Miss Manners: Maybe you should just play cards with these friends instead

DEAR MISS MANNERS: We have a recurring monthly dinner date with another couple at restaurants mutually agreed on. She is a vegan zealot, and this was not a problem until she converted her husband, who previously considered deli meat eaten over the sink to be a delicacy.

Problem is, he is a vegan in theory only, as the only vegan foods he likes are Impossible Burgers or plain rice. We prefer to eat healthy, with zero tolerance for junk food, and this significantly limits where we can eat, or would want to.

To make matters worse, she has started a tradition of baking a vegan cake whenever one of us has a birthday, and sending a full cake home as an added bonus.

Like some vegans, she likes to throw the vegan kitchen sink into the recipe – high on sweets and dairy fat substitutes – not healthy, not delicious, not to our taste. And then on top, an over-generous scoop of non-dairy ice cream.

And each year, we take a bite and say “Thank you, this is delicious.” We soldier through and eat the oversized portion – more dessert than we’d ever consider eating in real life, even if it were delicious – and take the cake home.

We then promptly deliver the cake to a neighbor who will eat any high-fat, high-calorie food that we hand to him. He feeds on it for a few days, and we return the plate to the vegans, thanking them again for their generosity.

Once again, my birthday is imminent, and I’m thinking, sadly, that the only certainties in life are death, taxes and a semi-annual oversized slab of this terrible vegan cake. What should I do?

GENTLE READER: Nothing. Why ruin the good scheme you have going with the neighbor? With it, everyone wins and no one gets hurt or insulted. Although Miss Manners does recommend, out of courtesy to the neighbor who is rescuing you, you refrain from comparing his efforts to that of a farm animal.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: When a relative suffered a sudden death recently, his friends quickly took the liberty of organizing a celebration of his life. Then the coroner said he died of heart failure caused by four decades of alcohol abuse. This news had no effect on the celebration of life – which will be a pub crawl.

The deceased never married, and his two remaining brothers are planning a private church service at a future date. Two other brothers already died of alcohol and tobacco abuse.

Ordinarily, I think it important to honor loved ones by attending memorials in whatever form they may take, but would Miss Manners indulge me in skipping the pub crawl on the grounds that I am mourning by drying out?

GENTLE READER: By all means. You may think of it as a tribute to your late family member. But please, Miss Manners asks, do not share the reason for not attending. Even if it is undeniably warranted.

Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website www.missmanners.com.