ArcaMax

I run into people, friends or acquaintances, who ask me, "What do you do all day?"

Other than saying, "Anything I want!" or providing a list of things I am doing -- is there a better response to their queries? -- I can't help but feel put down for no longer working full time. -- Retired and Happy

DEAR RETIRED: Someone posed this question to me once when I was a stay-at-home mother. "What do you do all day" comes out sounding like such a put-down, when for some people it might simply be their clunky way of asking what (and how) you're doing once your status has changed.

I love your response: "Anything I want!" I also think you should take this awkward question as an opening to a short conversation about what your life is like now that you are retired. If you're up for it, this conversation might lead down an interesting path.

DEAR AMY: Regarding the letter from "Distraught Mom," about the horrific state of her daughter's bedroom, I wanted to say my daughter's room was also like this (perhaps not quite as bad).

We went through all the issues and threats we could think of -- with no resolution.

We finally told her, "Clean up your room or we will take your bedroom door off."

We took her door off for a month. She realized she had no privacy and cleaned up her room and kept it that way. The door went back on. -- George, in Winnipeg

DEAR GEORGE: Your solution is extreme, but it worked. Another solution also involves a door -- and that is to keep it closed. I haven't seen the inside of one daughter's room in months.

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(You can contact Amy Dickinson via email: askamy@tribpub.com. You can also follow her on Twitter @askingamy or "like" her on Facebook. Amy Dickinson's memoir, "The Mighty Queens of Freeville: A Mother, a Daughter and the Town that Raised Them" (Hyperion), is available in bookstores.)