Tag Archives: Etiquette

Wedding Reception Etiquette

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Is it just me or do these intense wedding reception setups make you feel kind of nervous and claustrophobic? [via Wikimedia Commons]

Receptions are the really fun part of weddings but they can also be the most complicated and fraught with etiquette conundrums. Etiquette doesn’t care about what your decorations are, your colors, how many people you invite, whether you have a band, a DJ, or an iPod, or which of the zillions of traditions you want to include. There are a million websites and books out there to help you decide on the style of your reception. But there are a few etiquette points that are important to keep in mind.

Reception Timing and Meals:

Often, your ceremony venue will have specific times that you are allowed to be there, this is especially true for churches. What do you do when your ceremony has to be at 2pm and you want to have an evening dinner reception?

Typically, you should do your best to avoid a gap, but they can be unavoidable. If you must have a gap and your wedding site is too far away for most guests to return to their homes/hotels, you need to have something for them to do in the meantime- many couples will have a longer cocktail hour at the reception venue to fill the time. Gaps are especially rude if you use them as a way to avoid paying for a meal for your guests- for example, having a wedding at 3pm and then having a “cocktail reception” starting at 8pm.

This leads me to my next point, you need to provide a proper meal if your wedding takes place over a mealtime, or be ready to expect some grumpy and hungry guests who order pizza and eat it in a parking lot (it happened on an episode of Four Weddings). If your ceremony starts at 4 or 5pm and is immediately followed by a reception that goes until 9, 10, or later, you need to provide a full meal of some kind. It is very poor hospitality to expect people to be spending 5, 6, or more hours on your wedding and not eat a real meal in that time. Now, very very heavy finger foods and appetizers can certainly count, but only if it is truly enough to fill up hungry bellies.

If you can’t afford to provide a full dinner for your drinking and dancing late into the night reception, then you need to consider other options:

  • A ceremony followed by a simple 2 hour cake and punch reception is a perfectly proper celebration for a wedding on a budget. Have the wedding at 2 and everyone is gone by 5 and you have no etiquette faux pas.
  • A morning wedding followed by a brunch or lunch reception gives you the ability to provide a nice meal which is usually much cheaper than a full dinner.
  • A very late evening wedding with the ceremony starting at 8 and followed by snacks, cake, drinking, and dancing late into the night.
  • A dinner reception with more casual foods- you don’t need to serve a choice between plated rubber chicken and filet mignon. Why not try a big pasta buffet, catered barbeque, takeout Chinese, food trucks, or big sandwich platters? Think outside the box and you will find something that will suit your budget and satisfy your hosting requirements!

It is smart to include a hint of what your reception will be like on your invitation so guests know what to expect ie cocktail reception to follow, dinner and dancing to follow, join us for cake and punch after, etc.

Toasts:

Traditionally, the Best Man and Maid of Honor give toasts at the wedding. Please ask them well in advance if they feel comfortable giving a toast at all. Check out Jaya’s post on toasting etiquette for more!

Seating:

If you are serving a meal, you need to provide seats for all your guests.

You don’t have to have a seating chart or assigned tables, but it can take the pressure off your guests and prevent the “school cafeteria” feeling of “where do I sit?” It also prevents the problem of large groups pulling in chairs to overfill one table and leaving another table with only two chairs for a couple of guests to sit awkwardly.

If you have assigned tables but not assigned seats, you can either have a list posted somewhere or “escort cards,” these are little cards (or something else more creative!) that have the guests’ names on them. They pick them up before going in to dinner and see what table they are at. If you have assigned seats, just use normal placecards at each person’s seat.

Receiving Lines:

You don’t often see receiving lines anymore (or at least not in my circle!). Most couples have opted to skip them in favor of going around to each table during the reception. Whichever you choose, you must do something to ensure that you speak to each guest for at least a moment during the wedding. Even though it seems like it would take a long time, the receiving line might actually be faster and allow you to enjoy more of the reception than trying to greet each person while they eat and reduces the risk that you will miss someone.

