Please send your questions for publication to prudence@slate.com.

Dear Prudence,

My 15-year-old son and I have always been very close. We've been a source of strength for each other ever since my husband died eight years ago. However, a recent humiliating experience now threatens that close bond. One weekend, while I believed my son was away with his best friend, I was trying on some swimsuits for an upcoming vacation. I was checking them out in the mirror, and I like to think that, at 45, I look pretty damn good.

While naked, I went to get something from the kitchen, and who did I see but my son standing there! His weekend had been cut short, and he had let himself into our apartment. With my hands full, I couldn't even cover myself up. Fortunately, he ran from the room right away, but not before seeing me in all my naked glory. Since then he's hardly spoken to me. He doesn't even look at me when he comes home from school. I want to talk to him about this, but what could I say?

--Thalia

Dear Thal,

You say that even his mother has one of these and two of those. You weren't vamping him, after all, and both of you made a swift effort to end the scene. He wasn't even supposed to be there, which you might point out to him. The fact that your household has been just the two of you since he was 7 years old may mean that he's had to wrestle with his Oedipal feelings that his little-boy wish for his father to be removed was granted. You might also ask him why he thinks there's been a change in your relationship. Try to bring up the uncomfortable encounter, and tell him he is making much too much of it. With luck, the very act of discussing it will defuse the situation.

--Prudie, rationally

Dear Prudence,

I'm a 20-year-old college student living in a major city, and a few months ago I moved into an apartment building mostly occupied by adults. Recently I asked a neighbor how I could keep my plants alive when I went home for three weeks. I didn't want to give anyone a key to my apartment, but wanted to know if there was another way. She told me that she would water them and, in fact, already had a key that the previous resident had given her!