Dear Miss Manners: I drove through my neighborhood's relatively new beer barn for the first time yesterday. It is at a busy, slightly derelict intersection. You drive in, open a window and tell the girl in a bikini what you want.
Perfect for fat guys whose beer bellies aren't gigantic enough. I assume part of the business model includes the girl in the bikini being underpaid and expecting tips from fellows who find her appearance compelling.
As a gay man with a tiny rainbow Texas on my license plate (covering up the actual silhouette of Texas thereon), am I exempt from this? If a man of similar age, attire and friendliness served me in the same situation, I'd give him a dollar.
Gentle Reader: Is it any wonder that Miss Manners hates tipping questions?
Etiquetteers are supposed to be stalwarts of the tipping system. Supposedly, they are the only creatures on Earth who neither quail (for fear of under or overestimating the amount) nor swagger (with the desire to impress or punish) when expected to tip.
ADVERTISEMENT
But the fact is that reasonable tipping is dependent not only the price paid, but on such variables as the custom of the region, the degree of luxury of the establishment and the frequency with which the same service is used. It is therefore impossible to give a standard answer.
And now you go and add the element of how much erotic appeal the server has to the customer. Thanks. Miss Manners doesn't doubt that consideration of this might apply to some, but perhaps not to the etiquette-conscious.
Dear Miss Manners: I have always been under the impression that one wears neither white nor black to a wedding: the former, of course, to avoid upstaging the bride and the latter because it seems gloomy.
My adult daughter and I disagree on this. Please clarify the preferred practice for us.
Gentle Reader: Apparently the association of black with death survives. And we know that color symbolism prevails at weddings, or what are all those brides - young or old, first marriage or fifth - doing in those huge (or slinky) white dresses?
So you and Miss Manners are not the only ones who find that the same black dress deemed chic - or just "safe" - at a party brings an aura of pathos to a wedding.
Address your etiquette questions to Miss Manners, in care of The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC, 20071 or e-mail her at missmanners@unitedmedia.com
