(no subject)

[rivka]

Okay, I just checked with Miss Manners. In fact, it is not polite to leave in mid-interview to go shoot up in the bathroom. So that would be your mistake right there.

And really: a cigarette break? When you didn't come back smelling like smoke, and you did come back nodding? Just how stupid do I look, anyway?

Edited to add: Oops, that was just supposed to have been posted in dot_cattiness, not here as well. I'm not going to delete it, because it's garnered comments, but I apologize to people who've seen it twice.

Comments

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

<boggle>

[redbird]

Please tell me this is one of your clinic patients.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

Might be for someone interviewing for a job at the clinic. :)

Re:

[rivka.livejournal.com]

It was a research subject. If it had been one of my clinic patients, I would have had to confront him sensitively and arrange for more intensive intervention.

As it was, I was mostly just irritated about the second half of the interview taking longer.

[cattitude.livejournal.com]

Miss Manners would like to note, simply for the record, that the correct place for that oddly curved utensil, the heroin spoon or cooker, is above the plate. If one is serving heroin one should be sure to include a number of low candles in the centerpiece for use with the cooker.

The proper time for the heroin course is after the dessert course, unless it is a flaming dessert. Then one may combine the heroin and dessert courses, using the dessert itself to prepare the heroin in the cooker. The heroin spoon should be brought out on the dessert plate with the dessert spoon and fork (Unless there is a separate fruit course - then the heroin spoon's place is there.)

As a simple rule of thumb, the heroin spoon should be brought out at the same time as the finger bowls. But please - make sure that the cooker and the finger bowls are very different shapes. It is so embarassing (and expensive, and painful!) to mistake one's cooker for one's finger bowl.

In older, happier, safer times the charming rule was that the works started with the hostess's niece (or the youngest female present) and passed to the right. In these days of AIDS, this is simply not practical, and it is expected that each guest will be given his own works.

In the circumstances you mention, Miss Manners would ignore the whole question of when and how to present the cooker. Your guest has forgotten one of the basic rules of etiquette that is (or should be) taught to every first-grader: If one is going to bring a special treat to a function, one MUST bring enough for everyone. In your place, I'd concentrate on reinforcing this fundamental rule and leave the niceties until later.

Re:

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Oh my God. Dying laughing. cattitude, you're beautiful.

[elisem.livejournal.com]

Hats off to ya, cattitude. That was awesome.

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I looked in both places; this is funny as hell.o

[geminigirl]

MayI pass this around my office? Many other people here would be amused...

[cattitude.livejournal.com]

Feel free; I tend to assume that anything that hits the web is (or will be) public.

[lerryn.livejournal.com]

OK, that is just scary :)

[dedoc.livejournal.com]

...for that matter, Cattitude, are you sure YOU'RE not boarded in Emerg Med too?

--rotflmao--

[pameladean]

Oh, what a perfect pastiche.

P.S. Rivka, I'm sorry about your aggravation, of which you surely have enough already, but I'm so glad that from this dungheap has sprung cattitude's flower.

Pamela

[dedoc.livejournal.com]

Are you *sure* you're not double boarded in emergency medicine?

--shakes head in commiseration--