Miss Lonelyheart: "The Birder's Wife"

Number #7 on our all-time list of favorite advice columnists, Tippi "Tip" Pointier returns as Miss Lonelyheart. Always French. Naughty at times. Is there a difference, ma cherie?

Miss Lonelyheart, our columnist at large on “matters of heart and home.”

Dear Miss Lonelyheart,

I’m at my wit’s end. My husband has become a birder. Since Thanksgiving he’s been obsessed. The whole mess started with him carving the turkey, which to be honest is still the only bird he recognizes by sight. Hank couldn’t pick a peacock out of a lineup.

Then he went and downloaded a phone whatchamacallit to identify bird songs. Now the man wanders in the backyard waving it around it like he’s wrangling a dowsing rod.

It gets worse. At Christmas Hank bought himself a Starter Collection of Bird Pins and a horrid birder hat that makes him look like he’s on a safari. Let me tell you, Valentine’s Day’s come and gone and he hasn’t pinned a backyard robin on it.

But one squeal of brakes the man jumps out of bed pointing his phone at the window glass and Sunday morning, our neighbor’s doorbell rang and Hank yelled “quiet!” so loud at the table he made our granddaughter cry, not to mention clearing the trees out. The only thing that settled our little dear was letting her pin a pigeon nobody had even seen.

Don’t even get me started on last year’s whatchamacallit identifying garden plants. “They’re all weeds, sweetheart. Mow,” I said. I thought you’d get a kick.

I’ve so missed your column on tipping, and I’m heartsick over your arrest in Shanghai. Are you still French?

The Birder’s Wife,

Dolores