BETRAYAL

Dear Readers, people ask me all the time what to do when someone stabs them in the back. Sometimes the knife is long and deep, aimed at the gut and twisted, like when my neighbor Louella (across the street) was sick, and her husband, Mel, who we thought was nice,but turned out to be a rat, had more than dinners with Zilla, the wife of the neighbor in the house next door, who we also thought was nice, but turned out to be a floozie. It wasn't pretty, there were scenes. And sometimes the stab is just a nick, like when your mother-in-law tells her cousin how much of a deal she got you on that used fur from the resale shop at Alexanders, where she works, when you didn't want it spread around that you bought your mink on the cheap.

When this happens, pull the knife out, wave it in their face, make them at least briefly consider the possibility that you are both willing AND able to disembowel them, then put the knife down and move on. And file their face away in the NOT TO BE TRUSTED folder in your mind. God Bless, Donna