Senior- citizen centers a good source for companionship

Dear Abby: I am 74, and my wife is 71. We are lonely. All of our friends have died, and we have no relatives in this state. We both have health issues that keep us mostly housebound. That leaves out volunteering and sports, and the high cost of gas is a factor.

We live in our own home and want to continue living here. Our home is in a development consisting of busy families involved in their own lives. We tried church, only to find that everyone there is as involved in their own lives as our neighbors are.

I fear the thought of one of us dying and leaving the other to possibly die alone in our house, not to be missed or discovered until much later. How can we have friends like we used to have, and not shallow acquaintances?

If there are senior-citizen centers in your community, I recommend you contact them. That way, you can meet new people and form relationships with contemporaries. Also, these centers usually have geriatric specialists or social workers on staff with whom you can discuss your concerns.

That said, it’s important to remember that the kind of friendships you and your wife used to have take time to develop — they don’t happen overnight.

Dear Abby: I was in the bakery section of a grocery store. A woman came in carrying a cake that was almost entirely eaten and made a scene, saying the cake was terrible and demanding

— Offended in Kansas Dear Offended:

that she be given a new one.

To stop the scene, the store manager gave her a new one.

The next night, my husband and I went to dinner at a nice steak house. The couple sitting next to us ate almost their entire dinner before complaining to the manager that the steaks were awful and demanding their meals for free.

Has this become acceptable? If something is wrong with the food, shouldn’t management be told after the first bite? It seems as if these people are looking for a free ride. It appears that way. The most effective way to demonstrate that an item of food is inedible is to eat it. In situations such as these, the restaurant manager will sometimes offer a free dessert as an accommodation rather than write off the entire meal. As to what happened at the grocery, if the complainer was a good customer, then what the manager did was a wise public-relations gesture.