Page 4B The Castlegar, Sun): Monday;‘Deéember 23,:1991:;, {FIND IT IN THE. CLASSIFIEDS ~~. re 3 & CUSTOM FRAMING ‘Visit Our Gallery’ ‘Next to Panagopoutos Pizza - South Castlogar HOURS: to Gaturday 10.0.m.- 6:30p.m. Friday * Noon -7 p.m. intment or by appl 2301 Columbla Avo. © 365-2727 Gx 365-5 Dear Ann Landers: Bizarre mother-in-law stories are nothing new to you, but mine is causing some scrious family problems, Can you help? @ I married “Carl” two years after I met him. We lived together for a year and felt that we were well- suited for onc another, Carl lived four hours from his parents and we visited them often, sometimes spending the weekend there. Several months before our wed- ding, my mother-in-law phoned Carl and told him that items were missing from her home and she ROBSON BIALL Robson Hall is available for rent on New Year's Eve. For more information: 860 New Year > ry Sor Castiegar Funeral Chapel Mike, Therese, Don, Paul, Rick & George ‘Mother-in-law makes m was almost certain that I had taken them over the weekgnd. My hus- band was absolutely positive that T would never steal anything ‘and | wrote off his mother’s phone call - as nonsense, — We heard nothing more about this strange accusation until cight months after we were married ‘and , “pened, It may be the. last time he Jv Will be able to see his grandmoth: ;. your generosity of spirit, and this favor to him costs you nothing and will strengthen your marriage,: \. Dear Ann Landers: I am a'23- | year-old successful businesswom- : had moved across the ‘country. '!: Carl's mother called me’ ono. after- noon and spent nearly an ‘hour on the phone accusing me of items from her home and scratch- ing her furniture with a “nail or a knife or some sharp instrument." I was shocked and upset. I told her that I had never taken any from anyone in my life nor would I damage anyone's furniture. I’ asked for proof that I had done these things. She said, “I don't Reed proof. God saw you do it.” Then she hung up on me, That was five years ago and I’ haven’t seen her since, nor have we communicated. My husband visited her a year ago and said her health is failing. He has asked me to go with him to visit her soon because she is unable to travel and is very eager to see our young son. I don’t want to go, Ann. The woman is weird and she gives me the creeps, Please tell me if I am justified in refusing my husband’s request. — Quandary in the Northwest. Dear Quandary: Your mother- in-law sounds mentally ill. I'd advise you to go and take your son’ with you and act as if nothing hap-‘ ‘Hot and Hearty’ Includes G.S.T, OPEN 10 am - 8 pm ‘Castlegar's only drive thru’ AUTHENTIC RUSSIAN FOOD 1521-COLUMBIA AVE. -365-8283 .f* mostly elderly R ‘Your.husband will appreciate, my oldest sister, “Susan."; My adoptive parents. who /are,: of course, my grandparents, gave me a wonderful life and I have no hard feelings toward them. Susan cannot find it in her heart to forgive her mother for the way I was told the truth, She has had nothing to do with Mom or Dad for years:,I have forgiven every- one involved for'the lies and ~ deception, My parents are getting older and they aren’t in good health. nany accusations i ‘They ‘love Susan and want her in.” It tums out my birth mother is... their. lives, They Jost.one’son inn: tragic accident two years ago and. now. it:scems they have lost.a,. daughter as well. I fecl that this is Sl my fault and I can’t find a solu. * | tion. Can you help?. — Feeling at,’ . Fault on Long Island. "\):3)..)'.° Dear.Long Island: ‘Get off that guilt trip. This is not your fault’. The h must start with the’, intervention of a third party. Isug- |: a clergyman, a counselor or a. ome family friend. Good luck, | COPYRIGHT, 1991. CRE- ATORS SYNDICATE, INC, The news of the weird: In September, MCA/Universal ‘ studios signed Gregory Scott'to an exclusive five-year deal to {appear in and direct music videos ; for children, beginning with one starring chi "s i * “My client came froma totalitari- , an State: where chess is respected to a free country where he's jailed for playing chess,” ¢ Police in Kewanee, II., h Michael Runyon with Gregg Russell: Scott, who has d on “Entertai drunken driving this summer recently ment