For the logistics: you either have the receiving line immediately after the ceremony and guests go through it as they exit the ceremony and go to the reception or you have it at the reception as everyone goes into dinner. Obviously, the couple needs to be in the line, but usually their parents and often the attendants will stand in it as well.

You needn’t do more than greet each guest and thank them for coming. After that, move them right along to the next person to keep the line moving.

Cash Bars:

I am going to take a very strong stance here and say that at American weddings, cash bars are always against general etiquette. Think about it: a wedding reception is essentially a thank you gift for your guests for taking part in your Important Life Event, and you shouldn’t ask anyone to pay for part of a gift. Also, it has always seemed strange to me that alcohol is the one area people feel comfortable asking others to chip in for. If you wouldn’t ask someone to pay for their dinner or their share of the cake, you shouldn’t have a cash bar. You are the host; you have to pay for everything associated with your event.

That being said, you are not required to serve alcohol at your wedding. You are also not required to have a full open bar; beer, wine, and soft drinks are a perfectly acceptable and cheaper option. Anyone who complains about your hospitality is being rude.

Another problem with cash bars is that it creates a situation in which some guests have something that the other guests do not because they can afford to pay for it. All of your guests should receive exactly equal food and drink and it is extremely rude to flash differences in their faces.

If you even THINK of having a cash bar for ALL drinks including soft drinks, then, I don’t even know what to do with you. (I have never seen this in real life, but it happened once on another episode of Four Weddings. That show is a mess.)

Of course, you are welcome to do what works in your community and if every single wedding you have every attended has had a cash bar, then you are probably okay.

Money Dances/Wishing Wells:

In a few cultures, money dances are traditional and therefore acceptable. General American culture is not one of them. In traditional American culture, your guests have already purchased a present or given you a check, so why are you asking them to give you even more?

Reception Activities:

Weddings have many fun traditions such as special dances, cake cutting, and bouquet and garter tossing. You can choose to have these as you wish, and don’t let anyone pressure you either way. However, some thoughts:

  • If you decide to do a garter throw/bouquet toss, do NOT force people to participate and don’t let anyone drag all the single people out onto the floor. Personally, I would also recommend keeping the retrieval of the garter tasteful, but you should do what works for you. And if you want your groom crawling up under your skirt to porno music in front of your grandma, that’s your business.
  • I have seen the first dance/father daughter dance occur between the cocktail hour and dinner, but traditionally they happened immediately after the dinner and toasts and opened up the floor to dancing. I have also been to weddings where there was dancing between each course of the dinner, so in those cases, you don’t really need to open the dance floor. Just be thoughtful about how you are scheduling activities and how they will help your event flow.
  • Some modern couples are opting to do a “marriage dance” where all the couples dance and the DJ has them sit down in order of how recently they have been married and then the couple who has been married the longest gets the bouquet. This can be a nice alternative to a bouquet toss which makes single people feel put on display, but at the same time, it excludes single people entirely. Basically you can’t win, so go with what works for you. Or start a new tradition where the whole reception has to try to catch the bouquet? Or you hide the bouquet and there is a search for it? So many possibilities.
  • If you are Jewish, you might want to dance the Hora. Presumably, you already know how to do this, but if you are having a lot of people at your wedding who have never done it before there are a couple things you might want to remember:
    • Everyone is allowed to join in! But your gentile friends might not know what to do, so make sure there are enough people around to show them the ropes.
    • Only the bride and groom go up in the chairs (though we’ve been to Jewish weddings where the parents went up too). Make sure the people lifting you know to keep you close enough together that you can both hold onto the napkin (“schmatta”).
    • Don’t use folding chairs for this activity unless you want to lose a finger!
    • (H/T to my good friend Rachel at whose wedding I had my first Hora experience and who was kind enough to answer my questions.)
  • Cutting the cake: this is pretty simple- the couple goes over to the cake, hold the knife together and cut a small slice. Then they feed it to each other and pose for pictures. Smashing the cake into each others faces is a thing in some places, and it’s totally at your discretion, but definitely don’t do it if one half of the happy couple doesn’t want to! Icing on that $4,000 dress!!
  • Reception activities should happen fairly quickly after dinner and end with the cake cutting. If you are having a “sending off” you can do the bouquet toss/garter throw immediately before you leave. (This is actually more traditional than having the bouquet toss randomly in the middle of your dance- originally it was more of a “just toss the bouquet in the direction of your girlfriends as you head out the door” type of thing than an event that everyone gathered around to watch.)
  • Have your MC announce when these activities are taking place as people will want to watch.

