Is it me or have we stopped putting our napkins in our laps? I was at a small dinner party the other night, and I noticed my younger daughter didn’t have her napkin in her lap. Granted, our host had passed out paper napkins that were barely defense against dropping blobs of greasy macaroni and cheese but still. Manner are manners. “Put your napkin in your lap,” I said to her, not hushed enough for the rest of the table not to notice. In the next moment, we entered an awkward time dimension where she and I realized no one but me had their napkins in their lap. “Um…” my daughter said, scanning the limp napkins scattered on the table. “Well, if no one else is…” I said, fumbling to conform to the climate of non-napkin lappers. “We should have the fancy napkins,” half-shrieked the host, recalling her appreciation for etiquette. “Where are they?” “I don’t know,” her husband said, bemused. Their seventeen-year old son barked some confusion to the tune of “Should I or shouldn’t I?” A Shakespearean warble to the modern conundrum of table manners. My older teen simply ignored my referendum and reached across the table for some bread. I had been schooling her to not use her hand as a utensil for years. “Does it matter here?” she said. I bit my tongue but the answer is yes, it does. Because what you do here, you do everywhere.
While it may seem like table manners have gone by the wayside with our lack of social interaction, guess what, they have not. You will still be silently judged by that potential business partner, date or job interviewer. If you use your finger as a knife to slide food onto your plate, you will have a check in the wrong box. If you chew with your mouth open while telling a story, your spitty maw of mangled steak will be remembered more than your brilliance. I was recounting the napkin situation to a friend who is in the medical profession. “I didn’t hire someone for double dipping,” she said. “He was on equal ground with three other candidates when I saw him double dip with chips. I knew then and there I wasn’t going to be the one to bring this guy into healthcare.” Sound harsh? It’s not. I once dated a guy who licked every finger at a meal and it was NOT BBQ. We didn’t last long. I just couldn’t stomach it. Do I have some illicit food behavior in the privacy of my own home? Sure. But I also know, if you lick the knife or jam your finger in the peanut butter enough, one day out of habit you will do it in front of the wrong people. If you need a refresher, Emily Post’s Etiquette has been updated by her great-great grandchildren.
If you are looking to do some writing:
Wherever you live, just walk around families and couples basking in the holiday splendor. You may be poised to write a love story, or a Christmas special, but for me, who bends a bit towards the acerbic, you can write a whole piece on how people behave when waiting to take a picture in a holiday installation. I sat eating some sushi in an outdoor courtyard in Beverly Hills watching the behavioral habits of people taking pictures under a constructed neon Christmas teepee of sorts. One dad, with his dog, and his toddlers, simple asked a young woman in heels and shorts how long she would be. She had been all but bringing in the hair blowing fans for her friend in the installation. Her response to him punched through the night. “Well, I surely don’t plan to be here forever,” she said, crouching down to get her friend in a lower angle. He looked chided. I wanted to tell her that wasn’t nice. She could’ve said, “Oh just a minute. I bet you can’t wait to photograph your adorable family.” I think she even took an extra long time just to mess with him, because even from a distance, and a bit in the dark, I think I saw his temple pulsing. See… writing material, and I was there an hour so believe me, I saw a lot of good stuff.
What I wish someone would create:
A face protector when you go out in the sun to hike that actually looks like your face. I grew up with the wool hat ski mask deal that was bank robber-esque. I am thinking like a SPF 50 thin sheer that goes right over your face and then you don’t have to go on your hike with everything in the truck of your car dangled and positioned under your hat to be blinder to the sun. A zipper batting your cheek through a 7 mile hike can be flat out taxing.
Technology Tip:
Everything is an app. Stop fighting the system by trying to check your Air BNB entry code on your browser, or looking up the availability of the Genie pass. And yes, every app needs a user name and a password. It’s enough to make you mad. But if you take a deep breath and get a password portal or like me where I just have some long endless list of erroneous passwords on an MS doc in my Cloud drive, you can look up a password and boom. You can bowl and have shoes in your size waiting. I have stopped letting out a big sigh when I am directed to download the app to simply buy flea drops. Just roll with it. Life will be easier in the non-resistance.
Shameless Plug: I had an opportunity to curate a book list recently for books on abuse. It is empowering to champion other authors who have written about their past so we can be beacons of light for others still hiding. Please share this list to your networks. You have no idea whose life could change in reading one of our stories. It would be greatly appreciated by me and the two other indie authors on the list.