There are too many excellent advice columns to keep up with, so we're committed to bringing you links to the best advice column questions and answers every week. Here's a roundup of the most interesting, thought-provoking and surprising questions that our favorite columnists addressed in recent days.

How Should I Respond When Men Ask Out The Email Bot That Schedules Work Meetings For Me?

I have sort of a strange situation. I provide consulting services for (mostly) small business owners. This generally involves scheduling some meetings, and I have an email "Personal Assistant" bot that does this for me. It has a female name (which was the default), and does not announce that it is a bot (though I don't think it's hard to tell). It gives a standard salutation and signs off with "Thank you, < bot name >." All it does is schedule meetings, and it's not nearly to the level of an AI chat bot or anything. Any parts of an email that it receives that don't seem related to scheduling just get ignored by the program. The emails show up in my inbox and I review them to make sure everything got added to my calendar correctly.

However, this complete lack of personal-type interaction has not stopped several of the men (not usually the actual owners of the client businesses) it is scheduling appointments with from asking it out on dates. Sometimes this happens within the same emails that were used to schedule meetings, and once a man sent an after-hours email from his personal address (which is somehow both creepier and also better work/life boundaries? I don't know!). So far I have just ignored these incidents and gone on with the professional relationship like nothing happened.

Obviously, this would be inappropriate behavior if it was happening to an actual human assistant, and I would deal with it. However, since it's happening to a bot, what am I supposed to do? Obviously the bot doesn't have opinions about the issue, but if one of my employees was asking out women after a very basic scheduling email with absolutely no personal content, I’d probably want to know about it so I could address it, because it's probably happening to real human assistants as well. What are your thoughts?

[Ask A Manager]

Alison Green offers the letter writer a few options for dealing with this, including forwarding the men's emails to their bosses. "[I]f you just want it to stop, the easiest answer is to change the name to a very male-sounding one," she writes. "I will personally pay you thousands of dollars if changing the bot's name to Wayne doesn't put an immediate end to this." Read the rest of her answer.

Are My Husband And I Wrong To Keep Our 4-Year-Old Away From My Parents After They Deliberately Gave Him A Food He's Allergic To?

My husband and I were thrilled recently to have the opportunity to leave town for one night. My parents offered to watch our 4-year-old son for the 24 hours we were gone. My folks live locally and have spent a lot of time with their grandson, but they've never done the overnight thing before.

We left our folks very prepared with pre-made meals, and we were confident that everything would be fine.

Just after we arrived at our destination (a four-hour drive) we got a call from my sister, who said that our son had been taken to the ER because of an allergic reaction to peanuts.

My parents know about our son's nut allergy. We do have peanut butter in the house, but after discovering this allergy a couple of years ago, we of course never give him peanuts in any form.

Turns out that my dad decided to give him some peanut butter on a cracker "as a snack."

We raced home, and by then everybody was home. My sister was at our house with our son. He was fine and in bed. My parents had gone back to their house.

I called them the next morning to hear what had happened and my dad told me he had given our son peanut butter. I would have been completely understanding if he had told me that they'd forgotten about the allergy, but he didn't say that. He said basically that he "didn't believe" in this allergy and he didn't think this would be a big deal (I guess until our son's throat closed and they raced him to the hospital).

My husband and I are livid. We don't like to use access to our child as a way to punish our folks, but given that they haven't apologized, we decided to "take a break" from having our son spend time with them. This included not seeing them on Christmas.

We don't want to overreact or make everything worse, and we're both wondering what you think.

[[Tribune Content] Agency(https://tribunecontentagency.com/article/ask-amy-parents-are-appalled-by-allergic-reaction/)]

Amy Dickinson advises the letter writer to visit their parents to clarify what happened. "They really do need to demonstrate that they understand this risk and that they will never repeat their mistake," she writes. "They should also apologize to you, your husband, and your son." Read the rest of her answer.

Should I Tell My Friend's Girlfriend To Stop Interfering After My Friend Changed His Mind About Donating Sperm To Me?

My husband is infertile, and our only option to have a child is to conceive with donor sperm. However, I refuse to use the sperm of a stranger. In addition to medical history concerns, I worry about family history and other factors. However, I have a friend I've known since we were children, Rob. He's smart, handsome, successful, and I know his family well. I asked Rob if he would donate sperm to us, and he agreed. However, he recently changed his mind and doesn't want to go through with it. I'm also friends with Rob's sister, and she told me it was Rob's girlfriend who made him change his mind.

I'm very hurt and angry. I was counting on Rob to do this for us. I'm thinking of giving his girlfriend a call and telling her to stop interfering in this important matter. The whole situation has caused a lot of tension with my husband, who even said that maybe this is a "sign" that we shouldn't have children. I desperately want a baby, and I know this is all the doing of Rob's girlfriend, who has a history of interfering in our friendship. Should I get in touch with her or talk to Rob again?