Ending the Reception:

Back in the day when parents hosted the wedding and the couple was the guest of honor, the couple would be expected to leave the reception before it was completely over. They might even change into “going away clothes” and there would be a big sending off as they left on their honeymoon. Then the guests would know that they could leave and everyone would start clearing out.

Now, often, the couple has paid good money for this party and they want to enjoy it until the bitter end. This can create a conflict with some older and more traditional guests who feel like they absolutely have to stay until the bride and groom leave. Nowadays, most people know that the cake cutting signifies the end of official reception activities and that people are free to leave anytime after that, so you might consider making sure that it is the end of official activities or even having your DJ or band leader announce that it is “the last activity but to please enjoy the music and dancing until [end time].” You might also want to consider having it (and your other “official” activities) fairly early during the reception in consideration of guests who might need to leave.

Other Things:

  • Apparently it is a tradition for guests to take home the centerpieces? If this doesn’t bother you, that’s great. If you have plans for your centerpieces, warn your caterer/wedding coordinator/family members/etc or maybe put a note under them saying not to take them.
  • Tip your vendors! Make sure either someone is assigned to handle this or you’ve prearranged the tips.

How Do I Make It Clear This Is A “Friends Only” Easter Dinner?

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Unexpected guests are never fun [Via]

Dear Uncommon Courtesy,

 I’m writing because I recently had a problem come up multiple times and I’m not sure if I’m the person practicing bad etiquette or if my friends are. Basically, every year I throw a small Easter dinner. It is small because my apartment can only seat 8 people maximum. Generally I invite my best lady friends, I make them Easter baskets, and I serve a 4 course meal with wine. The majority of people invited are repeats year-to-year.

This year I sent out a paperless post invitation to seven of my lady friends. 3 of them came back to me asking if they could bring their significant others. All the ladies who asked have been to dinner parties at my house and know how squished my apartment is. Also, the invitation showed that the RSVP only counted for one person, and there was no option to invite others.

I feel like this puts me between a rock and a hard place because if I say no I seem insensitive for not understanding that they no longer can function unattached to another person. If I say yes and one of my originally invited friends who hasn’t responded yet then responds that she can come, I have to tell her that her space was taken. Further, an extension of their request to bring a +1 is that they’re also asking me to spend a decent amount of money and make an Easter basket for someone who I don’t know well at all.

Is it ok for me to say no, or should I have assumed that if I invite a friend with a boyfriend or girlfriend to something I must always invite the +1? If it’s okay to say no, do you have suggestions for how to do this as politely as possible?

Sincerely,

SO Confused

OFFICIAL ETIQUETTE

Many of the etiquette tips we’ve found focus on how only those whose names are on the invitation are invited, and it is rude to ask to bring a date, even if it is a long-term significant other. Amy Vanderbilt wrote, “Invitations to company dinners are not lightly treated. The hostess obviously is going to considerable trouble, especially if she has little or no help.  Guests should not disappoint her at the last minute without a believable excuse such as illness. Neither should they ask to bring another guest, with the possible exception of another single man for whom most hostesses have need.” The Emily Post Institute says, “It is not incorrect for someone to ask if s/he can bring a friend to a large party, although no one should do this when the invitation is for a small dinner party.”

However, The Institute also says, “You are obligated to invite spouses, fiances or fiancees, and significant others of your guests. If your friend has a long-standing relationship/is living with her ‘special person’ then he really needs to be invited. If not, and he is someone she is dating, it is not a requirement that he be included.”

