Auntie Ag & Uncle Ony

You are invited to send your problems to: Auntie Ag and Uncle Ony, Real Life, Independent on Sunday, 1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5DL. However, Auntie Ag and Uncle Ony regret that they are unable to enter into any personal correspondence

I recently went on a skiing holiday with a group of friends. On the first day I was desperate for a pee on the top of the mountain; I went behind a tree, stuck my poles in the snow then, to my horror, started to slip and shot all the way down the slope through the crowds with my trousers down, leaving a little yellow trail in the snow. I was so embarrassed I left immediately. Now I have just received an invitation to a holiday reunion. I know my friends are just trying to humiliate me and I am completely furious.

Lisa, Wigan

Uncle Ony: An extremely common Jungian dream is that of defecating in front of members of a peer group. It connects with the acceptance of one's dark side both by peers and by the self. None of us is all "good", Lisa. Often it takes so dramatic an act as urinating on virgin snow to allow the self to embrace its own "bad". Your friends have shown their acceptance of your dark side by inviting you to the party. You too must embrace it.

Auntie Ag: Darling! What a marvellous story. If it had happened to me I'd have been dining out on it for 20 years. (Actually, darling, would you mind awfully if I pretend it did happen to me?)

I've been with my girlfriend for five years. It was her birthday last week and I bought her a CD player. I was planning to propose, but when I gave her the present she chucked me. A mutual friend told me she had been reading an American book called The Rules which says you should chuck a man if a man doesn't buy you jewellery for your birthday, because he's never going to marry you. I've never heard anything so stupid and feel like never seeing her again!

Neil, Wilmslow

Uncle Ony: You are quite right. Rules are counterfeit principles: disguising cowardly attempts to keep ourselves safe. Have nothing further to do with her.

Auntie Ag: Oh, my God darling! It's a national bloody emergency. This book is cashing in on everything I've been telling girls for years about personal dignity and playing hard to get. Take the book away from her at once, darling, and swap it for a nice engagement ring and a pair of emerald earrings.

Last night I went to a party at my boss's house, and got completely drunk. I have just woken up and as I survey the trail of clothes, shoes and underwear leading from the door to my bed, memories are emerging through the hangover which make me want to die - I told my boss he was not intelligent enough for the job, snogged his son on the sofa and was sick on the hall carpet. What shall I do?

Mary, Derbyshire

Uncle Ony: First of all you must use your higher mind to understand the Old Pain - the devastation you felt as a child when you realised you were not Special - which has resurfaced, forcing you to assert your Uniqueness at the party. Write to your boss, explaining all this, apologising for the nature of the manifestation but encouraging him to see it in a positive light, as a joyful release of stuck energy into your work environment.

Auntie Ag: (Release of stuck food on to the carpet, more like.) Don't listen to Ony, darling. It will ruin everyone's fun if you apologise. On Monday, lurch into your boss's office swigging neat vodka and ask for his son's phone number, then spend the afternoon dozing under the desk. Some well-meaning busybody will no doubt have you sent home, then you can call in the next day saying you've been sent to hospital for a brain scan, and return at the end of the week, the picture of propriety, announcing it was a blood clot which has cleared.