Local Trivia: DEAR ABBY

"Abigail Van Buren," aka Pauline Phillips, was replaced a few years ago by her daughter Jeanne Phillips (who has now taken the Abby name for her own). IMO, her standards are generally more lax than her mothers' were; for instance, she seems to select more sensational letters than her mother did -- including one discovered yesterday from a woman whose fiance still sleeps in the same bed as his 13-year-old daughter, and refuses to stop -- and she seems to allow readers to do her work for her more often. ("DEAR ABBY, regarding that time you told the man to stop sleeping with his daughter, there was this one time in my life when..." becomes an entire day's column.)

Today, however, the new Abby seemed to be feeling her oats, and the reader can almost detect a fresher, hipper vibe coming from this younger "Abigail."

She also printed two letters from Connecticut today, provided here for your enlightenment. The first letter does not include Abby's advice, but the second, I have left exactly as printed, and included Abby's response.

DEAR ABBY: My husband and I have a 20-year-old nephew I'll call "Adam," who sometimes lacks good judgment. We have told him that when he visits he should ask before drinking our milk. The price of milk has gone sky-high, and we have a 7-year-old who drinks a lot of it. We have had to tighten our purse strings and try to make a gallon last a week. When Adam comes over, he will drink two or three big glasses of it. Now, instead of asking, he sneaks it when we're not looking.
His mother, "Faye," is also my best friend. While she was visiting, Adam waited until we went into the family room, then consumed more than half of the gallon of milk we had just purchased. When we discovered what had happened, we called Adam on his cell phone and told him we weren't happy about it. Faye overheard the conversation.
When we saw her the next day, she didn't seem too upset about it. But now that she's back home in Florida, she hasn't returned any of my calls or e-mails. Could scolding Adam about the milk have anything to do with Faye's silence? -- SOURED IN CONNECTICUT"

[Ed. note: Abby's response, not included here, rightly dealt with the question asked by the woman who wrote in. The fact that the response was uninteresting is the woman's fault, as the obviously more interesting question in this scenario is "What the #@%$ is wrong with Adam?" Could it be a calcium deficiency or is it evidence of a real mental disorder that he sneaks milk, of all things? Now we'll never know. Thanks, lady.]

"DEAR ABBY: I have a very strict father. I respect what he has to say, but I don't like the fact that he won't let me have a boyfriend. He thinks all dudez are alike -- well, most dudez at least. I need that li'l bit of advice, pleeeezzz. Love always, BABI IN MILFORD, CONN.

DEAR BABI: Dadz can be that way sometimez. Perhaps yours is trying to prevent you from making an "S" of yourself."