OUR TAKE

Victoria: This was exactly my problem recently! TECHNICALLY if someone has a husband, fiance, or live in partner, they MUST be included on ALL invitations. BUT I think if you make it like a specific ladies only event, that’s fine and they don’t need to be invited.

Jaya: Really? Partners need to be invited even to small dinners and friends-only nights out? Wow, I’ve been an asshole.

Victoria: The rule was intended for dinner parties, but I imagine it extends further. But I think it’s fine to say “Ladies only, no SOs.”

Jaya: Definitely. Though I’m wary of saying “Ladies only” because what if a girlfriend of yours is dating another lady? These boundaries get tricky.

Victoria: Oooh yes. But maybe you have your “girls” and she has her “girls” and you make it work anyway- commenters weigh in!

Jaya:  I think there are two ways to look at this. 1. You have your group of friends, and you have a small apartment, and it’s rude to ask for +1s (though not rude to ask for honest clarification about invitations), and really that’s that.

Victoria:  These people are being so so rude by asking if they can bring someone for something like a dinner party. Although, I suppose at this age, people who are used to throwing BYOB parties have no concept of how expensive it is to throw a nice dinner party (not to mention all the planning and cooking!!!), so it’s really asking a lot to bring a date.

Jaya: Exactly, this isn’t like meeting up at a restaurant. It requires a lot of work on the host’s part. The LW can absolutely say that it will be a just-friends occasion. You can also say you have no space, but that also leaves it open that if someone declines, you will have space for someone else’s date, which doesn’t seem like what the LW wants to happen.

Victoria: Yes, I think for the LW, my advice would be to make it clear when issuing invitations that you are hosting a dinner for “the girls” or “our group” and if asked if someone can bring a plus one, just say, I’m sorry, it’s just going to be us this time and make a little joke about limited space.

Jaya: I do want to bring up something else though. I sense some hostility when the LW writes that her friends “no longer can function unattached to another person.” What a way to talk about your friends! Most of the time, wanting to bring an SO to an occasion is not a case of not being able to function alone, but wanting to introduce your SO, someone you care about, to your friends, other people you care about. You don’t have to all hang out together all the time, but these are all people in your life that you spend a lot of time with, and it’s nice to have them not be strangers.

Victoria: Yes,  lowering the hostility is good (though as a single person, I can understand the annoyance of a tag along SO) because they might end up becoming a good friend too, and your friends are probably coming from a good place. This does not mean that you have to invite anybody’s flavor of the week to your parties, though if you are inviting tons of other couples, I can see where someone would be hurt that you wouldn’t invite their significant other, no matter how insignificant you might deem them to be. And in this case, it sounds like the LW is mostly dealing with people in short term relationships. So she is pretty much in the clear in that regard.

Jaya: True, and there is a big difference between a “flavor of the week” and having been seriously dating someone for 4-5 months and wanting to introduce them to your close friends and not being able to go to any party without your significant other. The LW will just have to gauge what is the case.

So maybe her friends thought that this would be a lovely, convenient opportunity for everyone to get friendlier. Of course, for LW this is not the right time, because her apartment is small and she has a set guest list. But, in the spirit of what her friends are probably trying to achieve, I’d suggest she bring up another time where bringing SOs is proper. You can say “You know, I wanted to keep Easter dinner as a just us thing, but next week we should all go out for dinner because I’d love to get to know Charlie better” or “I really want to keep this Easter tradition of dinners with our great group of friends, but let’s plan another party soon for everyone.” Something like that.

 

The Etiquette of Weed Pt. 1: Acquisition

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It's always a good idea to foster a healthy relationship with your dealer.

It’s always a good idea to foster a healthy relationship with your dealer.

Good morning! Today, we’re running the first in a two part series about the etiquette of marijuana, written by our lovely friend M. Anton (because, surprise surprise, the two girls writing about etiquette do not smoke a ton of weed). We would however like to point out that it is quite likely you live in an area where it is illegal to purchase/use marijuana in some sort of way, and that nothing is more polite than a law-abiding citizen. Please don’t get us in trouble. But do leave your thoughts and experiences in the comments!

