Dear Dame Edna ...

ADVICE

A teenager obsessed with Britney Spears? An F.B.I.-employed husband behaving strangely? More guidance for the poor Possums who need it most from that wonderfully wise Australian diva, Dame Edna Everage

Dear Dame Edna,

My young daughter is starting to look and act just like Britney Spears and, frankly, I'm alarmed.

Concerned, Bemardsville, New Jersey

Dear Concerned,

It is perfectly natural for insecure young people, and older folks as well, to imitate gorgeous stars. It won't surprise you to know that I have thousands of wanna-bes—of both sexes I'm afraid—all over the planet, and even women you might think of as self-assured, like Margaret Thatcher and Oprah Winfrey, have gone through periods when they copied me slavishly from coiffure to panty hose.

Consider yourself lucky that your daughter has chosen a comparatively wholesome role model who does nothing more worrying than flaunt what my son Kenny mysteriously calls ''T&A."

I am sorry to bring everything back to myself, but your problem is not nearly as bad as mine with my troubled daughter, Valmai, starting to look and act like Martina Navratilova, and her roommate Fern turning up as a multiply pierced Eminem look-alike.

Count your blessings—and the royalties if your daughter can almost sing.

Dear Dame Edna,

My husband has worked for the F.B.lI for 25 years. He recently received a promotion, which brings his salary to $237,000. When I spoke with the spouses of other bureau personnel, I got the impression that their husbands and wives are not nearly so well paid, although they are on about the same level as he. What might account for what he calls his "enhanced package" (which includes a Lexus and trips to Miami and Reno)? The other day I chanced upon my husband in a cafe at the zoo. He was with a woman who spoke in a strong Eastern European accent. Do you think this is relevant?

Name and address withheld

Dear Withheld,

You ought to know that since the Cold War ended F.B.I. personnel are employed exclusively to spy on each other. Naturally, a bureau wife is not going to divulge the size of her husband's package since it will fluctuate wildly depending on whom he may be fingering at the time. You could be barking up the wrong tree.

Your husband's mysterious rendezvous at the zoo could point to a far more worrying possibility. He may well be embroiled in some form of smuggling racket involving exotic parrots and/or rhinoceros horns. The cafes at most zoological gardens are notorious for illicit budgerigar laundering and are well known as drop points for Eastern European aphrodisiac runners.

Casually ask your family doctor if your husband has recently had shots for psittacosis? If he's been sampling the rhino, I only hope you'll be the first to know.

Incidentally, what were you doing at the zoo?

Dear Dame Edna,

My husband, Basil, has taken up golf, which is surprising since he has always spoken ill of the game. Now he travels all over the state to play in tournaments with his business buddies. I don't have to tell you, Dame Edna, that this may be a cover for other activities. Can you suggest a forensic test to see if his clubs have been used? They still look brand-new to me.

Suspicious of Tampa, Florida

Dear Suspicious of Tampa,

Don't worry, my little Suspicious of Tampa. Having recently been to Florida, I can tell you there is little else to do there but play golf. Indeed, I would be suspicious if your husband didn't play golf (or pretend to—which is why you're seeking my advice, now that I come to think of it!).

Forget the clubs: I think the balls are more telling. After he comes home from an alleged day's teeing off, find an opportunity to lick them (perhaps while he's asleep), and if you don't get a violent reaction from the powerful chemicals they spray on the grass, then you've certainly got grounds for concern. In fact, that is sure proof that his balls haven't touched the ground.

Dear Dame Edna,

I make a reasonable living as a nail technician, and even though I say it myself, I'm a good-looking woman with all the right measurements in all the right places. I am in love with a man named Todd who jokes that I am the most ignorant person he's ever met. Well, that's not true. But Todd, who works in security and has a lot of time to read, says he wants me to have cultural depth. He mentioned that I needed a personal "hinterland." Can you recommend a list of books which will give me cultural depth?

Donna-Mae Gorsky Rising Sun Beauty Parlor Oak Ridge, Vermont P.S. Anytime you want a free manicure, you be sure to call me.

Dear Donna-Mae,

Why is it that every glamour-puss would prefer to be a bookworm?

A few years ago I was at a Hollywood dinner party with gorgeous Sharon Stone, who, bless her heart, presented me with an unsolicited list of books she happened to be reading at the time. It was a very sweet gesture, but no doubt she had forgotten that I am Australia's leading female intellectual with a "hinterland" bigger than the Outback. I thanked her graciously, of course, yet between you and me, most of the thought-provoking volumes in her selection were by Third World authors and were the literary equivalent of that tinkly music they play in my aromatherapy clinic. Frankly, Sharon's recommendations made The Bridges of Madison County read like War and Peace.

If you must have the great works of literature at your acrylic fingertips, Donna-Mae, then try Edna St. Vincent Millay, Edna Dickinson (Emily's tragically neglected halfsister), Edna O 'Brien, or Edna Ferber, for reasons I need not elaborate.

If your Todd continues to expect you to be a cross between Susan Sontag and Camille Paglia, try reading aloud to him in bed from the Yale edition of The Works of Gertrude Stein, interspersed with Dionne Warwick's Guide to the Other Side. Pretty soon he will be putty in your beautifully groomed hands. Instead of pushing back the frontiers of your literacy, he will beg you to resume pushing back cuticles.

Dear Dame Edna,

My husband's snoring is wrecking our marriage. What can I do?

Sleepless in Seattle

Dear Sleepless,

Because our menfolk snore only when they sleep on their backs, try my infallible Snore Corset (patent pending).

Buy a spotless brassiere from your local thrift shop with extra-large cups into which you should place two old tennis balls that the dog has finished with. Slip it onto your stertorous spouse at bedtime, but back to front so that the cups are just below his shoulder blades. Fasten securely and with any luck you'll sleep like a baby.

You can be sure he won't roll over onto his back wearing his Snore Corset. CAUTION: If your man has to get out of bed in the morning to answer the front door, remind him not to accidentally turn his back on the milkman or FedEx courier. Tongues might wag.

Dame Edna's Final Thought: Life is a melody—you'll only hum the tune.

Letters to Dame Edna Everage should be sent c/o Vanity Fair, 4 Times Square, New York, New York 10036, or E-mailed to DameEdna@vf.com.