Question: In a restaurant, the check often comes in a booklet or portfolio. How do I signal to the waitperson that cash or a credit card is inside it, without telling them?
Gentle Reader: Depending on how much attention this person is paying to the situation, you may do one of the following.Perfect service: Leave the portfolio at a different angle from the one presented.
Intermittent attention: Hold it in your hand, waving the hand slightly.
Decidedly wandering attention: Say something (preferably not "Waitperson!") to get that person's attention in a polite but audible voice, and hand it over.
Question: I love to send greeting cards but am stumped when it comes to sending best wishes to newlyweds, since many couples live together for months or years (and even have children) before their marriage. It makes the message on the card rather ludicrous.
A handwritten note would be in order, and I would appreciate your suggestions about what to say.
Gentle Reader: What exactly did it say on those greeting cards you used to send newlyweds? Miss Manners shudders to imagine a congratulatory phrase that would no longer apply if they had been conducting their courtship in their own living quarters.
You should have been in the habit of writing to friends anyway, on such an important occasion as a marriage. Purchasing someone else's printed sentiments for one's own friends is Miss Manners' idea of the socially ludicrous.
Perhaps you have been stumped by the thought of having to say something original. This is not necessary: Getting married is not an original thing to do, however delightful to those concerned, and their friends should always be prompted to wish them happiness.
So "I'm so happy for you, and I wish you many, many happy years together" is about it. In your own sweet hand, it will look better than it does here, or on any card, for that matter, no matter how gaudily embellished.
Question: Is it necessary to take a gift for the host of a party or dinner where you are required to take a gift for a birthday or anniversary? I say no, but my daughter says it is always proper to take a gift for the host, whatever the occasion.
Gentle Reader: Miss Manners always appreciates hearing about generous impulses, but bringing two presents to the same person, identifying one as a host present and the other as a present for the occasion, smacks of payment.
Could it be that your daughter is under the common but mistaken impression that bringing wine or candy to a dinner is now obligatory, as it constitutes reciprocation for the dinner?
Well, nice as it is, it is not obligatory, because it is merely an extra gesture that does not cancel the social debt. Only an expression of thanks afterward and a return invitation will do that.
Question: I invited a colleague to a really nice event, a private performance of the symphony, several weeks beforehand. He responded by saying that he would go with me if his schedule permitted. I gave him my phone number, and we agreed that he would call when he knew his schedule for that week.
Well, the concert has come and gone, and I never heard from him. Tempted as I am to label him a complete boor, I would like to assume that he has some valid reason for not so much as uttering his regrets. Nonetheless, this complete lack of acknowledgment has me puzzled.
At what point would it have been appropriate to invite another guest? Three hours before the concert? One day? One week?
I will soon return to his work location after several months working elsewhere. I do not wish to be rude or unprofessional, but neither do I wish to minimize the situation with "It was no big deal." After all, it was a big deal.
Gentle Reader: It certainly was. Miss Manners is more often in the position of calming down the overly snippy, rather than revving up the overly tolerant, but totally ignoring an invitation is about as rude as you can get without hitting someone.
There was no valid reason for him to string you along. Had his schedule shown another engagement, he could have called you immediately. Had an emergency arisen that very minute - had his mother been on Call Waiting, to tell him that she had just been run over and required him to take her to the hospital - he could have found someone to inform you, or called with apologies after he had turned her over to a doctor.
The point at which you could have invited another person to the concert was the one in which your colleague claimed not to know his schedule, without volunteering to call you back that very day. "Oh, well, then, perhaps I'd better catch you at another time" would have been the polite response.
Now the tone to take is strictly professional plus an ice cube - that is, with not the slightest indication that you had any social relationship with him or could ever do so.