The following are {supposedly} actual letters that Abigail Van Buren (Dear Abby) admitted she was at a total loss to answer:

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 their apartment or come out. Do you think they could be Lebanese?

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

Dear Abby,
I have a man I never could trust. He cheats so much I'm not even sure this baby I'm carrying is even his.

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,
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 an hour every week for two- and-a-half years. He must be crazy.

Dear Abby,
Do you think it would be all right if I gave my doctor a little gift? I tried for years to get pregnant and couldn't, and he did it.

Dear Abby,
My mother is mean and short-tempered. Do you think she is going through her 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 years ago and he IS a doctor. What now?

A Modern Dear Abby Letter:

I am a crack dealer in New Jersey who has recently been diagnosed as a carrier of the HIV virus. My parents live in a suburb of Philadelphia and one of my sisters, who lives in Bensenville, is married to a transvestite.

My father and mother have recently been arrested for growing and selling marijuana and are currently dependent on my other two sisters, who are prostitutes in Jersey City.

I have two brothers. One is currently serving a non-parole life sentence in Attica for murder of a teenage boy in 1994.The other brother is currently being held in the Wellington Remand Center on charges of sexual misconduct with his three children.

I have recently become engaged to marry a former Thai prostitute who lives in the Bronx and is still a part time "working girl" in a brothel.

All things considered, my main problem is this. I love my fiancé and look forward to bringing her into the family and I certainly want to be totally honest with her. Should I tell her about my distant cousin who is French?