Editor's Note: Hundreds of Ann Landers' loyal readers have requested that newspapers continue to publish her columns. These letters originally appeared in 1999.

Dear Ann Landers: A friend sent me these tips for losing weight, and I want to pass them along to your readers. I thought they were hilarious. — Faithful Fan in San Diego

Dear San Diego: I did, too. In fact, I printed something similar several years ago, but your list is better.

Remember: Stressed Spelled Backward Is Desserts

1. If you eat something, and no one sees you eat it, it has no calories.

2. If you drink a diet soda with a candy bar, the calories in the candy bar are canceled out by the diet soda fizz.

3. When you eat with someone else, calories don't count if you do not eat more than he or she does.

4. Foods used for medicinal purposes, such as hot chocolate, brandy, toast and Sara Lee banana cake, NEVER count.

5. If you fatten up everyone else around you, you will look thinner.

6. Movie-related foods do not have additional calories, because they are part of the entertainment package and not part of one's personal fuel. Some examples: Milk Duds, buttered popcorn, Junior Mints, Red Hots and Tootsie Rolls.

7. Cookie pieces contain no calories. The process of breaking causes calorie leakage.

8. Things licked off of knives and spoons have no calories if you are in the process of preparing something.

9. Foods that have the same color have the same number of calories. Example: spinach and pistachio ice cream.

10. Chocolate is a universal color and may be substituted for any other food color.

11. Anything consumed while standing has no calories. This is due to gravity and the density of the caloric mass.

12. Anything consumed from someone else's plate has no calories because the calories rightfully belong to the other person and will cling to his or her plate. (We all know how calories like to cling.)

Dear Ann Landers: I ran across this article in the Denver Post and thought you might like it for your stupid-crook collection. — J.T., Evergreen, Colorado

Dear J.T.: Thanks for your contribution. Here's the story:

A sheriff's deputy found a bank robber's note in a dry-cleaning customer's pants pocket. The note read, "Put the money in the bag and don't say a word, or I will kill you." The note was traced to one of three suspects in the robbery of a local bank and nailed the case.

Dear Ann Landers: Nine years ago, I found a litter of pups that appeared to be about a month old. They were in pretty sad shape. I gave five pups to a friend and kept the runt of the litter and named her Jessica. I fed her with a teaspoon every two hours around the clock, and she survived.

Last year, I had to have a pacemaker installed, but it malfunctioned, and I needed an operation to replace it. I was transferred to another hospital, and when I awoke, Jessica was at my feet. My doctor had brought her to aid in my recovery.

Little did I know nine years ago, when I fought to save that little dog's life, that the day would come when she would save mine. — M.M., Ree Heights, South Dakota

Dear M.M.: What a heartwarming story. I hope you and Jessica will have many more healthy years together.

To find out more about Ann Landers and read her past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

ANN LANDERS

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