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Claim: 'Dear Abby' letter details unusual test posed to young man by his fiancée's parents.
Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2002]
Origins: This bit of salacious humor began appearing in our inbox in mid-October 2002, and although it's offered as a letter to advice columnist "Dear Abby," no such item appeared in any of Abby's 
columns. (Astute readers should have been left to wonder why, if this were a real entreaty to that font of advice, her response wasn't included.)
It's a fake, but it's entertaining thanks to the sly twist at the end: after sending the reader in one direction ("Should I tell my fiancée what her parents put me through?"), it finishes on an entirely different note ("Should I mention to anyone I was about to take Mom up on her offer?"). A similar misdirection device is used in the classic "shocking admission letter" genre, in which a series of scandalous revelations are made about the advice-seeker's less than savory family before he finally asks whether the object of his desire should be informed about a foible that might prove to be a deal-breaker, with the humorous catch being that what he considers to be the most shameful facet of his family's background is actually the most mundane item mentioned:
One of those radio quacks who play God for a couple of thousand dollars a week to poor saps in distress received this letter from a worried admirer:
Barbara "secret squirrel'd" Mikkelson
"I have been a soldier in the Pacific. My mother has epilepsy, and my father's nose and ears have fallen off, so you see they can't work. My two sisters are the sole support of the family. They are fast girls in Birmingham. My only brother is in the pen for murder and rape. I have two cousins who are Republicans. I am from the South and now that I'm out of uniform I naturally want to go back home to live. "Mr. X., my problem is this: I am in love with a striptease artist in a town near ours and I want to ask her to be my wife. Dare I tell her about my two Last updated: 9 July 2005 This material may not be reproduced without permission. snopes and the snopes.com logo are registered service marks of snopes.com.  Sources:
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