Tag Archives: Manners

LIKE A VIRGIN

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I’m very happy being a wallflower, unlike my father who believed you should leave a lasting impression wherever you went.  And he did.  Sitting around a table sipping coffee with his buddies or standing in a crowded reception, he was the one people remembered.

“Don’t just sit there.  Say something,” he coached when I complained about an upcoming dinner party.  “Tell a funny story about yourself.  People love that.”

The night of the event, I put on my new dress, picked up my borrowed evening bag and teetered out the door on my uncomfortable high heels.  Within minutes of our arrival, my husband was whisked away to talk to some Very Important People.  I waited next to the bar.  With flawless logic, I knocked back a few vodka tonics to calm my nerves.

The dinner bell chimed and I weaved my way through the crowd.  I plopped down in the only empty seat at our table.  While I concentrated on chasing a cherry tomato around my plate trying to stab it without it shooting across the table, the woman at the head of the table shared her opinion that the current generation of teenagers was too sexually aware.

“Don’t you agree?” she said.

There was an awkward pause at the table.

My husband poked me in the side and said, “Answer the Chief Justice, Honey.”

“Well, Chief…uh…Judge…uh…I couldn’t agree more,” I said.  I cringed at the impression I was making, when my father’s advice to tell a funny story about myself, popped into my head.

I laid down my fork and cleared my throat.

“In fact, I didn’t know anything at all about sex when I was growing up,” I said, checking to make sure I had everyone’s attention.  “When I was in high school, a secret survey was passed around ‘Are you a virgin?  Yes ___ or No ___?’  I had no idea what a virgin was…” I paused for dramatic effect.  “But, it didn’t sound like anything I wanted to be, so I wrote NO!”

Hey, my father’s not the only one in our family who can make a lasting impression.

Missed Manners

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I found this note, in my mother’s handwriting, as I was digging through a box that belonged to my grandmother. I swear, that woman can still make me feel guilty.

My grandmother, “Don’t you dare call me Grandma,” Nellie, had one goal in life — to teach her wild grandchildren to have good manners. As a child, I sat through hours of angst-ridden instructions on the proper handling of silverware and napkins. A lesson on how to hold your glass properly so as not to end up with a milk mustache seemed particularly useless. My only concern at home on the farm with my sister and brothers was how to obtain the actual milk before they did.

One Thanksgiving dinner Grandmother Nellie assigned me the chair to her right to “control Teresa’s fidgeting,” as she said. She spent the meal correcting my every move. “Pass the food from left to right. Don’t gulp your water, sip it. Quit fidgeting!” Toward the end of the meal she whispered between gritted teeth, “Get your elbows off the table..now!”

I yanked my arms away and slid my elbows through the slats in the back of the chair, where they promptly got stuck. I sat quietly through the rest of the meal. My arms were tucked tight against my sides, my elbows held firmly from behind by the hateful chair slats. I politely declined any extra food offered to me and although Grandmother expressed her unhappiness at the food left on my plate, she did praise me for sitting so upright and proper.

People began to notice something was wrong when I left the dessert, angel food cake (my favorite) untouched on my plate. Grandmother immediately demanded that I remove my elbows from the chair but I could not get them free. I’m not sure when the tears started, probably when my older brother suggested we cut off my arms.

Disgusted with the entire scene, Grandmother marched into her bedroom and returned with her face cream. She slathered up each of my elbows and they finally slid free. She hurried to the kitchen and returned with a soft dishtowel. Grandmother knelt down and murmured, “Oh dear, I hope there’s no damage,” as she gently wiped the greasy face cream from the slats of her chair.

Thanks to Grandmother Nellie, I am comfortable at any formal gathering. I know how to use the proper fork and which direction to pass the food. I can even drink a foamy latte without getting a milk mustache. And my elbows? They’re right where they belong. Safely resting on the table.