Rude Bitches Make Me Tired: Slightly Profane and Entirely Logical Answers to Modern Etiquette Dilemmas (21 page)

Question: This is rather indelicate, but I simply must ask—is it poor etiquette for my boyfriend and me to have sex in a guest bedroom while visiting relatives who have invited us to D.C.? No one seems to mind that we sleep together, and, well, we are normal, healthy adults. Shouldn’t they expect that we would “enjoy ourselves” on vacation?

Oh, that’s just gross. Your relatives are opening their home to you so you’ll have a free place to stay while you spend the day visiting the Smithsonian, the U.S. Treasury, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and myriad other must-see spots in our nation’s capital. What they are not doing is offering you a place to do the devil’s aerobics like a couple of hormonally charged teenagers let loose in Cabo.

Just so you realize that, yes, I do understand the throes of passion and the time-honored appeal of doing it where you hadn’t oughta, I suppose it’s not so completely terrible as long as you promise to very discreetly launder your sheets, therefore not subjecting your hosts to the odious chore of dealing with a veritable palette of your bodily fluids.

I’m fairly certain you’re sticking your lower lip out now in your best approximation of a pout. As Aunt Verlie might put it: “You can walk all the way to Grant’s Tomb on that lip.”

chapter 27

A Christmas Story

To understand how I set my hair on fire while decorating the Christmas tree, we need to start at the beginning. As always, we’d driven out to the country to fetch our cedar tree. Duh Hubby’s family always has cedars because they love the challenge of trying to find tree ornaments that weigh less than a coffee filter.

We found the perfect tree quickly. Duh fired up the chain saw, and the Princess and I once again celebrated the Annual Narrow Miss of What Appears to Be an Important Leg Artery. As usual, we forgot the twine so we tied the cedar tree to the roof of the car with an extension cord and jumper cables. McDuhver!

We also tied it with the tree trunk facing the rear because Duh believes that if you drive 70 mph on the interstate back home as we did, a sturdy headwind is the best way to “get rid of all the loose needles.” Also 60 percent of the tree, but who am I to quibble with physics?

At home we relived the tradition of putting the tree into the Stand That Never Works, somehow wedging an eight-foot-tall tree into a stand we bought from Dollar General twelve years ago and anchoring it to the floor with just the right mix of hardback books. It’s a vision.

To further secure the tree, Duh employed his patented technique of screwing fishing line into the windowsill and then tying it to either side of the tree. Ornaments were administered, cider was sipped, Nat King Cole crooned. Even the Elf on the Shelf seemed happy from his judgmental little perch on the mantel.

Things were going well until I placed the very last ornament on the front of the tree, which, apparently mortified by all it had endured, suddenly pitched forward into the fireplace.

This is still not how I caught my hair on fire.

The Princess squealed as glass ornaments went flying. I suggested she put her shoes on while we cleaned up the shards, but she said she didn’t know where they were.

While Duh and the Princess held the tree upright, I lay on the floor and tried to place the screws from the stand into the trunk again. It took a long time. So long, I didn’t notice the huge tangled ball of lights over my head.

“What’s that smell?” asked Duh.

“Ha ha!” said the Princess. “Mommy’s hair’s on fire!”

I beat at my head with my hands, which just made them laugh harder.

“Whatever you do, don’t take the screws all the way out of the stand,” said Duh, moments later. “You can never get them back in again.”

I looked at him crazily from beneath singed bangs. “You mean like
this
?”

Duh looked at me like I was holding a grenade pin.

The next day, with the tree still lying pitifully on the living room floor, but oddly anchored by fishing line like a cedar Gulliver, I bought the mack daddy of Christmas tree stands.

“Whoa,” said the saleswoman. “We don’t sell many of these. Do you own a mall or something?”

Funny.

A Word About RSVP’s

Ahhh, Christmas. The most wonderful time for a beer. I don’t want to sound like a Grinch about it, but the holidays can challenge even the most well-mannered among us. Let’s start with the opening salvo of the season: the holiday party.

