Please don't eat with your mouth open.
I realise that food tastes better if you can fully 'breath' whilst chewing, (I have conducted experiments on this in the privacy of my own room) and that having both the nose and the mouth open to the elements makes food taste better, but it sucks to look at and to have to listen to, so keep y'er gob shut whilst masticating.
Please don't bite your cutlery when using said cutlery to put food into your mouth.
For me, the sound is akin to nails on a chalkboard, it totally ruins the eating event, and makes me want to kill you. If you know that you do this, lazily place food in your mouth to the degree that your cutlery scrapes upon your teeth, and you don't have an unusually small mouth affliction, and you've only been invited to my table once, then now you know why.
Please don't lick your fingers unless there is absolutely nothing available to wipe your fingers on.
I must add here that I don't care what a napkin looks like, how it's folded, what colour it is etc.
I just want you to use it.
If you lick your fingers, I start to look differently at you.
Instead of thinking, 'This person is great company. I'm so glad this person is here', I instead start thinking, 'Eww. That person's fingers must stink of saliva now. Ewwww. I hope that person doesn't touch the upholstery or that book or ewww, I really don't want to shake his/her hand at the end of this affair.'
I'll want to kill you if you lick your fingers at my table. But not as much as I want to slay fork biters.
Murderous tendencies aside, I would rather enjoy the food and the company, so having basic table manners - 3 little things to consider and put into action - isn't too much to ask for, is it?
In a nutshell~
Eat with your mouth closed.
No biting of cutlery.
No licking of fingers.
Do these three requests make me seem uptight about manners?
I hope not.
My dinner parties, be they on land, or on the boat, are always delightful and highly successful affairs.
And whilst I absolutely cannot stand fork biting, if a person is worth it, they sometimes get invited back, but the Cutlery For Fork Biters comes out next time.
Okes, R, I just read your comment in the post below.
What I don't understand is your assumption that, just because I can easily talk about shakuhachis and colonic cleansing, that this should mean that I'd be more relaxed about table manners.
They aren't related in my eyes.
Being Bohemic doesn't equate to having sloppy manners.
Or does it?
So somebody who is Bohemic yet embraces good manners is an oddball?
That being Bohemic should mean I can sit down with utter pigs at a table and rah rah rah the night away in my velvet gown because I'm so open about talking about internal cleansing as a means of hopefully preventing serious illness from wiping me off the face of the planet before my time? (I'm sure the stress about fork biting will get to me first)
That because I feel comfortable talking about pretty much anything, and can pee into pressure cookers with gay abandon, that this makes me more likely to be relaxed around people who have sloppy manners?
I don't see the connection.
It's like the comments I've received from 'sailors' regarding my request for decent manners on board, who consider sloppy eating habits to be part and parcel of what being a 'pirate' (yawn) involves. That sloppy manners in the salon come with the sailing territory. I disagree. Manners have nothing to do with anything but manners.
p.s R I really enjoy your comments. I wish I could write like you.
I realise that food tastes better if you can fully 'breath' whilst chewing, (I have conducted experiments on this in the privacy of my own room) and that having both the nose and the mouth open to the elements makes food taste better, but it sucks to look at and to have to listen to, so keep y'er gob shut whilst masticating.
Please don't bite your cutlery when using said cutlery to put food into your mouth.
For me, the sound is akin to nails on a chalkboard, it totally ruins the eating event, and makes me want to kill you. If you know that you do this, lazily place food in your mouth to the degree that your cutlery scrapes upon your teeth, and you don't have an unusually small mouth affliction, and you've only been invited to my table once, then now you know why.
 |
| 101 Uses for an empty wine bag |
Please don't lick your fingers unless there is absolutely nothing available to wipe your fingers on.
I must add here that I don't care what a napkin looks like, how it's folded, what colour it is etc.
I just want you to use it.
If you lick your fingers, I start to look differently at you.
Instead of thinking, 'This person is great company. I'm so glad this person is here', I instead start thinking, 'Eww. That person's fingers must stink of saliva now. Ewwww. I hope that person doesn't touch the upholstery or that book or ewww, I really don't want to shake his/her hand at the end of this affair.'
I'll want to kill you if you lick your fingers at my table. But not as much as I want to slay fork biters.
