Table Manners As Taught To Me By Uncle Rudy

[mrissa]

1. When drinking something through a straw, you are allowed to slurp three times. If you slurp more than three times, you are totally uncouth and rude. Three or under, you're golden.

1a. These slurps can be as long as your lung capacity and/or ability to circular breathe can make them. It is the number, not the length of time slurping, that is key here.

2. If someone asks for you to pass a dish of something at a meal, and you want that thing as well, you may call out, "Shortstop!" and take some for yourself as it passes.

2a. It is rude to shortstop something if there's only one person's worth left.

2b. Negotiations about splitting the last piece of whatever are permissible if handled without acrimony.

3. Towards the end of a holiday meal, the appropriate comment is, "Well, I wonder what the poor folks are doing." If this comment has not been made, preferably by an elder, do not ask to be excused; the meal is not yet over.

Comments

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

#1: THREE?? Wow, that's a very generous allowance.

#2: The act was also known as short-stopping where I grew up, but it was never condoned.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I suspect that Uncle Rudy felt that fewer than three slurps meant that you were not showing a proper enthusiasm for your milkshake (or whatever else you were drinking through a straw, but mostly milkshakes).

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Milkshakes were certainly the thing for which straws were required. Not that we ever had milkshakes at home; but the slurp rule applied anywhere. When traveling I would often have a grilled cheese sandwich and a milkshake for lunch (chocolate shake, of course). You could get it at any little cafe (these driving trips were mostly before fast-food chains existed, or at least before they were ubiquitous and before I recognized them as chains).

Come to think of it, at home straws only came out when one was sick.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

Could you explain the ritual hinted at in (3) a bit more? Mainly I can't think what the appropriate response to "Well, I wonder what the poor folks are doing" would be. Does someone say something (and if so, what)? Does the person who says it immediately jump up and begin clearing the table? Is everyone else expected to jump up and begin clearing the table, while the speaker retires to check the doorstep for little match girls or similar?

[mechaieh.livejournal.com]

*blinks*

My father-in-law does #3 as well.

This Southerner's response is privately to wince and to refrain from being baited into political "discussions," and publicly to initiate a fresh conversation having nothing to do with FIL whatsoever.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

All I know is that it takes a fair bit of effort to resist answering it with "They're sitting in their hovels, stewing tonight."

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The appropriate response is a small pause and then going on with one's meal/conversation.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The idea that this would be intended to be political is a little startling to me.

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

My dad, at the end of each meal, says, "Is anyone still hungry? Are we all not hungry?" It's one of those provider things. He had to have reassurance that he was a Good Provider Daddy and that No, Nobody was Hungry.

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

And I really like the shortstop thing. Never heard it before. :D

[mechaieh.livejournal.com]

Intentionally political, no. But were I ever to say what I really thought about that statement (which would be akin to Timprov's, above), it would most certainly head there in a hurry.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

My father used to say "Wonder what the poor folks are doing," too--was your uncle Depression-generation like my father

[moiread]

But what if the bottom of your milkshake is still really thick? What if you've gotten to the point of having to make slurpy noises but it will still take more than three good pulls to finish it? What do you do?! You can't just throw it out with more left in there! That's horrible! This is very distressing proposition.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Like Timprov, I think it would be very hard for me to let a statement like that go unremarked -- I don't know if that's my West Coast upbringing or my commie sympathies.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

#2 is the most bestest brilliantest rule ever.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Errm. Timprov is referring to Camelot, not Das Kapital.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, at that point I think you have to just be rude. And were my uncle still with us, he would have a good time razzing you for being "soooo rude."

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

As mamculuna mentions below, this seems to be a Depression-era thing.

[moiread]

I don't think timprov means what you think he means.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

I lose at reference-getting. I shall slap myself with a rubber fish.

[moiread]

Though I suspect Marissa's Uncle Rudy's "poor folks" comment is of the non-offensive variety (I can't tell for sure, because it's totally obscure to me, but I'm assuming), I feel your pain. In my family it would be the glaringly offensive kind, and nobody would understand why it was offensive, and then I'd have to literally bite my tongue to not throw out a verbal whapping, and that would mean it's time to change the subject right quick. Some of us just lose the lottery on relatives, in-laws or otherwise. ;)

[moiread]

I think that might call for extra slurpings, just for sass.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Among other things, I think there's a tonal difference between "whew, we're not poor!" and "whew, we're not poor any more."

Among other things.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Uncle Rudy was a great fan of sass.

[moiread]

Well, then! It's fortunate he had at least one niece who's good at sassing. It would have been a terrible waste otherwise.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

How do you think I got this way? :)

[aedifica]

What occupies their time while waiting for... um, can't think of a good rhyme here.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

I think this is why I usually leave food on my plate. It seems rude to let the host wonder if I'd like more.

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

Isn't that why milkshakes are often accompanied by a spoon?

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

I read this out loud to the office, and it was generally agreed that Uncle Rudy has taught us a valuable lesson in #2. Henceforth, we will all be shortstopping during office birthday parties. (We already do, so really we agreed we need to holler "shortstop!" from now on.)

My friend Kate said these all seemed like rules she understood from her own family, but that her grandma had an additional one: If you were going to reach for something across another person's plate, you could say "Boarding house reach!" and it was all good as long as one foot remained on the floor.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ah. In my family, "Boarding house reach!" is something a parent can say to a child to indicate what they are doing rudely, rather than an excuse for the behavior.

One of my former friends had a mother who said her only table manners rule was no more than one knee on the table at a time. This was a funny joke until it wasn't and things like, "Say thank you to the person who cooked you dinner, dammit," and, "Be roughly on time for meals you said you were coming for," might have been useful additional rules.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

In my family, "Boarding house reach!" is something a parent can say to a child to indicate what they are doing rudely, rather than an excuse for the behavior.

Mine, too, but I am amused nonetheless.

Knee???

[rmnilsson.livejournal.com]

Coming from a larger and possibly more argumentative family...

We were allowed to shortstop a dish without verbal comment (since your utterance might break the flow of the argument about the death penaly/laws of thermodynamics/proper care of hardwood floors going on at the table). But you did have to make sure that the next person in line knows where the food is headed, in case they were involved in the argument.

Also, we tend to have a kids' table and an adults' table at holidays, so the kids can eat and then go back to running around, yelling, throwing pillows, etc., while the adults continue their arguments. And the meal is officially over when my mom finishes pushing desserts and starts drafting dish washers.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I am also puzzled by knees on the table. The only constraint I know about knees in the dining room have to do with the way that sometimes a young person finds it easier or more comfortable to kneel on the chair, instead of using a booster seat (or be held on somebody's lap like a baby.) This is a perfectly fine way to behave at the table. One can sit for conversation and kneel to reach one's plate more easily, going back and forth, and that's fine too. But it's not general permission to squirm all over the dining room.

[hypatia-j.livejournal.com]

I think Miss Manners concurs on #1, not necessarily #1a though :)