Ann Landers

from the diary: “Friday 3/14/86

“I wrote to Ann Landers, not asking for advice, giving it. A familiar comment of hers upon acknowledging a mistake is to say, ‘fourteen lashes with a wet noodle.’ Well, today in response to a criticism of some hospital-visiting etiquette advice that she flubbed she said, ‘twelve lashes with a knotted bedsheet.’ I was so horrified by this image – Ann Landers being whipped with a knotted bedsheet! – that I had to write to her.”

The Ann Landers column and the Dear Abby column were written by identical twin sisters. Ann was the more conservative of the two. Abby was the sassier – she never had to be educated about the truth about gay lives. Ann, however, counseled counseling toward cure. She eventually saw the error of her advice – after much thwapping with a rolled up rainbow flag, no doubt.