Not since Prohibition has a controlled substance been as ubiquitous as marijuana. While illegal on a federal level and only legal in two states (Colorado and Washington) and essentially legal through an incredibly lax system of medicinal governance (California) you can find people smoking weed in just about every town in America. And if you think this isn’t true, then congratulations! You’re incredibly naïve.

For the rest of us, this guide will serve all manner of people, from the occasional dad who smokes one weekend a year to the stoners who bring dank nug on the subway and don’t give a fuck. Here, we will break down the polite way on how to obtain the lightest product on America’s black market and how to smoke it without angering everyone around you. If you don’t want to possibly end up in jail (this is especially true if you’re a minority, sadly), consider this an academic discussion.

This guide is based of my keen observances of pot smokers from my suburban high school days outside of a major metropolis through the heady days of New York City delivery services. Your experience may vary.

How Do I Get Weed?

The acquisition of weed varies drastically based on location and age so this will be a sort of catch-all for each of those situations. I have observed people getting weed in the suburbs of a major metropolitan area, college towns, and cities, all on the East Coast. I have heard stories about people throughout the West Coast who complain about how much weed they have because they need to make room on their bookshelves. I have seen people in the ‘burbs call upwards to twenty actual human people who had the most tangential connection to maybe mentioning weed once, that one time, maybe? on the prowl for anything that they can smoke (they eventually settled on smoking a Chris Reitsma baseball card).

How Much Should I Buy?

So you want to smoke weed. Sure! I get it.

Weed has a nice amount of lingo associated with it that is fairly easy to break down. You want good stuff, “dank nug” or “skunk” weed and not, well, “shit.” The way most marijuana is distributed on a street level is based off the all-important ounce of weed, or a “zip,” as it would be comfortably transported in a Ziploc bag. While an ounce is the most expensive, it is the Costco of weed: you get the most green for your, uh…green. The rest of the normal person-to-person transactions are dealt with based off of the 28 gram ounce. So:

1 Ounce (Zip) = 28 grams

1 Half = 14 grams

1 Quarter = 7 grams

1 Eighth = 3.5 grams

1 Gram = I mean, c’mon.

Because of availability, a gram was the most popular and readily available amount in the suburbs with a standard price of $20. If everyone was polite and not a profit-hungry monster you’d be able to buy $20 and get 1 gram of weed. This can comfortably fill one blunt, two regular joints, two packs of a moderately sized bowl/bong, and probably three packs of anything homemade (an apple, a plastic water or soda bottle, an aluminum foil bowl).

The next step up as an eighth, retailing usually for something around $65. This is perfect for someone who wants to hold on to a bag for a while for personal use or if friends are coming over. Because smoking weed is a more social activity, especially when you’re young and supply is scarce, having weed to smoke is polite. Think of it like bringing a six-pack to a party: you need to contribute in order to attend. Having a bit extra to move is a nice thing.

This is also a good amount for people who want to sample weed through edibles, like brownies, without getting involved in the messy bits of actually inhaling smoke. An Eighth is sort of the grown-up version of the gram: it’s not enough that you can’t burn through it if you need to and it’s not too much that you’re stuck with it for too long.

Obviously, the more you are in to it, the more you’d want to purchase as it’s better for pricing. If you’re in to buying pounds or bricks (kilos) of weed? You’re assuredly a terrorist.

How Do I Get Weed In The ‘Burbs?

Buying weed in the suburbs is the shittest of all bullshit. There is no more polite way to say this. The entire economic deck is stacked against you. The market is set up by a series of different factors, set on the supply and demand scale. In short: there is a lot of demand, there is rarely any supply. To really make it worse it’s illegal which means if your township isn’t riddled with other time consuming, lethal, more costly crimes, then busting teenagers or young adults for possession is a really easy way to print some tickets.