Tonight” and “The Arsenio "Hall Show,” is 5 years old. : THE CONTINUING CRISIS + During tennis’s Italian Open after he drove a lawn mower into the path of a freight train. Runyon,, who escaped . injury when the train flipped the 5-horsepower mower 10 feet into the air, had used the vehicle for '. in May, Mark Koev at double match point in a bid to . ‘upset Alberto Mancini, had his * last point taken away with a “replay, ordered by the umpire , because Mancini had been dis: “tracted when a fan threw a half- “court, Mancini then rallied to win. And in San Marcos, Texas, in June, a.man reported-he had * been injured walking along a eaten ham sandwich onto the . after his license to help scientists study eating habits * of-animals in the wild. It has not been found. Bey « During the “talent” portion of : , last summer's Miss Hong Kong : , the eventual winner was | required to pick a coin whose : identity she was supposed to recall while the judges rattled her * by yelling insults at her and mak- | ing faces. e The city of Shanghai - announced in March that it would « begin regulating the city’s toilet : i Since most resid i drive a'car was’ suspended for drunken driving five years ago. * The European Community Tuled this summer that Italian condoms are 1 mm too small and moust be taken off the market. The 12 members recently set mini- mum standards of 16 cm (unrolled) in length and 55 mm in Bank staff reveal How's your bank treating you? tribute to some of the p we then complain about. T asked Vancouver City Savings Credit: Union; Canada’s largest credit union (175,000 4 branches, $2,3 billion assets)'to conduct a staff survey, i Wayne McKay, senior vice-pres- ident of marketing and member Services, responded by organizing a comprehensive survey of about 500 Staff members, (It takes Courage for a financial institution to say any- } But today, I thought I'd tum the thing critical about customers; {ables and find out what we as cus- many places I have contacted in the jJomers do that irritates banking Past pref not t ) stall ~ things that might well con- Because we aren’t constantly Judging from reader mail, yu probably have fewer complaints than you did five or ten years ago. Financial institutions have come a‘ long way since Canadian thumorist Stephen Leacock wrote shis famous picce about gelting rat- led when he walked into his bank. ‘Next week, I'll look at some of the most common problem ‘areas that still persist, and what at least one place is doing to solve them. do not have indoor i they often use public toilets, which entrepreneurs install and charge about 4 cents to use: The . city now-will disallow, charges for men urinating and cap other - services at about 2 cents per visit. © Howard County, Md., fire- | were at the width,-and Italian mea- sure 54 mm. ‘Said an EC County Building in April for a “One milli in which they were to | toad when a passing ist hit him in the back with a bologna ~ sandwich. +. * The U.S. consumer Product "Safety Commission announced in June that nearly 1 million Ameri- “cans reported ‘to emergency [rooms in 1990 because of stair- > ‘related injuries, and that 33,000 ‘people were injured in accidents involving shopping carts... + Police in New York City con- ducted a sting operation in June -—to crush a “gambling ring” of Ameri- either ‘way can make all the dif- ference. To be blunt, it is either too tight or it comes off.” «In Douala, Cameroon, in July, as 500 anti-government demonstrators carried off the sup- Posedly dead body of martyr Abel Biyaga, some chanted to nearby soldiers, “You shot him - shoot us, too.” When the soldiers then obliged by firing into the air, Biyaga jumped from the funeral cart and ran away, leading the in retreat. Biyaga cans who were taking on all com- érs at'$5 a game.-Among the WANETA Monday to Friday 10 “The City of Christmas : . EXTENDED SHOPPING HOURS: a.m.-9 p.m. Saturday 10.a.m.-5:30 p.m. Sunday 11 a.m.-4 p.m. PLAZA Every minute Counts. | St. Nick left all your Christmas needs in one time-saving place. 