You work for weeks ahead, polishing the silver, ironing the linens, and tinkering with the menu until it is perfect. You mail clever invitations that convey a sense of refined merriment. At the bottom right corner, there are four little letters that will be completely ignored by most of your invitees: RSVP.

These letters stand for
respondez s’il vous plait,
which is French for “please respond.”

I have no idea why we live in the United States of America and continue to use this French abbreviation, but I guess, like peeing in the shower, it has just become a habit. Okay, maybe not exactly like that, but you get the idea.

Please, if you learn nothing else from reading this book, resolve here and now never to ignore the RSVP. (You must do this for
all
parties and events, including and especially weddings. It truly is what separates us from the savages.) For heaven’s sake, your hosts aren’t asking you to donate your corneas; they’re asking you to call, text, or even e-mail a response so they’ll know whether or not you’re coming. (If the invitation specifies “regrets only,” it means just that: You need only respond if you don’t intend to go.) This simple act will take you about thirty-five seconds and will help them immensely in planning for food and beverages. Is it really that hard? We hear you: “I forgot” or “They know we’re coming; we always come” or “They know I’m an inconsiderate loser and they should know that I’m never going to actually respond. But I plan to be there. I think. Unless something better comes along. Which it could. I’ll let you know.”

I hear this from hosts all the time. Some of them are so irritated (and I don’t blame them a bit) that they form a sort of last-minute phone bank to call everyone on the list and ask them for a yes or no. Really, if you’re spending hundreds on booze and food, should you have to treat your guests like they’re tiny children?

Can you tell how much this particular etiquette violation pisses me off?
Can you???

As if this situation isn’t troubling enough, we really have trouble understanding people who won’t even respond to an “e-vite.” There it all is, on a screen right in front of you. All you have to do is click Yes or No. And you just can’t do it, can you? There’s even a Maybe option for folks who might have to work that day or just aren’t sure yet. We can always come back to the maybes for confirmation.

I know this is rude, but I can’t help but think that it would be fitting punishment to seat the folks who show up at your lovely party despite having not RSVP’d in the kitchen. Place an empty bowl and a box of Rice Krispies in front of them and say, “Have at it. We’ll be in the other room, enjoying a sumptuous prime rib, sautéed asparagus, and those cool little puffed potato thingies that I’ve been working on
for three frickin’ days.
Bon appétit!”

Question: The other day I overheard one of my neighbors snickering about the Christmas letter that I send out every year to friends and family. Frankly, I was hurt. I spend a lot of time and effort updating everyone on our family’s “happenings.” Should I continue to send the letter, or is it really just something that people make fun of?

The answer is yes to both your questions. You shouldn’t stop sending the single best source of a genuine belly laugh that many of us get all year long. It would be incredibly rude of you to just cut us off without warning. How will we ever go an entire year without an update on your oldest son’s stratospheric GPA. You actually wrote last year: “Will it be Harvard? Will it be Yale? The world is his oyster!” And your precious daughter, the ballerina? Did she win the role of Sugarplum Fairy this year in
The Nutcracker
again? Don’t leave us hanging!

So much fun has been poked at the Christmas letter that I’ve noticed some senders seem to be toning down the bragging and even poking a little fun at themselves. I just hate that. Even the distant cousin who one year bragged of “finally getting approved for a Visa platinum card so suckit
CreditReport.Com
!” has shaped up and, in the most recent letter, wrote of dissatisfaction at work and mild regret at having put her baby daughter in the pageant circuit—a roller-coaster ride of expensive costumes, sparkly cowgirl hats, flippers, extensions, tanning, and Red Bull. “Still and all,” she wrote, “when I saw the look on her little nine-month-old face when she won the Sparkle Baby title, it was all worth it.…” Yes!

Question: What’s the proper etiquette on Christmas cards? In other words, is it okay to drop someone from the list if you’ve sent them a card for five years and they’ve never reciprocated?

