DEAR MISS MANNERS: I just can’t stop thinking about a couple that my late husband and I were close friends with, and the time we invited them to dinner at our house a few years ago.
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They have an adult daughter who is married and who lives in her own home in the same town — but she’s at her parents’ house all day, every day. When her husband finishes work, he goes to pick her up, and they stay for hours more. The next day, he drops her off at her parents’ again at 7 in the morning, and it all repeats.
My friends had told me on numerous occasions that they’d like some time just to themselves, but their daughter and son-in-law just ignored that and kept coming to their house seven days a week.
Now this is where I got quite angry, and still am, years later.
I invited these friends to dinner so they could relax and have some time alone with just my husband and me. We were having a lovely time eating our meal, which I’d gone to a lot of trouble to make, when there was a knock at the door. My friends’ daughter and son-in-law walked in with their dog.
While I was getting dessert out, they put the dog on the floor and it proceeded to poo on my rug. Then they sat at the dining room table and kept asking my friends, “When are you going home?!”
I expected my friends to tell them to go home and point out how rude they were acting. Instead, my friends just got up from the table and said they’d go home — no “thank you for dinner,” no apology, nothing! They walked out my front door while I was still standing there trying to serve dessert.
Even after all these years, I’m still angry and can’t let it go. Should I bother saying anything?
GENTLE READER: This happened years ago! Are these people still within your reach? Are you going to leave Miss Manners hanging, wondering what this was all about?
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What is the daughter doing all day in her parents’ house? Why is the son-in-law complicit in turning their lives over to them? Why are your friends so frightened?
Miss Manners dearly hopes this is merely a report of rudeness, not the setup to a murder mystery. But yes, everyone was mysteriously rude.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband and I have noticed that youth today cannot write a proper thank-you letter.
When our sons had their bar mitzvahs, we wrote out examples of thank-you notes for them. One example was if they received a physical gift, and one was for if they received cash.
We received many compliments on their thank-you letters. Parents, please do your children a favor and write out examples.
GENTLE READER: Good for you. But Miss Manners hopes you do not mean that you supplied boilerplate letters that your sons only needed to copy, but rather that you taught them to express their own thoughts about the presents and the generosity involved. People can tell the difference.
Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, [email protected]; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.
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