When the years start catching up
Dear Annie: Years ago, Ann Landers published an essay about a woman who sees a stranger in the mirror. Can you reprint it?
— Northern California Girl Dear Northern California: Here is an edited version of Rose Mula’s piece, copyrighted in 1999.
“The Stranger in My House” by Rose Madeline Mula
A very weird thing has happened. A strange old lady has moved into my house. I have no idea who she is, where she came from, or how she got in. I certainly did not invite her. All I know is that one day, she wasn’t there, and the next day, she was.
She is a clever old lady, and manages to keep out of sight for the most part, but whenever I pass a mirror, I catch a glimpse of her. And whenever I look in the mirror to check my appearance, there she is, hogging the whole thing, obliterating my gorgeous face and body. This is very rude. I have tried screaming at her, but she just screams back.
If she insists on hanging around, the least she could do is offer to pay part of the rent, but no. Every once in a while, I find a dollar bill in a coat pocket or some loose change under a cushion, but it is not nearly enough.
I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but I think she is stealing money from me. I go to the ATM and withdraw $100, and a few days later, it’s all gone. I certainly don’t spend money that fast, so I can only conclude the old lady is pilfering from me.
You’d think she would spend some of that money to buy wrinkle cream. And money isn’t the only thing I think she is stealing. Food seems to disappear at an alarming rate — especially the good stuff like ice cream, cookies and candy. She must have a real sweet tooth, but she’d better watch it, because she is really packing on the pounds. I suspect she realizes this, and to make herself feel better, she is tampering with my scale to make me think I am putting on weight, too.
She likes to play nasty games, like going into my closets when I’m not home and altering my clothes so they don’t fit. And she messes with my files and papers so I can’t find anything.
She gets into my mail, newspapers and magazines before I do, and blurs the print so I can’t read it. And she has done something really sinister to the volume controls on my TV, radio and telephone.
She has done other things — like make my stairs steeper, my vacuum cleaner heavier and all my knobs and faucets harder to turn. Lately, she has been fooling with my groceries before I put them away, applying glue to the lids, making it almost impossible for me to open the jars.
Just when I thought she couldn’t get any meaner, she proved me wrong. She came along when I went to get my picture taken for my driver’s licence and jumped in front of me! No one is going to believe that the picture of that old lady is me.
In today’s deal, South took two good views, one in the bidding and one in the play.
To start with, he decided that his 5-5 shape would play better in four spades than in three notrump, and rather than look for alternative strains, he bid the suit game at his second turn. Right he was: The no-trump game can be defeated via repeated heart leads.
Following this, South had to negotiate the play after the lead of the heart five to dummy’s king. Seeing the paucity of entries to his hand, South decided to go after diamonds at once and simply led a low diamond from dummy. He was prepared to concede three diamond tricks -- that would still allow him to take 10 tricks if everything else behaved normally.
At trick two, East won the diamond king and continued the attack on hearts. Dummy’s heart ace won the trick, and the diamond 10 was led. East took the trick and played a third heart, forcing South to ruff. It would have done West little good to pitch his diamond jack, so he threw a club, letting South lead a third diamond for East to ruff.
East had no winning play. If he led a heart, declarer would ruff in hand, cash the club ace, then crossruff for the rest of the tricks. On any other return, declarer would simply draw trumps and take his diamond winners.
ANSWER: One can make a case for rebidding one no-trump to get across the basic nature of the hand (minimum and balanced), but in fact the intermediates in the long suits argue for the simple rebid in clubs. Whatever anyone tells you, a hand with a 5-4-2-2 pattern is better off for play in a suit than in no-trump, all things being equal.