DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I used to have a sorry-looking girlfriend because she only had a part-time job and no money for clothes, her hair or other womanly stuff. Now she looks great, and she also has a car I bought her to get around. I also found her a job she likes with people I know who run a good business.

Now there’s a problem. Other guys are looking at her and she has started looking back.

I started noticing this recently at the bars we go to, and especially at the casino. I guess I should mention she’s younger than me by almost 20 years.

I don’t know what to do next. I want to keep her happy and with me because I love her. What else can I do for her?

How would you like to play a game where there are two sets of rules? And where you’re never really sure which set is going to apply to you?

Doesn’t sound like my idea of either fun or good sportsmanship. However, that’s what Canadian taxpayers go through every year, whether they know it or not.

Every tax return filed each year is also subject to an alternate calculation, with a different set of rules. This is known as the Alternative Minimum Tax or AMT calculation.

The AMT takes a variety of completely legal and policy-endorsed deductions — like the capital gains exemption on the sale of a qualifying private business, which was recently increased in the 2024 budget — and then reduces their effectiveness to see if the taxpayer can be charged more under the alternate calculation.

For a government that ran on “fixing health care” and slashing long wait times for surgical procedures, the recent cancellation of cataract surgeries is bad news for the provincial NDP.

At least one patient, Ann Bowman, 72, spoke out this week after her cataract surgery was cancelled. She received a letter three weeks ago from her surgeon saying the provincial government did not renew its contract with a private clinic where she was supposed to have the procedure done on July 17. Her surgery will be rescheduled, but no date has been set.

Vision Group is one of the private clinics the province contracts with to perform surgeries. The province is being cagey about that contract and others the previous Progressive Conservative government signed on with.

The Manitoba government has been contracting with private clinics for certain medical procedures for decades, including cataracts. It’s unclear whether the new NDP government, which has stated often that it is no fan of private health care, will continue with those contracts or try to reduce the province’s reliance on them.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: We still let our one-year-old dog sleep between us and he is not a little puppy anymore. He’s a very big breed.

Last weekend we left him with our neighbour while we went to an out-of-town wedding and had a motel room to ourselves. We learned something when we were finally alone in that big bed. We had sex five times in two days. That’s more than we get in a month with the dog sleeping between us.

When we were driving home, I told my husband I didn’t want the dog to sleep in our bed anymore. I said I wanted to have more sex and maybe even try to have a baby.

He agreed, so we tried shutting our pooch out the first night at home.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I have been miserable at this beautiful lake, where I recently bought a cabin.

I bragged to everybody about how much I loved my new cabin and that I could work away from the city all summer. But I was so wrong. I just can’t do this. I’ve been here for two weeks and I’m bored stiff and lonely.

I know I should love getting away from the city, but that wore out the first week. I miss my friends and neighbours in the city. I’ll look pathetic if I run back to city living so quickly, and it seems such a waste of money. I just don’t know what to do now.

I’m scared to rent this cabin out to strangers because they might steal or break my things, but I’m going crazy out here. How did this happen when I used to love it here for years on long weekends? I made a big deal to everybody about finally buying my own cabin. Help, please.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: A wife just knows when something’s off. For the past few months, I have felt my husband becoming cool and distant. At first, I thought he was stressed with his job. But lately, I thought I noticed some special looks between my husband and our new nanny.

They’ve been spending a lot of time together when I’m out all day working. He recently started working in his basement office half-days. Sometimes he walks to the park with the kids, the nanny and our dog.

I brought up my feelings with my husband, and he said defensively that I was crazy and paranoid.

I told him I was going to give our nanny her walking papers and he screamed his head off, telling me she loves the kids, is not going anywhere and needs the money to exist.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I was woken up in the middle of the night to a weird sound. I went to check on it — and it was my new neighbours in their hot tub, fooling around! I just couldn’t help myself and peeked out.

Then it happened: they noticed me watching them and motioned for me to come over! I ducked behind my curtain feeling so embarrassed — and then I flopped onto the bed and hid my head under a pillow.

I have no idea how to approach them about the incident. I’m not into threesomes or anything like that, and I don’t want any problems with my new neighbours. Should I just pretend like nothing happened?

— Drowning in Embarrassment, Silver Heights

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My foolish husband was supposed to be working on the addition to our house — which he sweetly volunteered to do — while I kept our kids at the lake for a week. When I phoned his cellphone, I heard a kid come into the room, yelling for someone with a first name from a different culture.

I knew immediately what was going on. I knew the kid, and I knew the mother. It turns out my husband has been “working” over at our new neighbour’s house instead of ours.

She’s a beautiful dark-haired woman, with two young boys. She has a sexy accent and is still able to be quite funny in English.

My husband loves funny women. That’s why he married me. But I’m not laughing now — far from it.