Roy Exum: Expert Reasons Why To Vote

  • Thursday, October 2, 2014
Roy Exum
Roy Exum
Early voting for the November election begins two weeks from today so please jump-start your plans that will assure your choices will be counted. In a fun-filled attempt to show what some of those who actually vote do during the rest of the day, I offer two examples of “those who live among us” from experts.

The first are a series of questions from readers of “Dear Abby” who ask questions that have no answers. They are followed by actual complaints that were mailed to the British vacation company, Thomas Cooke Vacation.

Here we go: 

Dear Abby,
A couple of women moved in across the hall from me.

One is a middle-aged gym teacher and the other is a social worker in her mid-twenties. These two women go everywhere together, and I've never seen a man go into or leave their apartment. Do you think they could be Lebanese?

Dear Abby,
What can I do about all the sex, nudity, foul language and violence on my VCR?

Dear Abby,
I am a twenty-three year old liberated woman who has been on the pill for two years. It's getting expensive and I think my boyfriend should share half the cost, but I don't know him well enough to discuss money with him.

Dear Abby,
I've suspected that my husband has been fooling around, and when confronted with the evidence, he denied everything and said it would never happen again.

Dear Abby,
Our son writes that he is taking Judo. Why would a boy who was raised in a good Christian home turn against his own?

Dear Abby,
I joined the Navy to see the world. I've seen it. Now how do I get out?

Dear Abby,
My forty year old son has been paying a psychiatrist $50.00 an hour every week for two and a half years. He must be crazy.

Dear Abby,
My mother is mean and short tempered. I think she is going through mental pause.

Dear Abby,
You told some woman whose husband had lost all interest in sex to send him to a doctor. Well, my husband lost all interest in sex and he is a doctor. Now what do I do?

Dear Abby,
I have a man I can't trust. He cheats so much, I'm not even sure the baby I'm carrying is his.

* * *

Here are some of the best complaints from customers that the famed Thomas Cook Vacations company has collected recently:

1. "I think it should be explained in the brochure that the local convenience store does not sell proper biscuits like custard creams or ginger nuts."

2. "It’s lazy of the local shopkeepers in Puerto Vallarta to close in the afternoons. I often needed to buy things during siesta time -- this should be banned."

3. "On my holiday to Goa in India, I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don’t like spicy food."

4. "We booked an excursion to a water park but no-one told us we had to bring our own swimsuits and towels. We assumed it would be included in the price."

5. "The beach was too sandy. We had to clean everything when we returned to our room."

6. "We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as white but it was more yellow."

7. "They should not allow topless sunbathing on the beach. It was very distracting for my husband who just wanted to relax."

8. "No-one told us there would be fish in the water. The children were scared."

9. "Although the brochure said that there was a fully equipped kitchen, there was no egg-slicer in the drawers."

10. "We went on holiday to Spain and had a problem with the taxi drivers as they were all Spanish."

11. "The roads were uneven and bumpy, so we could not read the local guide book during the bus ride to the resort. Because of this, we were unaware of many things that would have made our holiday more fun."

12. "It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England. It took the Americans only three hours to get home.  This seems unfair."

13. "I compared the size of our one-bedroom suite to our friend’s three-bedroom suite and ours was significantly smaller."

14. "The brochure stated: No hairdressers at the resort. We are trainee hairdressers and we think they knew and made us wait longer for service."

15. "When we were in Spain, there were too many Spanish people there. The receptionist spoke Spanish, the food was Spanish. No one told us that there would be so many foreigners."

16. "We had to line up outside to catch the boat and there was no air-conditioning."

17. "It is your duty as a tour operator to advise us of noisy or unruly guests before we travel."

18. "I was bitten by a mosquito. The brochure did not mention mosquitoes."

19. "My fiancé and I requested twin-beds when we booked, but instead we were placed in a room with a king bed. We now hold you responsible and want to be re-reimbursed for the fact that I became pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the room that we booked."

* * *

Once again, these people vote. Please make sure you enjoy early-voting between Oct. 15 and Oct. 30, or go to the polls on Election Day, which is Nov. 4.

royexum@aol.com

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