Dear Queenie,

I read in the newspaper about children who make their Carnival or other costumes out of newspaper. My God! Don’t the adults in charge of them know how dangerous this is?

Commercially-made costumes, like for Halloween and all, have to be specially treated to make them fireproof, or at least fire resistant, no matter what they are made of – fabric, paper, whatever. I doubt the same can be said for these homemade paper costumes.

All it would take would be one careless person with a lit cigarette and maybe a little puff of wind and some poor kid(s) would go up in flames like fireworks on New Year’s Eve.

Queenie, what will it take, a tragedy like happened to Afoo, to make people think about the risks they are taking?—Appalled

Dear Appalled,

You have given us all food for thought today. I hope the Carnival committees and school authorities will take proper note. Thank you for writing.

Dear Queenie,

We recently spent six weeks in St. Maarten. Unfortunately, our experience of “The Friendly Island” was not a good one. We found the attitude of the majority of so-called professional people rude, arrogant and holding either a grudge or a massive chip on their shoulder.

We appreciate we are foreigners, but we were tourists and what would St Maarten do without our revenue? We weren’t there to take their jobs and we certainly treated them with the respect they deserve, but we were not afforded such courtesies.

Our biggest complaint is the attitude of the staff in (name given) a jewellery store in Marigot. My husband bought me an Omega watch and on Christmas Day when I opened my gift, the sun reflected a scratch on the watch strap. We therefore returned it to the shop expecting to be offered a replacement.

Wrong! The manager there insinuated I did the damage myself and when that didn’t work had the audacity to shout at my husband and accuse him of buying a watch I didn’t like and wanting the money back. How could I not like a watch I had been wanting for years?

At no time was a replacement offered, or a refund, and the only concession was the watch was taken to their repair shop and the scratch supposedly taken out. This was done twice and the scratch is still there. Admittedly, it can only be seen in sunlight and not in artificial light, but they didn’t even have the courtesy to go outside the shop with us to verify our claim.

The point is, the watch was faulty when purchased and there should have been no argument about a replacement.

After the event, we were told that the French side of the island has the reputation of being less than helpful and that the jewellers on the island are used as “dumping grounds” for faulty merchandise to sell as perfect to unsuspecting tourists.

The staff at (this jewellers) should be warned that we will definitely be taking up these rumours with Omega and hopefully we will never have to deal with such rude, obnoxious people again.

Queenie, if you do not agree that this letter should be published, at least I have let off steam and hopefully the matter will shortly be put to rest.—Unhappy tourist

Dear Unhappy tourist,

I most certainly agree that this letter should be published and here it is.

I also hope all shop owners and staffs, and everyone who has anything to do with tourists, will learn a lesson from what you have said.

Dear Queenie,

Our family gets together a couple of times a month on the weekend. Mostly we have a nice visit and dinner, but one of the in-laws is a very finicky eater and never has anything good to say about the food.

Very often she refuses to eat something if she thinks it doesn’t look right and she won’t even try a new dish, even though the cook explains what it is and what went into it. And then she makes comments like, “It doesn’t look very good,” or even, “That sounds awful!”

Most of us like to cook and try new recipes and we are trying to teach our children to eat all sorts of things and not be afraid of new, strange foods, but she sure isn’t helping. And I find her remarks about the food insulting.

Queenie, should we keep trying to please her? Or what should we say to her when she starts getting on about the food? And what do we tell the kids?—

 Fed up cook

Dear Fed up cook,

When your finicky relative refuses to eat something, tell her, “Fine. There will be that much more for the rest of us who like (whatever it is)!” Then pass her the bread and butter and ignore any further comments she makes.

As for the children, tell them privately that you think this woman misses out on a lot of good food by behaving the way she does. Use as examples some of the things they like at which she turns up her nose and ask them, “Isn’t that silly?”

Then tell them that there is nothing you can do about this woman’s eating habits, because she is all grown up and it would be rude to try to correct her, but as they are still children, you expect them to eat at least a small portion of whatever they are served.

Dear Queenie,

A friend of mine had a baby a few months ago. The parents are both heavy drinkers. I have never seen them really drunk, but they do drink a lot, it seems to me, mostly beer.

What worries me is that I have seen them give the baby sips of beer. I mean, we were visiting and they were drinking as usual and the mother was holding the baby and she just fed him some of it like it was water or juice. That doesn’t seem right to me.

Queenie, should I say something?—Worried friend

Dear Worried friend,

Feeding alcohol to a small child can cause him/her to become an alcoholic and the dependency could start while the child is still very young. I suggest you do some research on the Internet about alcoholism in children, print out your findings and show the material to the parents.

The local chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous might also be able to give you some information on the subject. And perhaps you could get an AA member to talk to the parents.

However, they may be in denial and choose to ignore your concerns.