Miss Manners: No tactful way to note augmentation

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is the proper thing to say to a co-worker who has just had breast augmentation done by choice?

It will be obvious that she had this done. Some of us who work in the office with her don’t know what to say once she comes back to work.

GENTLE READER: Usually, those who claim that they “don’t know what to say” mean that they are reluctant to use conventional phrases, not realizing that those are the time-proven best. However, in such cases as yours, it may be that they dimly suspect that they should shut up.

That would be Miss Manners’ advice, immediately after saying, “Glad to see you back.” There is no polite way of saying, “Wow, I see that your bosom is a lot bigger.”

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I thought I had seen everything, but recently we received a wedding invitation via Facebook.

If that was not bad enough, it turns out that the wedding couple, both musicians, decided to have the ceremony in the context of a concert performance by them. The invitation indicated that because they have decided to rent a concert hall, in lieu of buying a gift, we would be required to buy a ticket to help defray the costs of the performance.

We were instructed that we could order food and beverages off a menu at our own expense, but cupcakes would be provided for dessert.

Last week we received yet another online notification indicating if we could not attend, we may choose to donate at various levels toward the couple’s honeymoon. Depending on what amount we gave, the gift giver would be given a variety of different “thank you” responses from the couple.

Any thoughts on this?

GENTLE READER: Because of the deft touch about different levels of thanks, Miss Manners will do this couple the courtesy of assuming that they meant it all as a joke. However, she feels obliged to warn them not to hope to make a living as comedians.