That depends. It’s possible that, through their lack of response, they’re telling you that
(a)
they don’t do cards, and
(b)
even if they did, they probably wouldn’t send one to you. That said, you should really consider your own motives in sending these cards. If you are sending them to people you genuinely care about, then it shouldn’t matter that they aren’t “card people.” Some people enjoy receiving them, but they are just never going to reciprocate because they’re lazy, unmotivated, cheap, or all three.

The point is, their bad behavior or disinterest shouldn’t dissuade you from sending them a card if you genuinely like them and want to send a traditional greeting that shows you’re thinking of them. Take the high road and keep sending them if your motives are pure. If you’re just hoping for reciprocity so you can finally have enough cards to decorate that archway in the den, well, you might want to rethink the whole card thing.

Question: I hate sounding ungrateful, but my friend gives the weirdest Christmas presents. It’s almost always something from a resale store. Is it too much to ask for a present to be something that no one else has ever worn before?

No, it’s not, but this is a test of how well-mannered you can be under extraordinarily awful circumstances. We all know people who love the planet so mightily that they insist on giving recycled gifts even as they speed away in their shiny new cars. Hmmm.

Because Duh’s family is just about the dearest bunch of folks there is, some insist on giving only handmade gifts or perhaps a poem they have written especially for each family member. It’s a maddeningly lovely tradition that leaves me wondering if they are all so directionally challenged that they can’t find the local mall with both hands and a flashlight. I mean homemade stuff is cute if you’re Laura Ingalls and the mall is, like, one hundred years away, but haven’t we progressed to the point of buying mass-produced goods from China in delightfully flattering colors and styles? Do I hear an “amen”?

Oops. Did I just write that out loud? The proper reaction to these “gifts from the (blech) heart” should be one of appreciation. Fake it till you make it. I think I once heard a roomful of alcoholics say that.

Question: While we’re on the subject of gift-giving, is it okay to leave the price tag on so the recipient will know that you really spent a lot of money on them?

I’m sorry. Is there anyone out there who’s not a complete and total asshole who has a question for me?

Question: Our office holiday party got a little out of hand, and I drunkenly kissed my married boss. Things are going to be awkward now. What should I do?

You’re killing me, here. Really, anyone at all?

Question: My daughter’s little friend, who is also eight, just told her that Santa isn’t real. I want to march right over to that kid’s house and give her a piece of my mind. What’s the right thing to do?

Okay, you honestly expect me to endorse a plan in which you arrive on an eight-year-old’s doorstep screeching at her because she told your kid the truth? I hate to break it to you, but your kid’s not all that bright or she would’ve never told you this. The Princess knew that Santa wasn’t real for years. Finally, when she was about twelve and we were “leaving cookies for Santa and Rudolph,” the Princess admitted that she’d known about Santa for years but was afraid that if she told us, she’d get fewer presents. That’s how most kids do it. Now, calm your spiteful ass down.

The Last Word

Nobody’s perfect. No sooner had I finished this book than I realized I’d forgotten to RSVP for a neighborhood party; found myself using my fingers to coax some rice onto a fork (mercifully in the privacy of my own bathroom; okay, that may be a twofer violation); and, worst of all, flat-out forgot to write a proper thank-you note to a friend who nominated me for a fancy award I didn’t really deserve.

We’re suffocatingly busy sometimes—okay, all the time—and it’s hard to find the time for the niceties. But we must. While I would love for the Princess to be able to identify the fish fork (mostly so she can tell me which one it is), I’m much more concerned that she treat others with kindness and tenderness. That’s the essence of all this manners business: the care of those around you, whether friend or stranger. At its heart and soul, etiquette is all about putting others at ease, whether that’s through a well-earned compliment or an engaging conversation in which you actually listen to what someone is saying rather than planning your response while they’re talking. Hard to do, I know.

But let’s try, shall we?

And if there’s an etiquette question that is causing you concern and wasn’t addressed in these pages, please feel free to shoot me an e-mail (or if you really want to suck up, a handwritten note on engraved stationery), and we’ll discuss. Politely, of course.