Dear Diane: Is ‘Vern’ a jerk or just ‘nuts’?

Dear Diane: My husband, “Vern,” is getting on my last nerve. A while back, Vern took up eating peanuts. Not out of a can or jar, like you get at the market, but from sacks he buys from men who sell peanuts from the back of their pickup trucks parked alongside the highway. The peanuts are still in the shell, and that is the problem.

Vern just tosses the empty peanut shells on the coffee table or end table and even the nightstand! There are peanut shells all over the place. It’s gotten so bad that my living-room carpet makes a crunching sound when I walk on it. I’ve even found shells in Vern’s pants pockets.

I have tried to get Vern to throw the shells away, but he told me he works 10 hours a day and that it is MY job to keep the house clean. I will not tell you what I said back to him, because it cannot be printed in a family newspaper.

Diane, what can I do?

— Up to My Ears in Peanut Shells

Dear Peanut: If you don’t already own one, go to the store and buy a large, deep bowl. Set it on the coffee table (or wherever Vern and his peanut sack plant themselves) and tell your husband to put the empty shells in the bowl.

If Vern, for some idiotic reason, refuses to use the bowl and continues to toss the shells willy-nilly around the house, then drastic measures will be called for.

Take a week to collect every empty shell and put them all in a large garbage bag. At the end of the week, empty the sack of empty shells onto the bed and put the covers over them. Place the vacuum cleaner next to the bed. I’m sure he’ll get the hint.

Stay strong, sister!