barney, he is seeking to prove himself. You must find for him the appropriate outlets. Possibly, he is having the heart of the police dog, or he can be learning to seek the lost persons in the wilderness or track the escaped criminals. Encourage this. It is the distraction from his grievings.

Bon Chance, Mme. Montague. When M. Barney, he is secure for himself in the masculinity, then he is soon forgetting about the unsuitable woman and appreciating again the merits of the more sensible females.

Psychic Child

Dear Madame Toujours,

I am a single father. I was divorced three years ago when my wife Rhonda split for California to pursue her dream to become a phone psychic. Our eleven-year old daughter Hannah lives with me and limits her psychic career to the occasional palm reading. This had always been a reasonably harmless practice. Granted she once predicted one of her classmates would die from a horrible disease (the classmate actually did contract cooties), but mostly, Hannah sticks to the standard going-on-a-trip-to-Disneyland kind of predictions.

It was hard enough to deal with Hannah running up hundreds of dollars in phone bills by calling the Psychic Hotline to talk to her mother. Now I have started to date again, and Hannah has been terrifying my dates by foretelling their hideous dismemberings and hinting that their deaths will be at my hands. She is very convincing--painting her face white with greasepaint and holding a flashlight under her chin for that extra-spooky ambience.

I tried gently explaining that "Mommy" and I love her and each other, but we just can't live together and that Hannah has to stop foretelling doom for the women I go out with, but the gruesome predictions keep coming. Is this ADD? Is Hannah depressed? Is she heading for an adolescence of pierced eyebrows and black lipstick? How can I have a love-life without resorting to some kind of medication for my daughter?

Sincerely,

Lonely Dad

Cher M. Dad,

I am thinking that the problem, it is not that Mlle. Hannah is resenting the new girlfriends who are coming into your life. No, the problem, it is simply that she is missing Mme. Rhonda. This is the age when the little girl, she is needing the guidance of the mother. She is wondering if perhaps the boys, they are not simply the nose-picking dorks, if it is time for the shaving of the legs and what is the correct shade for the nail polishes, and is it really worth the trouble to paint the face to impress the nose-picking dorks or would she rather have a pony.

By all means, buy for her the pony. The pony, he is the extra few years of childhood for the little girls. He is interested in apples and sugar and running about. He is not impressed by the pierced noses, and he does not care if Mlle. is reading his hooves and predicting he will go to Disneyland.

As for the romance, what for are you wanting to have the romance with the fainthearted females who are frightened away by the little dismemberments? Encourage Mlle. Hannah to new heights of inventiveness. Laugh heartily at her theatrics. Suggest improvements to her routine. Try to date women who are liking to wear the black clothing and the dramatic makeup.

Bon Chance, M. Dad. When you find the woman who is not alarmed by the efforts of Mme. Hannah, you will have found for yourself the love-match.

Love and Armageddon

Dear Madame Toujours,

Here's the deal. I'm thinking of setting up one of my ex-boyfriends with a girl I know. They have lots in common. They're both kind of unpleasant people, and neither one of them has been successful in love before. I think this is because they both enjoy being superior to everybody else and then they are very cruel and contemptuous toward their inferiors. They are both extremely angry about the environment. They both like to talk about how the human race is a disease infecting our mother earth. It seems like a match made in heaven.

I'm a little worried, though. Maybe just because they have a lot in common isn't good enough to make a good match. I mean, maybe I introduce them and they just hate each other. Nothing lost. But what if they hit it off? The two of them could go on a kind of rampage like Bonny and Clyde meet the Unibomber. Would it be better to try to match them up with people who will balance them out, like a nice, fundamentalist conservative republican?

I'd like to spread a little love and happiness, but what if I cause World War three?

Sincerely,

Don't Want to be Responsible for Armageddon

Chere Mlle. Armageddon,

Bien, you are seeing now the uniquely delicate and important role of the matchmaker dans les affairs du monde. Without the Machiavellian efforts of persons such as myself, the world is being ended many times before now.

I applaud for you the generous impulses to help the unpleasant friends. Also, I am agreeing with you that the concerns, they are valid. Possibly, your two acquaintances will turn their superiority upon the world and unleash the destructions. There is being no gain without the risk, n'est pas?

The possibilities of the benefits in this case are much outweighing the disadvantages. For example, perhaps your friends are indeed falling in love. Vive l'amour. This is the wonderful thing you are doing for the friends.

Also, there are the advantages for the rest of the world. L'amour, she is being the big confusion for them because they are having the love, but they are also wanting to be superior and cruel to each other. Quelle dilemma. It will be taking them many years to work out the compromises. This is keeping them busy so that they are no longer interfering with all the hardworking types who are trying to save the furry, little endangered ozones in the rain forests.

If you are the very skilled matchmaker, they are having the stormy relationship with many arguments and breaking ups. They will be coming to you every time they are having the little disagreement. You will feel that they blame you. They do. This is the price you are paying to be one of the most powerful persons in the world--the matchmaker. La monde, she is resting on your shoulders.

Bon Chance, Mlle. Armageddon. If you are subtle, you can be coaxing your friends back together over and over. Consider this the public service.

Heads of State

From the staff at Madame Toujours' Matters of the Heart, Here is an older letter received by the great lady some years ago while she was in ... well she doesn't go into exactly what she was doing or who she was doing it to and we're pretty sure our offices are bugged, so we're trying to keep our heads down and our mouths shut, but we feel this piece makes for a timely reprint.