[Slate]

Jamilah Lemieux urges the letter writer to reconsider an anonymous sperm donor. "You have to remember that donating sperm is a major decision and he wasn't wrong to consult his partner about it," she writes. "It may have been his girlfriend who convinced him to pull out, but that doesn't mean that he didn't have his own qualms about the arrangement." Read the rest of her answer.

What Should I Do In Response To My Husband's Refusal To Stop Asking Me About My Shower Habits?

My husband gets up every morning and immediately takes a shower. There are no exceptions. He does not present himself to others, even our children, before showering. If he is getting up to go on a 20-mile bike ride, he showers first. If it's Christmas morning and the kids are eager to open presents, everyone waits for him to finish his shower. This is the way he is. I have worked and always will happily work around what, in my mind, is just one of his quirks.

About 10 years ago, I learned he revealed to a family member his concerns about my not showering often enough and someday acquiring "old lady" smell. I expressed to him how much he had hurt me and how terrible he made me feel about myself. He apologized, but I am reminded of the hurt every time he talks about my showering, which he does nearly every day.

He thinks it's an innocent question if he asks me when I'm going to shower, but for me, this means I must smell bad. Sometimes he'll mention how "quick" my shower was. I have asked him a thousand times to please stop talking about my showering, but he won't even try. He says he's not doing anything wrong.

I am at my wits' end. I feel constantly assaulted. He just says he doesn't mean anything by it, that it's unreasonable of me to expect him to not use the word "shower," that it's my problem and I have to get over it.

What should I do? Am I the one who needs therapy?

[The Washington Post]

Carolyn Hax encourages the letter writer to pursue therapy to discuss her husband's disregard for her wishes. "The fastest way to zero conversation about showering is for you to tell him you're through engaging on this topic, then never, ever — not once — respond to him about it again," she writes. Read the rest of her answer.

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Should I Complain To My Gym Because One Of The Cycling Instructors Talks About Her Husband's Recent Death?

I attend a cycling class with a rotating series of instructors. Recently the gym added a new instructor who is technically very sound, has great music selections and a generally motivating attitude, but toward the end of each of the three classes I've had with her, she has shared that her husband died of cancer three months ago. I think this is out of a genuine desire to help the class feel like we can push through anything, and I feel very sad that she has gone through this tough time. But it's a real damper on my energy and experience. The gym sends out a survey after each class seeking feedback on the instructor. Is it appropriate for me to share that I find this discussion of her dead husband in class off-putting, or should I just choose to attend classes with other instructors?

[The New York Times]

Kwame Anthony Appiah discourages the letter writer from bringing this up on the survey. "A little kindness toward the widow wouldn't go amiss; however vigorously we cycle, we are all, in Dickens's resonant formula, 'fellow passengers to the grave,'" he writes. Read the rest of his answer.

Should I Tell My Neighbor That I Saw Her Husband Peeing In Their Yard?

We live next to a couple in their mid-60s (we are in our early 50s). They have been great neighbors since we moved in seven years ago.

The wife is a wedding florist and brings me a fresh bouquet of flowers each month. In exchange, I give her lots of vegetables from my garden and will water her outdoor plants when they go out of town. They have a pool and will also give us permission to swim a few times per year.

One Saturday, when she was away from the house for a wedding, I saw her husband in his swim trunks with his back to me, and he appeared to be peeing in the yard. It was broad daylight! I kept watching to make sure the spurting I saw wasn't coming from a hose, and sure enough, after he had finished, he turned around and was adjusting the front part of his trunks. No garden hose in sight.

He did not see me, so he doesn't know I witnessed this. Because his wife was away, she doesn't know about this either. My guess is if she knew, she would read him the riot act.

I really like this couple, but I am also really disgusted. It feels beyond disrespectful, to the point of being a visual assault. I want to tell his wife, but I'm afraid it would upset her, and change the relationship forever.

I also feel like the egregious nature of his behavior is forcing me into silence — basically that it's so embarrassing for everyone involved that I'm powerless to say anything. As a woman and a feminist, this makes me really angry that he has put me in this position.

Should I have said something in the moment? If so, what? Or is there some way to address it with them after the fact?

[UExpress]

Judith Martin, Nicholas Ivor Martin and Jacobina Martin, the writers behind the Miss Manners persona, counsel the letter writer not to address this with her neighbors. "However unappetizing the act, it was done on private property by the owner, who could reasonably expect to be unobserved," they write. "Miss Manners fails to see how this attacks you as a feminist." Read the rest of their answer.

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