Mealtime Etiquette

While Scott is somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean on his way to Ghana, I will look to other urgent matters that need to be addressed in our household.

Recently my 13 year old niece was eating dinner with us. When I asked her to pass the salt she passed me the salt AND pepper. She said she'd recently taken an etiquette quiz and learned that if someone asks for the salt, it is proper to pass the pepper with it. I did not know that. Interestingly enough, I wasn't familiar with the other couple of things she could remember from the quiz. This probably illustrates why there are some issues that take place at our table that need to be addressed. These are some etiquette tips that need to be followed in my home.

1. Do not hit another diner in the face with your plate. This actually happened shortly after the salt and pepper discussion. The perpetrator...my niece, the etiquette expert.
2. Do not gesture with your knife when there is a glob of soft butter on it. It WILL fly across the table...and no, it is not funny.
3. Do not throw peas or any other food objects.
4. URGENT! Do not change your underwear at the table, standing on your chair, with your butt at face level with another diner. (To be fair, Adam is the only one who breaks this rule.)
5. Do not walk up to the table at dinnertime and use any of the following expressions: Eeeewww! Yuck! Gross! I hate that!
6. If you have to throw up, do not do it on your mother's plate.
7. Do not purposely scratch your fork on your plate creating a "fingernails on a chalkboard" screech.

These are all actual incidents that have happened or do happen on a regular basis in our family. And they, the children, actually had the nerve to comment while watching video of Williams, "He chews with his mouth open!"