Hints from Helen...

(...which, fortunately, I already knew before this weekend!)

(1) If you host a pot-luck supper, especially if the guests are going to be Greek, they are going to help you do everything, which means they are going to open your refrigerator. Many times. Give up hope that they won't and make sure it is presentable. Ditto your cupboards. (On the other hand, if someone drops her diamond ring behind your sofa, do what Phyllis Diller did and offer to replace it. Worth it to avoid the humiliation, and she'll never find her ring back there anyway.)

(2) Always wear your glasses when cleaning.

(3) The easiest way to remove cat hair from an upholstered chair is to have a guest in dark clothing sit there. The better way is to put on your kitchen gloves, moisten them in water, and vigorously brush off the hair with the damp gloves. It comes off easily, bunching itself up.

(4) Buying something you don't really want because it's on sale is a false economy.

(5) Off-brand dish liquid is another false economy. You need at least three times as much of it as you'd need of, say, Joy or Palmolive or Dawn, to accomplish the same things -- maybe four times as much. Helen's husband didn't know this and bought some stuff the other day she'd never heard of that's 90% water. The bottle is already half empty.

(6) In spite of little mishaps like this, you should either accept your husband's offers to go to the grocery store, or else send him there regularly, so he sees for himself the alarming increases in the cost of food. Helen took $60 with her a couple of weeks ago, and what she bought with that only filled up the grocery cart's baby seat. She can remember when $100 bought a whole month of food for two.

(7) Pray for those who, at this rate, cannot afford food, or soon won't be able to.