Dear Blake,
I don’t know what to do about my 18-year-old niece. She walks around the house in her underwear. She’s been doing it for the last two or three years. It wouldn’t matter, I suppose, if it were just in front of immediate family living there, but she also does it in front of workmen, the cleaning women, answering the door, going out to get the mail, etc. I’m really disgusted. I spoke to my brother (her father) briefly about it. His response was, “She lives here.” Is there anything I can do or say to get her to keep herself a little better covered?
Signed, Alicia
From New Orleans. Louisiana
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Dear Alicia,
What your niece is doing is extremely inappropriate. In this case, she doesn’t need to be humbled, she needs to be humiliated. Here are some suggestions. Whatever type of underwear she has on, tell her it looks like she took it off of a defenseless elderly bag lady. Or, take a picture of her when she’s half-dressed, and tell her you are going to send it to Victoria’s Secret, so the company could show what kind of models they “aren’t” looking for. Or this idea. Be very critical of every part of her body she exposes, to the point where she sees you covering your eyes in disgust… on the verge of vomiting. And lastly, this suggestion. Take her to a seedy strip joint to be performer in a rough neighborhood, and tell her they are always looking for women like her. And add that she’ll have to get used to men groping her, her boss occasionally slapping her around, but the pay is good, even though she’ll get robbed fairly regularly while walking to her car or to the bus stop. I hope this helps.
Blake