These scales vary greatly. I grew up near a major metropolitan American city on the East Coast where the usual  pot buying experience was essentially pleading with someone to allow you to pay them money for an illegal substance in a transaction that was awash in duly-earned paranoia. If you live in some pot mecca like Portland they apparently just dole it out on the streets like Planed Parenthood gives away free condoms. “Please, take this. Think about society.”

Finding someone to deal you weed–to take on the risk of selling you weed–is a tough road to walk. There are only about three people in any given town who know the guy who knows the guy who knows the guy who can sell from his or her ounce of overpriced, stepped-on weed that you’ll be grateful to acquire. And that first guy will be incredibly selective about who he gives his phone number out to because, as with a finite supply, your fellow fiends are also your competition. This does not allow for a lot of hugs and trading of phone numbers.

A good, solid connection is worth its weight in overpriced weed. Because of the risk involved it’s best to deal with people you can trust and, in turn, can trust you back. The easiest way to get some weed is to go to a party and get to know the people who smoke. Like nearly everything in life, things are a lot easier once you act like a person to another person and treat them with a smile and some genuine conversation. Once they know you’re cool and you feel like you’re on solid footing, you can ask where they get from. Because they really have little incentive to help you (the profit margins are fairly low) you’re either going to get that number because you seem like a normal, chill person or because you’re not worth the risk.

This makes acquisition in a small town that you just show up in difficult because, well, who the hell are you? It is polite, all things considered, that you come to help Grandma rehab her new hip with your own bag and not try to press on the small town economics that goes on around you.

What If They Sell Me Shit?

Here’s the bad news: they are absolutely, positively going to sell you shit weed because they can. There is no incentive for a dealer to really be polite to you. Even if it’s the kid in your macro economics class. Even if it’s the girl in that photo of the Kindergarten Winter Festival play that you see on the screen in a slide show at your ten-year reunion. Without many options you have to be unfailingly polite because they have no reason to actually sell you anything. This means that you cannot overreach or overstep and are essentially at their mercy. This sucks. Have I mentioned that this sucks yet? It sucks. Move.

When Is It Polite To Call?

Since the product is so scarce and the demand so high, people will never get enough weed and they’ll want it all the god damn time. And, because the dealer has a high volume of people wanting her or his product, you’re at their mercy. This means that it’s not about when you call, or how polite you are over the phone when you absolutely have to leave a message. It means that you have to be polite when they call you back. You’d be shocked how many times the phrase “Hey man, no worries” can be uttered. In this situation, your politeness has to be registered in how flexible you can be.

I know of people calling up a friend at 2 AM, walking in the back door of their house, going in to their bedroom, quietly walking past the dealer and his sleeping girlfriend, taking the bag and dropping the money, and then quietly exiting the premises. I know of people who have to connect by walking through the back woods and finding a place to deal that is fifteen minutes away from town. I know of people who are much older who have to wait for their connect to decide that she needs to go down the shore to visit a college friend and then wants to transport that large amount of weed back up the interstate for little personal profit.

If you want to have weed in the burbs, you can’t not be polite, and you can’t not be willing to go the distance with a smile on your face.

How Do I Get Weed In College/When I Don’t Live With My Parents?

College is a completely different story. Because the market is larger, and the rules a bit looser since you’ll be able to smoke in an establishment that isn’t shared by the people who birthed you and are probably none too pleased with your illegal activity, there is more room for marijuana. That makes things better for you, the customer. Hurrah, American competition!

Finding it is considerably easier as well. The dealers come to the mercy of the market, which means they’re actually looking for customers. Isn’t that nice? This means that if you talk to someone at a party who has weed, you can ask him or her where they got it from, and they’ll more than likely tell you, with an add-on “has that good shit.” It’s nice.

I have watched kids walk down the halls in the dorm room and go “hey, you smoke? You want?” I know of kids who smelled weed in their off-campus apartment building and went down stairs only to find that heeyy their downstairs neighbors sell weed, alright! I’ve known of friends who don’t even smoke weed go “hey, if you want, my friend just got an ounce and is selling.” The market is so crazy in college people who don’t even want the product can offer it to you! It even looks like those old PSAs you’d used to watch during Duck Tales when ‘junkies’ on the corners of grey concrete buildings would harass kids and make them take drugs. But this is real!

