The Serpentimes

By: Agony Aunt

HOL getting you down? Love life hitting the rocks? Send in your problems and our resident Agony Aunt will help you with her one of a kind pearls of wisdom. Questions can be silly or serious, and will be answered in kind. ALL submissions will be treated anonymously, your privacy is guaranteed. Submit your questions to sass@serpentimes.org/news, have the subject line say SASS Question!

This edition’s questions:

Dear Agony Aunt,

My muggle boyfriend and I got into an argument the other day about whether their “cell phone holsters” are dorky or not. I told him that his “cellular phone” looks strange and odd when hooked to the outside of his pants but he said it’s not dorky and I’m biased because I’m a witch and technology is strange to me anyway.

Are “cell phone holsters” dorky or is it just me?

Agony Aunt responds:

What is it with muggle men? Not only are they obsessed with technology, but they also feel the need to exhibit their toys in strange locations, in a childish display of one-upmanship. You would never see a wizard walking around with his wand hooked to his robes in an ostentatious display.

Are these “holsters” dorky? In this snake’s opinion, unquestionably yes! However, having also seen muggles walking around with strange contraptions in their ears, shouting “GO” every few minutes, I believe that the situation could be a whole lot worse. For the sake of your relationship, you may just have to live with this fashion faux pas.

Love, Auntie

Dear Agony Aunt,

Every year my husband and I have managed to hide the Christmas presents by simply casting invisibility spells on them. This has worked for us for years. However, the kids have now got their wands, and have worked out how to trace and remove the invisibility spell. Last year they found all their presents 3 weeks before Christmas. We need your help to hide this years presents from them. Do you have any suggestions.

Agony Aunt responds:

Ah yes, the age old “how do I hide the presents dilemma”. There are two trains of thought about this one. The first is that you could simply transfigure the presents into something innocent looking. For example, a new broomstick could be transfigured into a feather duster, which you could then hang innocently in the laundry, a set of gobstones could be transfigured into a bag of brussel sprouts, guaranteed to be safe from the kids. Simply transfigure everything back again on Christmas Eve when the kids are in bed.

However, I personally like the second option available to you. Wrap the presents up, leave them in plain sight, and tell them that as they are old enough to remove invisibility spells, they are also old enough to have developed some self-control. You then tell them that if any of the presents are not intact on Christmas Day, that they will get nothing. Be sure to follow through if you have to though.

Happy Holidays!
Love, Auntie

Dear Agony Aunt,

My brothers and I have a predicament. You see, we absolutely love tossing out our garden gnomes. We’ve done it since we were old enough to throw them a few good yards. The problem is, our Mother has started restricting us from throwing the garden gnomes out, even though they tear up her garden. When we asked why she restricted us, she said that it wasn’t FAIR to the gnomes. Agony Aunt, what should we do?

Agony Aunt responds

Oh lord, don’t tell me, she’s one of those tree hugging, card carrying members of GPS (Gnome Protection Society) isn’t she? I’ve dealt with that lot before and unfortunately there is just no reasoning with them. However, with all due respect to your Mother, I’ve also found that they are not all that bright, so a little bit of subterfuge tends to do the trick. Stupefy the gnomes with a simple stunning spell, spray paint them, and tell her that as you are not allowed to throw the real things, you’ve made dummy gnomes to have fun with.

Of course, if you want to get some real distance on the little buggers, transfigure them into bludgers and have some beater practice. You wont get the same thrill as you do with throwing them, but there is something very satisfying about the thwacking noise that is made when the bat makes contact.

Love, Auntie

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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 25th, 2010 at 12:43 amand is filed under Columns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.