Reject Generous Offers Graciously
Dear Miss Manners: Help! My daughter has applied to several colleges, and now the responses are starting to come in. Several have not only admitted her, but have also offered her very generous merit scholarships.
Of course, she can only attend one. Is there a nice way to say, “No, thank you” to the others?
It seems ungrateful, when a college has been calling and sending material and offering major money, just to return their postcard with a box checked off. I realize they need their postcard for efficiency’s sake, but I would also like to enclose a note (or have my daughter enclose a note).
Gentle Reader: For your daughter to write those admissions offices thanking them is not strictly necessary, but a gracious thing to do. These are staffed by people who are routinely vilified by those they reject and ignored by those they accept.
For you to assume this task, might offer the same people relief that she did not accept their offers. They will assume that a college-age student whose mother writes her letters has also had her mother write her college applications and essays, as well as her high school papers and homework.
Dear Miss Manners: On certain occasions I cook whole pigs for various events - or, as they say, I “do pig roasts.” I have a large roaster that I cook the pig in, and then I carve the meat and put it in pans to serve it. It is not unusual at all to give people at these events samples by letting them take a piece off the fork. I wash my hands often, and use knifes and tongs or forks to handle the meat.
Awhile back my wife and I were doing a wedding. I cooked and carved, and she took the full pans of meat to the serving table. Twice while carving I picked up a small piece of meat and ate it. She jumped all over me for this, saying it wasn’t right. We had a brief argument, but in the interest of the guests I did not pursue the point.
My question is, did I do anything wrong? I am the cook. I did not chew it up and spit it out on the platter. And I did not put my mouth on my tools.
Your response will not solve any problems, as I have since fired my wife from my pig-roasting business. But I would still like your opinion.
Gentle Reader: Not knowing your wife, Miss Manners has no opinion about whether you should have fired her. Fastidiousness is not ordinarily a firing offense, although jumping all over people while they are trying to cook may be.
Nevertheless, the lady has a point. It upsets the diners to watch the cook tasting the food, even if he manages it without touching their portions. They know that tasting is part of cooking because they do it themselves; unfortunately, they also know how they do it themselves.
Dear Miss Manners: A close friend attended a wedding where the bride and groom, in lieu of giving wedding favors to the guests, made a charitable donation to a local zoo that was in danger of closing due to lack of funds. I thought this was a great idea. What do you think?
Gentle Reader: Miss Manners thinks that saving a local zoo is a lovely idea. She thinks that not issuing favors to guests at a wedding, as if it were a child’s birthday party, is a reasonable idea. She thinks that combining the two is a vulgar idea.
Besides, to inform one’s guests that one was going to do something to please them but thought better of it undermines the graciousness of the gesture, rather than augmenting it. There is no extra moral credit to be squeezed from teasing guests with what one doesn’t plan to do for them.