Oh sheet, the tipping point and all in-tents and purposes
Dear Rachel,
We are having a civil disagreement in our home, and you are the arbiter. Let us presume, hypothetically, that you are staying overnight at a friend’s home. That friend puts you up in a guest room. When it comes time to leave, do you: A. strip the sheets off the bed, B. put the sheets in the laundry, C. leave the sheets on the bed and make the bed, or D. leave the bed unmade so your friend can do whatever they prefer?
- Strange Bedfellows
Dear Valued Guests,
There are too many levels of friendship for me to answer this question definitively. All I can do is answer for the hypothetical friends who I would hypothetically let stay in my hypothetical guest room. Definitely A, with C as an alternate acceptable choice. Your friend probably has a preferred way of doing laundry, so definitely not B. And what kind of animal chooses D? I won’t even do this in an Airbnb. I wouldn’t even do this in a brothel. Hypothetically, of course.
- Lie in it, Rachel
Dear Rachel,
I’m a server at one of our fine local establishments, and as you well know, more and more people are coming out more and more often. This is good for business, but bad for servers. Well, half bad. Some people are exuberant to be back in the world and tipping better than ever. But more people seem to have forgotten everything and are tipping miserly. Like, “Keep the change” of $1.34 from a $50. Am I also allowed to say, “Oh, I forgot my manners during the pandemic” when these people come back in?
- Fly in the Soup
Dear Hair in the Meatloaf,
I don’t have a lot of rules in life, but one of them is to be incredibly kind to people who have the power to spit in my food. Public shaming might work better for you than bad manners. I once went to lunch with a “friend” who tried to leave the tip line blank on the check. The server actually came back and said, “Excuse me, but we’re not allowed to have you leave this line blank. You know, for your safety.” She blanched and scribbled in a hearty tip, and I never went into public with her again.
- Gratuity included, Rachel
Dear Rachel,
Why do people feel the need to “get away from it all” in forty-foot RVs with generators that run all night so they can binge-watch Hulu? That’s what RV parks are for, or those campsites without trees where the park attendants have built astroturf lawns outside their campers. I don’t pretend that my visits to Forest Service campgrounds are truly “roughing it,” but I do hope to hear the sounds of the creek and the breeze while I sleep. Not some constant RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
- Gotta Get Away
Dear Survivalist,
The big question is, if these people bother you so much, why don’t you learn how to tough it for real? Carry everything you need on your back. Hike for three days into the wilderness, the last two off trail. Find out what you’re really made of. And when you’re done out there, please put your sheets in the wash.
- Haven’t showered in a week, Rachel
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