I Detect Bitingly Hostile Attitude
Dear Miss Manners: My wife and I have an ongoing conflict that may seem childish and petty, but it is grating on my nerves. My dear partner likes to pop bubble gum at the most inappropriate time.
After a year in Vietnam, 18 years as a police officer and being a victim of Addison’s disease for five years, it is difficult to understand why she likes to aggravate me. It’s the noise that gets to me, especially when we are in bed and I am trying to sleep.
I have told her it’s rude and inconsiderate. She tells me I have no right to tell her what she can or cannot do.
The Addison’s disease really adds a complication. My adrenal glands shut down and I cannot manufacture the chemicals required to keep me alive. A daily dose of prednisone helps, but being in bed with someone who makes noises like a sniper quickly depletes by body of adrenaline, cortisone, etc. I end up in bad shape.
Gentle Reader: This is not a happy situation. Perhaps you do not need Miss Manners to tell you that.
Unfortunately, you do need to have Miss Manners tell you that invoking a rule of etiquette (such as “don’t pop gum into the dreams of people who have been under gunfire” or “be kind to your husband if he can provide a doctor’s certificate”) doesn’t work with people who do not agree to the mannerly proposition that one should be considerate of others.
Miss Manners doesn’t want to suggest that there might be some deep marital problems there. But for a wife to claim that she has a right to make life unbearable for her husband is not a good sign.
Dear Miss Manners: The host couple at a dinner party mentioned that they were going to an “engagement party” the next night and wondered if they ought to take a gift. Neither they nor any of the rest of us had heard of an engagement party before the last few years.
Are we mad, or is this some novelty? Does one bring a gift? I know Miss Manners will say a gift is never required, but is it expected?
One guest, having faced the same dilemma, said she took a gift rather than err in the other direction, and still planned to give a wedding gift. Our hosts decided to take a gift only because they doubted they would be able to make it to the wedding itself, which was in another state.
Our consensus was that the engagement party was an innovation with a veiled mercenary motive. At least a shower is given by someone else for the bride, which seems less grasping.
Gentle Reader: You are quite right that there is no such traditional event as an engagement party. With the notable exception of the future bridegroom, who is supposed to become suddenly familiar with the insides of jewelry stores, no one should be expected to give an engagement present.
Like you, Miss Manners has her suspicions when events associated with presents, such as engagement parties and showers, burst into amazing prominence, while modest traditions, such as writing letters of thanks, are barely remembered. She tries to put all this down to innocence of tradition, being hardly able to contemplate the alternative prospect of galloping greed.
It is true that parents, other relatives and friends may all be moved to give festive parties in honor of an engaged couple, and Miss Manners finds that not just proper but charming. It also gives the couple a chance to practice the difficult task of looking bashfully grateful while their happiness is toasted instead of making the appalling error of joining in and thus drinking to themselves.
But as these events are never properly called engagement parties, there should be no question of engagement presents. Miss Manners would not go so far as to question the motives of people who claim otherwise, but advises you that etiquette does not bolster such claims.
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Judith Martin United Features Syndicate