Dear Miss Manners! Waiters in regular restaurants don’t seem to be trained to remove trash from tables. Whenever we go to a restaurant to eat, my friends and I quickly find a pile of trash on the table with nowhere to put it: paper straws, cream cups, used sugar bags and sticky paper used as napkins. ring.
I either pick up the pieces and throw them on the hostess counter or in the bathroom, or leave them there for the duration of the meal.
Yes, I can ask the waiter to take it away, but I don’t feel comfortable handing it over to the waiter with a small handful of trash. What suggestions does the hostess have? Am I really destined to spend the entire meal looking at trash?
While the availability of brick-and-mortar restaurants is shrinking by the day, Hostess sees limited overlap between restaurants that serve napkins and those that use mobile servers. While she waits for it to completely disappear (using napkins rather than formal food), she doesn’t mind you neatly stacking the scraps in the shade of a faux flower centerpiece.
Dear Miss Manners! When we were staying in a country house with another couple, I offered to cook a special meal. Everyone agreed on this. My wife and I were guests of another (wealthier) couple.
It was time to cook and everyone else, including my wife, was huddled in the kitchen preparing their own snacks. Am I wrong that I am offended by this behavior? What should I say?
Dear Miss Manners! How long do you need to store items left at home and ensure they are returned in the same condition? For example, the refrigerator that its owner forgot about when they ran away from dinner because they were angry at their brother (that’s another story).
I tried several times to get them to take him away because I couldn’t drive due to health reasons. I don’t have a garage, so I kept it at home for a long time. Finally the owner said to leave it outside and they would pick it up when they could. Well, it’s covered in pollen and sometimes rain, so I have to constantly clean it.
When I attempt to return an item, am I responsible for ensuring that the item is returned in good condition?
Once you request recycling of an item, there is a deadline for the item and the person who owns it.
The length of this period will depend on the value of the item to the owner, how burdensome it is for you to store it, and your relationship with the owner – all of which can change over time.
Although the owner does not limit the value of an item to its monetary value, she believes that the refrigerator does not have much sentimental value and takes up a lot of space. As your favor with the owner decreases, so does the quality of the cleaning.
The new Miss Manners column is published Monday through Saturday at WashingtonPost.com/advice. You can submit questions to MissManners on her website Missmanners.com. You can also follow her @RealMissManners.
Post time: Jun-04-2024