Murderous tendencies aside, I would rather enjoy the food and the company, so having basic table manners - 3 little things to consider and put into action - isn't too much to ask for, is it?
In a nutshell~
Eat with your mouth closed.
No biting of cutlery.
No licking of fingers.
Do these three requests make me seem uptight about manners?
I hope not.
My dinner parties, be they on land, or on the boat, are always delightful and highly successful affairs.
And whilst I absolutely cannot stand fork biting, if a person is worth it, they sometimes get invited back, but the Cutlery For Fork Biters comes out next time.
Okes, R, I just read your comment in the post below.
What I don't understand is your assumption that, just because I can easily talk about shakuhachis and colonic cleansing, that this should mean that I'd be more relaxed about table manners.
They aren't related in my eyes.
 |
| Fck. This was the most enjoyable bottle of Pastis EVER. $10. N.Laos. |
Being Bohemic doesn't equate to having sloppy manners.
Or does it?
So somebody who is Bohemic yet embraces good manners is an oddball?
 |
| Rural Thailand |
That being Bohemic should mean I can sit down with utter pigs at a table and rah rah rah the night away in my velvet gown because I'm so open about talking about internal cleansing as a means of hopefully preventing serious illness from wiping me off the face of the planet before my time? (I'm sure the stress about fork biting will get to me first)
 |
| Bangkok |
That because I feel comfortable talking about pretty much anything, and can pee into pressure cookers with gay abandon, that this makes me more likely to be relaxed around people who have sloppy manners?
I don't see the connection.
It's like the comments I've received from 'sailors' regarding my request for decent manners on board, who consider sloppy eating habits to be part and parcel of what being a 'pirate' (yawn) involves. That sloppy manners in the salon come with the sailing territory. I disagree. Manners have nothing to do with anything but manners.
p.s R I really enjoy your comments. I wish I could write like you.
8 comments:
OK, truce!
I just find it a touch incongruous, like noting Arnold Schwarzenegger's manicured fingertips in Conan the Barbarian.
Perhaps. I certainly don't object and in fact applaud decent table manners, but I don't mind the odd barnyard noise amongst old friends, either.
I suppose my equivalent cringe are people who clip their nails in public, like on the bus. Something about the sound cuts through crowds, bus engine noise, honking horns and even whatever's on my player..SNIK!...SNIK!...aaarrrgggghhhh....
Anyway, I found perhaps the only Onion link that directly pertains to our chosen lifestyles. I'm sure you'll appreciate the sentiments therein!
http://www.theonion.com/articles/man-to-sail-around-world-to-decrease-awareness-of,26640/
And now, I'm going to decrease my own awareness with a shot of the Kraken in some ginger ale with a twist of lime. Purely to avoid scurvy.
That link is hilarious. Love the
The utterly irrelevant boat ride, which Gilmer plans to document by video so that people can oc-cupy precious hours of their time watching clips of a self-satisfied little shit in a cramped sailboat cabin as if it were an actual event of significance, will in no way address climate change, ocean conservation, unemployment, workers' rights, cancer research, or any wars or conflicts anywhere in the world.
I love people like this. I tell ya, you get to the point where you just give up. Just like Michael Moore has probably given up.
Re finger nail clipping *still not sure where certain keys are on this Japanese keyboard.. people in Japan often clip their nails in public.
WHOA,WHOA, WHOA, Wait just a minute there,
Do you actually not lick your fingers with barbecue????
Finger food, no. What are we, goddamned *apes*?
Long, technical digressions on how sparkly her colon is, and how her wind smells like Christmas at Starbucks, sure.
Read "The Flounder". It's one of those books people either cite in their Top Five, or throw at the wall a hundred pages in.
One can use one's fingers at a bbq, but instead of sucking and licking them, ewwwwww, just wipe any sauce onto a napkin.
Folks in many countries in Asia use their fingers to eat all kinds of dishes, but I never see them licking their fingers. The licking of fingers is a Western thing. And it's gross.
It is indeed gross and the height of peasantry.
Fuff
Finger licking is nasty!!!! Nail cutting is not good either, but what if it's an emergency? I can't stand to have a half-broken nail and I'm not about to bite it off, or tear it. What's a person to do?
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