7 See how time flies. arrested was Arkady Flom, 64, who suffered a heart attack while in custody and is suing the police for not allowing him to take his heart medicine. Said his lawyer, 2 HAIRLINES 1444 Columbia Ave, ‘< Castlegar, B.C., 365-6700 Mon. - Sat, Wed. 6 Thurs. "28:00 pm : " was later arrested for faking the death. fo Q ¢ Officials in Taiwan in July had to confront the issue of whether a woman WhO has a sex change operation is then obligat- ed to enter the males-only mili- tary draft. The answer is yes. ° In March, Knox County, Tenn., judge Randy Nichols sen- tenced Gynndolyn Renne Welch, 23, to pay $10,000 in restitution for credit card fraud, but then turned down her request to raise the money by becoming a surro- gate mother. : + Last spring, a goat escaped from a federal research project in New Mexico while wearing a radioactive collar intended to be thanked by Milton F. Quasney, 63, for having saved his life in March after a heart attack. Five minutes before the ceremony began, he had anotherheart attack, and they saved his life * Ernest Ray “Ernie” Lynn, son of singer Loretta Lynn, announced that the reason he was having a vasectomy in June was to stop the seemingly continuous string of patemity suits (‘two or three” every year) being filed against him. + Brazil's Eros and Go.escort:: agency caused a furor in May by © blishing an ad in the + per Estado de Minas announcing the availability, for purchase, of an 18-year-old virgin woman who was going through “finan- cial difficulties.” The agency received so many inquiries it decided to hold an auction, but a police investigation Pressured the woman to confess that she was not a virgin. (Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 57141, Washington, D.C. 20037.) - COPYRIGHT 1991 UNIVER- SAL PRESS SYNDICATE. ENJOY YOUR FESTIVITIES _BUT REMEMBER... . ‘ENFORCEMENT TAKES — NO HOLIDAY CHRISTMAS. _ COUNTERATTACK: December 8 - January’3' | », A program of the Goverment of British Columbia and ICBC. Supplies wh ir first: Christmas: opel d with banking the way |. ., those who Work in the business are, we often don’t realize the effects of "some of our actions. See if you rec- ognize in yourself any of the fol- ,. lowing customer habits that annoy VanCity's - and probably every other financial institution's - staff, members. ; main “The most frequently registered staff complaint concerns those cutomers - often long-time ones -" who don’t know their account : number or refuse to give it,” said McKay. i apie “The teller then has to take time ‘to look'up the number, which con- tributes to slow-moving lineups - the biggest customer complaint.” ‘McKay said tied for second ‘Place are rude customers, and those “‘who want us to balance their 3 Cutting out credit card costs STERLING NEWS SERVICE Okay, you're tired of. paying 19.8 percent interest-on your credit card. You’re aware that other card issuers offer lower rates, You have good credit and figure you could qualify for a bet- ter deal. But there’s the little mat- ter of the balance on your old card. Even if you get a new card, the old balance will sit there in the old account, gobbling up 19.8 Percent interest and eating into the benefit you get from the new card: Paying it off would solve the problem, but presumably if you could afford to pay it off out of your pocket, you would have done so before now. Alternative- ly, you can get a new card and stop using the old one, paying down the balance:as fast as you ‘can. But that limits the benefits of the new card, ; The idea is to,. in effect, bor- row from your new bank to pay the old one. There are several ways to do that, but the most common way is to use so-called “access checks” that many banks provide for new cardholders. Some banks are now calling these checks transfer checks and * marketing them specifically for shifting an old balance onto the new card. The customer writes out one of these checks to the old card issuer. That pays off the old balance and becomes a charge of the same amount on the new card. Then you cut up your old card, close the account and: you're on your way to savings that can add up to $100 a year or more, depending on the rate reduction you get and the bal- ance you carry. Holstcin’s group calculates that if you were to switch from the highest-rate card offered to the lowest, the savings on an average balance could amount to $800 to $900 a year. Savings yields have eroded 48 