Dear Crabby -- This lady is so cool

Dear Crabby,

I need advice concerning my sister. She's 75 and lives in a retirement home. She is a wonderful sister and I love her a lot. However, I'm very concerned about her. She loves to watch sports on television, especially football. She yells at the commentator while she's watching the game and sometimes gets very loud. I'm worried about what her neighbors must think. They all know she lives alone; they may be thinking she's talking to herself.

Another thing that worries me is her behavior after she takes Ambien, her nightly sleeping pill. It causes severe side effects such as nighttime eating. She woke up last week with sticky finger from eating Nutella out of the jar. Once she had red licorice vines stuck to her arm. On another occasion she unregistered her Kindle and hid it under the couch cushions because she set it on audio and couldn't get it to make it stop reading out loud to her.

But the worst thing happened yesterday. After she took her Ambien, she got on Facebook. Her profile now reads, "Hello, My name is ---, I’m 75 and I love football and beer." What might she do next? Oh Crabby, how can I protect my sister’s reputation? How can I convince her of the deadly combination of Ambien and Facebook and the evils of football and beer?

Sincerely,  A Concerned Sister

Dear Concerned,

Your sister is fantastic; I want to get that on the record before saying anything else. She lives alone, yells at the TV, loves football and beer and eats candy in the middle of the night. And she’s entirely shameless about sharing that information. She’s basically a 75-year-old female version of me. Well, except I would never scoop Nutella out of the jar with my fingers; I would use a chocolate-chip cookie as a spoon.

I suppose there may be some minor embarrassment issues regarding strange Ambien-induced behavior. But it doesn’t sound like she’s really doing anything to hurt herself or others. The weird side effects of sleeping pills are pretty widely accepted, so she can always blame any particularly embarrassing acts on the drugs. In fact, being 75 and on Ambien kind of gives her a free pass to act however she wants. That could come in handy in so many delightful ways. Case in point: I love smashing glass bottles in the street — the sound is like music to me — but I can never do that because it’s frowned upon by polite society. Your sister can smash bottles at 1 a.m. if she wants to. The authorities will just put her back to bed. No harm, no foul.

Anyway, I just reread what I’ve written so far, and I think this may be the worst advice I’ve given yet. Hope that helps.

Sincerely, Crabby

• If you have a question for Dear Crabby, email it with the subject line "Dear Crabby" to On magazine lead writer Pat Muir at pmuir@yakimaherald.com. We’ll keep your name anonymous and do our best to give you some truly horrible advice.