Letters to the Editor
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You think you got problems?
My husband dips his sausages in maple syrup! Sausages! In maple syrup!
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Slow Fucking News Week at Salon
Gee, I can't wait to buy the book so I can learn WTF Cary thinks about dipping English muffins in my egg yolk.
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I could have written this letter!
OMG I have the exact same problem. I've tried therapy, 12-step programs, electroshock therapy, you name it. But no matter how hard I try, I still have the same problem the LW has: not knowing the difference between an actual problem and a non-issue. At least I don't have Cary's problem: a total lack of respect for how I earn my pay.
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Pennsylvania aint California
So what if people in Pennsylvania eat Dippy egg with toast soldiers? People in Pennsylvania also eat scrapple and cheesesteaks.
If you never heard of scrapple check it out.
Yum Yum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrapple
There is a big difference between "proper English" and "Pennsylvania subsistance". Mr. Tennis blew this one big time.
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Maple syrup and sausages
Duh, you can buy maple syrup flavored sausages at any super market. But you would probably get more maple flavor by dipping them. So let him dip away.
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Okay,
Now, I grew up with English parents who were very big on manners. With that said. . . What? No seriously, is she joking?
What a lot of people don't seem to understand is that manners and etiquette are not there to demonstrate class divides or just for the sick pleasure of a select few, they are there to make you and those around you feel comfortable. Think about it. Placing your napkin on your lap is actually quite handy if something falls from your mouth and it puts the napkin in an optimal position: out of the sight of others (in case it gets soiled) and within your reach. With a table setting, starting on the outside and working your way in makes perfect sense, no one wants gaps of missing flatware. Everyone placing their glasses in the same direction makes it easier to know which glass belongs to whom. Placing your knife and fork the correct way on your plate when you are finished with your course notifies the wait staff of such. It's just common sense. As long as you weren't lapping yolk off of your smeared fingers and using the table cloth to wipe off the excess, I think you're fine.
I think that your wife in making you feel compelled to write a letter to an advice columnist about this is aiding in the ruin of the spirit of etiquette and good manners. They are not meant to oppress, they are meant to add ease to your daily routine.
I suppose my point is: relax, you weren't dining at Versailles, no one was judging you (with the notable exception being your wife).
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THere was this one time, at band camp....
I had a boyfriend in high school - Neil Gallanter - that was just about perfect. He was that rare kid popular with the teachers because he was so smart but also popular with the students because he wasn't a suck-up, threw great parties, and was both captain of the football team and on the National Honor Society. He was the fashion everyone else followed. When he wore a down vest, everyone else started wearing them. When he wore Adidas sneakers so did everyone else (but only Neil wore the black suede ones). We went out for a year and it was great, I couldn't have asked for a better boyfriend.... except that he had bad table manners. He ate his salad with the wrong fork, used a soup spoon to eat cereal, bent his head too low over his plate.....as much as I loved him, I just couldn't deal. I broke up with him just after Christmas. And then, right before senior prom, I realized my mistake. It was supposed to be the biggest night of my life and I would be home alone while my ex-boyfriend, the person I loved most in the world, the guy I lost my virginity to, would be eating his salad at the classy restaurant in town (Nantucket Cove) with a dessert fork, across the table from a junior varsity cheerleader with perky boobs who was thrilled to death to be dating a *senior*. I actually drove my dad's car to Nantucket Cove, and stood outside in the rain, looking through the smeary window at my beloved flirting with his starry-eyed date. I wept black mascara tears as they fed each other bites of New York style cheese cake. Then I walked home barefoot, my strappy sandals in hand, the hem of my gown dragging in the puddles.
Flash forward eleven years I am a high school geometry teacher. One of the chorale directors had to get a liver transplant during the summer months - the month where our national-award-winning marching band attended music camp with two thousand othere scholar-musicians from the tri-state area. I was asked to substitute for the chorale director - I sing in the city chorale, and was the only logical choice at such short notice. I accepted, since the principal assured me my duties would be mostly chaperonage and taking roll call - the kids were quite talented and already were familiar with the program pieces laid out for them that summer.
On the third day, in the dining hall, I accidentally spilled my tray. I was cleaning up the mess when I saw a piece of mac and cheese had landed on the black suede Adidas sneaker of....Neil Gallanter. There he was, my beloved. He'd lost most of his hair and had rimless glasses and a bit of a belly...but I'd have known him anywhere because he, my own true love, was eating his salad with his dinner fork.
It was the greatest night of my life, being reunited with Neil. We were married the following fall, and he wore his black Adidas sneakers with a tux that had 3 vertical stripes on the pants - just the perfect Neil touch. My bouquet was a large dessert fork with wild jasmine ivy twined around the tines. And as a joke, our guests were served a seven course meal with only one fork. We've been married two years now, and are expecting our first child in seven months. If it's a girl we'll call her Diana, if a boy Frank. But girl or boy the baby will have the same middlel name - forchetta, which is Italian for 'fork' and, we think, beautifully captures the uniqueness of our love story.
To this day I am so grateful I got a second chance with Neil. I can only hope the LW's wife will wake up and appreciate her man as he deserves to be loved, before it is too late.