Bravo-ver it, neighborly aggression and mail fail

Dear Rachel,

Why do bands do encores? We all know there’s going to be an encore. NOT getting an encore cheer has to be the worst thing for everyone involved. Yet they still leave the stage and leave us clapping and cheering, and the lights stay off because if the lights came back on, we’d all head for the parking lot. This just seems like a dumb ritual. I hope you can make me hate it a little less.

– Don’t Play It Again, Sam

Dear Grump,

You can always be one of those people who leave early to beat the traffic. No one is making you stay for that last song. But if you leave, you will almost certainly miss whatever song you came to hear. We humans need some positive rituals in this life. If clapping for a band to come back and play one more song for us is a silly ritual, at least it’s one (almost) all of us are better for. Cheer on!

– Otra, otra, Rachel

Dear Rachel,

I generally stand with Mr. Rogers. But I sometimes think his neighborhood didn’t have the low-impulse-control people that mine does. One neighbor just came over to complain that my dogs are peeing … in my own front yard. Another tosses his Sonic bag into my yard at least four nights a week. Low-level aggressions, but they’re building until I’m going to pop. How can I make the peace … or burn it all down?

– Anti-Rogers

Dear Auntie Fred,

Humans gonna human. Don’t you remember that there was always some conflict or other in the Magical Land of Make-Believe? Of course, they always figured out a nice tidy resolution in less than half an hour. We don’t usually have that option. (See above, re: humans gonna human.) I might recommend channeling Mr. Rogers and inviting them over to dip their toes in your pool, so to speak. And if that doesn’t shape them up, you can always turn the trick-or-treaters loose on their houses with some toilet paper.

– A beautiful day, Rachel 

Dear Rachel,

My in-laws recently moved in with us and had their mail forwarded from their old place to ours. Some pieces of mail take four or five weeks to arrive while others arrive in only a couple days! But the long waits have me wondering. Who can we blame for this bureaucratic delay?

– Going Postal

Dear Mail Bagging,

Don’t blame the postal workers! They deal with all the government bull-honky, without even what little governmental assurances other government workers used to get. It’s still pretty miraculous that a hand-scrawled envelope can be rerouted to another house, another city, another state! Try not to be anxious. Just think of the latecomers as encore envelopes.

– Flag up, Rachel