Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, June 9, 1990                   TAG: 9006090014
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

I'M JUST DYING TO KNOW...

Publisher

"Bottom Line/Personal"

330 West 42nd Street

New York, N.Y. 10036

Dear Mr. Edeldson:

I have your letter offering me three free issues of your "magazine for busy people" and I am pretty darned interested.

I have never heard of a publication that tells me what to do with or to a mugger in a self-service elevator.

I have had a hard life, but I have never been mugged on an elevator of any kind.

The most action I get on the office elevator is pushing the hold button for the guy who fills up the soft drink machines.

It is true, though, that I am absolutely dying to know how to handle a mugger on a self-service elevator.

You did not include this information in your letter.

You wrote that your magazine offers "eye-openers aplenty," and you are right there, I guess.

I have in mind the item dealing with zippers.

As you well know, it read: "Skin caught in zipper. Quick fix."

Again, you did not go further.

I cannot, in this newspaper anyway, speculate further about this item, but it does get your attention.

Getting right along, I see that your publication would also tell me about "health club routines that can ruin your back and knees."

This is intriguing, but not applicable in my case.

I do not belong to a health club and my back and knees have been ruined since approximately 1978.

You also offer me the "secrets of a successful garage sale."

I don't want to offend you, but I must say that I have participated in just one garage sale in my life.

I would rather be sentenced to spend six months watching Art Linkletter reclining chair commercials than to go through another one of those bummers.

If you knew how I feel about Art and his chairs, you would know how I feel about garage sales.

You're getting me crazy, you know that? The old blood pressure just made medical history.

Have you ever stood around trying to sell a lousy novel you ordered by mistake or one of those food-processing things you ordered by phone just because it was on television?

And the weather is mega-hot and your wife doesn't want you talking to potential buyers with beer on your breath?

Yeah, well, just forget it, pal. And keep all that zipper stuff to yourself.

So long, wise guy.

Bennie Beagle