Percent - from 9.52 percent to 4.85 percent - since the spring of 1989, while, according to a sur- vey, credit card rates have risen from an average 18.09 percent to 18.81 percent. UPHI WOOD SUPPLY INC. ne Firewood Manufactured to Species & Lengti That | Custom Saw Milting 365-2581 2111 - 14 Ave., Castlegar pet peeves re He said people who are rude and’ use foul language have usually been drinking. “It's tough for a ' staff member to bounce back and be completely relaxed and pleasant Bnet Sealing with somebody like Some customers don't keep their chequebooks up to date. “They expect us to tell them whenever a » Cheque arrives and there aren’t suf- ficient funds in their account,” McKay said. “Others expect us to mow what cheques haven't cleared yet. This includes looking up garding customers tomers include: creditors when applying for a loan. ‘ * Putting down one transaction at ¢ Allowing children to run amok a time when combining some of __ inthe branch.) :.". yield them would be much faster and * Using their wealth as a weapon more efficient. rthreat.© preset ve ‘i Throwing cheques or cash in * Refusing to deal with a front of the teller and not saying — woman, or dealing only with a anything, expecting the teller to. woman.:_., fnacavege gate their minds, + Allowing their realtor to insist ¢ Failing to mention their on sitting through an interview for account is at another branch, amortgage loan. ‘ ¢ Blaming others for their credit ¢ Dropping, names, or. playing problems, one employee against another. es + Asking, “How much will you give me?” when their loan is declined, + Not revealing information on Fair enough: After all, banking, Personnel are human, too, and in‘ every other situation are customers’! entries for who have for- gotten them or were too lazy to record them.” A problem arises when a cus-- tomer tries to cash a cheque made out to a third party, which has not been endorsed correctly, or a cheque made out to “Mr. and Mrs.” which doesn’t have both sig- natures on the back. Delays can. occur, especially on Schedule for Dec, 23, 25,19. 6:30 pm « ‘Psaly’— Children & parents of the Castlegar’. 'Pentacostal New Life A ly present a Christmas play. 7:30 pm -Disney.Christmas For Kids - Trall Ice Skating Club annual Christmas ice spectacular. wah 8:30 pm + From The Manger To The Cross — Full Gospel! Fellowship in Castlegar theatrical production of tradition: busy days, when a customer wants a passbook updated for the first time in several months, “Last-minute customers” are , another problem, to: quote one ; Manager: “Those; who come in three minutes before closing with , an hour’s worth of complex trans- actions --and then ‘Want cash with the Jast transaction”: when every- thing has been closed down. *. -|., can relate to that scene, I never: » mean to wait until the last minute to do my banking, but now and again I get tied up with one thing | after another andend up making a mad dash into the branch just as an employce is about to lock the door.) Other “pet peeves": about cus- Season’s.Cheer THONK YOO Tot baghtehing ‘Oty Sasori ‘arid "> siete doh ‘Gnd support; © Chang's Nursery Closed: Dec. 25 - Jan. 5 (inglusive) = ey 8:46 pm. The New Breed — Shaw Cable 10 volunteers - next course starts January 21. 9:30 pm + Faith Alive — Christmas special celebrates Christian lifestyle with Living. Waters Faith Fellowship. - _Merry Christmas and a Happy New Ye from the Stiaw Cable Staftit VANCOUVER | 7 STAY DOWNTOWN AT 7 ALL SUITE HOTEL SOLIS * 30 STOREY TOWER WITH 250. [ ~TWAWADD.S1000__ | oO E Learxence CITES * LOCATED INTHE HEART. OF *~|-*uiteDa DOWNTOWN — CLOSE Tt biinatite EAFOOD RESTAURANT. ‘ITES WITH MICROWAVES. < NIGHTCLUB . 2 DIRECT AIRPORT TRANSPORTATION * COMPLIMENTARY TEA/COFFEE IN ROOMS “ 1015 BURRARD ST. VANCOUVER, B.C. V6Z 1Y5 | cu 1-800-663-1818 YOUR TRAVEL AGENT PRESENT-THIS AD *= =: UPON CHECK'IN.OR* MENTION: EO! ADVANCE RESERVATII WERE HAPPY TO DELIVER BEST WISHES AND HEARTFELT THANKS TO EVERYONE Being a part of this wonderful community is truly a blessing. We hope you all have a Christmas to be remembered with joy. The Castiégar Sun wy, AS All the staff, carriers and drivers at The Castlegar Sun __.Want to wish you.all the best this holiday season...