Bon Chance, dear readers.

Dear Madame Toujours

I know you may think I'm whinin' about an area about which many girls would be real grateful, but oh my gosh I'm just so tired out! My husband George is constantly wantin' to do the, well you know, wantin' to, well let's just say somethin' has got into him about his need to drop the bombs on this little country, and ever since he really started goin' on and on about that, he's been on me (and I mean that literally, darlin') every minute of every day!

Oh my goodness, and my friend Lynne! She and Dick, well doesn't that name just say it all, honey? I mean they have positively disappeared, and I'm sure you know where! Into the bedroom! Any bedroom! Tell me, Madame Toujours, is there something about men and power that they just want to well, ahem, get it up all the time? Please help, I feel like I'm wearing out down there!

Not havin' fun,

Laura B.

Chere Mme. B.

Quelle domage! Eh bien, this is being very much too much of the good thing, non? It is true what you are saying. Always I am finding that les grande hommes, they are being exceedingly proud of the penis. Possibly now you are understanding what for Mme. Clinton was being so tolerant of M. le President with the young femmes. She was being only too grateful to have the little time for the pursuing of the interests for herself. You see that now M. Clinton is not being the leader of the enormous, powerful, throbbing country, Mme. Clinton, she is having plenty of time for the personal fulfillments.

But perhaps you are not ready to be personally selecting the team of oversexed young interns to entertain M. B while you are being busy with the projects for yourself. This, it is perfectly understandable. Perhaps you are not wishing to have all of the sex yourself, but you are not going to be letting M. B give it to anybody else!

This is the big problem because if you are not wanting the sex with the leader of the free world, then there is always being some cheap, trashy person who is wishing to brag to all her friends who will be leaking to the media that she is seducing M. le President.

"But Madame Toujours," you say, "I am desperate. What can I do?"

There is only the one thing that you can be doing; engineer the enormous scandal which will be shocking everybody so that they will not be wishing to vote for M. B in the next election. Here you can be learning from the mistakes of previous first ladies. It is no good to be making this the big scandal about the real estate or the illegal arms sales to the South American extremists or the funneling of the Social Security funds to the crazed anti-American fundamentalist Islamic regimes. Everybody is being used to this sort of thing. The American persons are feeling that if the president, he is not lying to them, then it is that he is not being the forceful person to run the country.

Perhaps you can be suggesting to the media that M. B, he is hiring the illegal immigrants for working at the Camp David. Quelle horreur. Possibly, he is importing the slave labor from the third-world countries for the ranch in Texas. Manufacture the proof that some of the illegal alien labor is being actually ALIEN. Tell all of the extremely religious persons that M. B is converting to Paganism because he is liking to worship the trees and the rocks and possibly also Lucifer. Tell the persons from the oil companies that he is committed to the conversion of everything to solar power. Tell the automobile manufacturers that he will be doubling their taxes unless all of the cars are running on seawater and completely repairing the ozone layer by the year 2006.

Now you are only having to endure until the elections are over in 2004.

Bon Chance Mme. B. Perhaps in the meantime you can be finding the inflatable, life-size, anatomically correct Monica Lewinski doll to distract M. B from time to time. Dress her provocatively and prop her in the oval office. Everybody will be very amused.

Married Woman Still too Attractive

Dear Madame Toujours,

I am a woman in my fifties, still attractive, but not exactly Raquel Welsh, if you know what I mean. The problem is that I am often annoyed by strange men who follow me home, sidle up to me in sandwich shops and sit too close to me on the bus. They insist on telling me about their wives who don't understand them and explaining how they would get divorced except that either the wife is terminally ill, or he's waiting for his kids to go away to college. I have heard so many variations on the same two or three stories, I could recite them line for line.

I have tried several ways to discourage these fellows. I've tried gushing about my terrific husband, bragging about my terrific grandchildren and reflecting the light from my wedding ring in their eyes in the hope of blinding them long enough for me to make my escape. None of these schemes has been effective. I've even tried telling them that although I am flattered, I am not available. The guy I tried that on got all jocular and insisted I had misunderstood and invited me up to his hotel room where he could explain himself more comfortably. What do you recommend?

Sincerely,

Harassed

Chere Mme. Harassed,

Very flattering, non, that you are still the siren after the many years? But it is being the very big nuisance, too. Unfortunately, in this day and age, it is being considered not the politeness to be sticking the too-friendly fellows with the sharp implements. Now even the pepper spray, it is being considered the cruel and unusual treatments.

However, you are not being entirely defenseless. You are having many weapons which are not yet being licensed by the governmental types. For example, perhaps you are asking the very affectionate gentleman to look very discretely around the room. Is he seeing the large, hairy person in the leather clothing? Non? Good. You are fearful that your extremely jealous husband Phlem who has been released from prison is finding you. Ask the gentleman if he is knowing how to handle himself in the fight with the knives.

If your acting is very talented, then usually, M. Phlem, he is being enough to discourage the hopeful paramour. However, perhaps you are not successful in convincing him of the danger. Then is necessary for you to be using the big guns.

Say, "Bien sur, perhaps you will be purchasing for me the drink because I am having the female troubles. It is being like the biblical flood with the clots." Converse in this vein for several minutes. Use the word clots very frequently. Soon, your new friend will be turning the delicate green shade and hurrying to the restroom so that you can be making your escape.

Bon Chance, Mme. Hassled, and be cautious in the use of the heavy artillery so that the innocent bystanders, they are not being injured in the crossfire.