Dear Uptight Seattleite,

What’s up with food allergies in your town? In the dozen U.S. cities I’ve lived in, I’ve met maybe a dozen people who had a food intolerance of some kind. Here, everybody has one, or someone in their family does. I met one lady who was “allergic” to baking soda! It’s common for a fellow parent to tell me that their child needs a gluten-, lactose-, and processed-sugar-free diet or she will get dry skin and/or become psychotic. What are you people doing to your kids?

Don’t Fear the Sandwich

Dear Sandwich,

When regular people are interviewed on television because they’ve witnessed some horrible accident, they use the word “basically” a lot. “The whole thing basically went up in flames,” they say, “and we all basically ran away.” Is there anything wrong with that? Of course not. It’s perfectly understandable if these regular ol’ hardworkin’ folks don’t happen to be as articulate as someone who, I don’t know, has a master’s degree in environmental studies or something. To each her or his own. And in the same way, there’s nothing wrong with you, Sandwich, if you don’t happen to be sensitive enough to have any food allergies, or even to understand them.

See, sensitive people know there’s a lot wrong with the world. Chemicals and other evils fairly shimmer in the air before their eyes. They have made their bodies into finely tuned instruments, able to detect this subtle evil lurking even in seemingly safe substances such as wheat. (And if you listen closely, even the sound of the word “wheat” is sort of sinister, like it’s the past tense of “we.” Do you know from your own direct experience that wheat does not in fact herald a cold new realm of solitary “mes” and “yous”? If not, perhaps you shouldn’t ridicule the idea.)

Children of sensitive people, especially if these sensitive people have a lot of money, are introduced to this evil, wheaty shimmer through a carefully blended private-school curriculum of theater, astronomy, and labor history. Through years of careful effort, the sensitivity of these people and their kids may be honed to such a hyper-fine, lactose-intolerant perfection that it gives off a kind of ambient glow. It’s perfectly understandable that you may find it a little unsettling to pass through this soft, golden light, Sandwich, and that you interpret this unsettling feeling as irritation. But you might consider making yourself a list of more constructive attitudes, including quiet awe, humble gratitude, and jocular alacrity. Perhaps you could keep your list on a laminated card in your wallet and take it out whenever the light of food sensitivity approaches.

Dear Uptight Seattleite,

There is a woman in my office who brushes her teeth in the bathroom every day after lunch. Problem is, she leaves the water running the whole time. I am a three-minute-shower, rain-water-collecting kind of girl, and seeing her waste water like that drives me crazy, but I don’t want to cause undue tension in the office. What would you do in my situation?

Water Wise

Dear Wise,

What would I do in your situation? Well, if your situation involves the ladies’ room, I’m unlikely to be in it, am I! Sorry, I couldn’t resist. But did you see how my correction was enclosed in an appealing wrapper of humor, like a piece of candied ginger or an organic prune dipped in chocolate? The bathroom setting you describe suggests how you can find your own humorous chocolate coating for the important message you must convey to this careless co-worker of yours. Why not perform a little lighthearted parody of one of those old teenage-delinquent films? Get a little bit Blackboard Jungle on her, but in a fun, girl-on-girl way. Say, “Oh, no, you didn’t mean to do that, now, did you, sister?” while firmly grabbing her wrist and fixing her with a stern look. When she realizes she’s in a stare-down with you and there’s no one around to help, that’s when you let her in on the joke. Grin and say, “After all, we girls know all about conservation, now, don’t we?” while reaching over and turning off the faucet for her. When the warmth of the campy fun wears off, she will be left with the underlying chilly feeling of the initial threat. And when she realizes that it’s the same threat faced by the earth itself, your work will be done.

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