What If They Sell Me Shit?

This depends on your relationship with the dealer. If you know the person well then they’re more likely to literally up and tell you that this product just isn’t that good, oh well. Sometimes if you’re a loyal customer prices can be negotiated. Other times there might be a pricing system where you can pay less for lower quality and pay more for higher quality. Because weed is essentially smoked by “chill” people it’s rare to get in to a screaming match over the sale. If you look at the weed and say “man, this doesn’t look good” or smell it and go “meh” or actually smoke it with the dealer and go “this is some bogus shit” they’ll usually take care of you. If they don’t? They lose a customer.

Buyer’s remorse is tough, though. If you go home and smoke you can call back, but don’t be angry unless you got legitimately ripped off, like paying $130 and getting a bag full of oregano. Because there’s no good legal recourse (you’re not calling the Better Business Bureau any time soon) you can just bad mouth the fuck out of that gal or guy and make sure that no one buys from them again.

When Should I Call?

So how industrious is your dealer? Usually you still have to make a trek out to the abode of the person you’re buying from as weed is somewhat bulky and, if it’s good, just absolutely reeks. If you have a stable relationship you should be able to actually figure out a schedule that works for them and that works for you, usually needing the dealer to be home. Some people never leave their house, and hey, that works better for the seller. Be sure to bring over some sunlight in a mason jar for them.

Some people are home over variable times, so call up, ask if you can come over, and then they’ll say “yeah, come through” or give you a time to “come through.” (Everyone always “comes through” which is probably a good way of saying “you’re going to come by but you’re sure as shit not going to stay.”) One person I knew would bring a mobile, fire proof briefcase like they were transporting state secrets over a train in a black and white 1940s movie. You’d call up, he’d tell you where the poker game was that he was playing at, you’d “come through” and then leave without him ever putting down his cards.

However, like anything that can be gone in an instant, there is still high demand. It’s possible that you’re going to have to wait for your dealer to get more supply in and it’s also possible that they’re going to be busy enjoying college (or studying) and that you will have to be patient. It’s okay. You can wait. You won’t die without weed. And if you really need it that badly? Plan ahead and purchase in more bulk. This helps out you as well as the dealer.

What If I’m Shorted?

Rarely if ever are you just handed a bag. There is usually a tared Solo cup involved before the transaction so you can see in real time what’s going on. Again, with competition comes responsibility to the customer. This way everyone leaves with the fair deal they agreed upon. Yaaaay!

How Do I Get Weed In A City?

Congratulations! You have now stepped up your weed-purchasing game simply because you’re in a large city. The odds are that police are much more concerned with stopping murders and car thievery giving you not exactly carte blanche but enough room to safely and comfortably smoke weed. Unless you’re a minority, then you’re kind of fucked, but you knew that already. Sorry.

The cards are almost completely flipped in this setting as the amount of demand can be met with supply which means that people are now making bank. Real bank. The margins are still relatively small per purchase but there are a fuck load more purchases. Now dealers are polite to you, going so far in New York City to drive up to your god damn apartment building, take the elevator up like they’re delivering Thai, and show off a briefcase full of options for you like a traveling sommelier. Some services go so far as to text their users as weekends come up to offer deals or incoming strains (types) of weed. It’s fucking nuts.

Remember those PSAs during Sunday morning cartoons? Some guys will also come up to you as you walk the streets at night in certain areas of the city and offer you drugs. Unless you’re really in a bind, that seems like a real old school way of purchasing your illegals and doesn’t seem safe in the least. I would suggest politely declining and wishing the ma’am or sir a nice evening before returning to your home and having something ordered.

When Should I Call?

Unfortunately, this begins to hew more closely to the ‘burbs than college, as there are now roughly business hours. If you’re trying to get at 1 AM on a Friday night, it’s more than likely that the person you’d buy from is also out enjoying a Friday night at 1 AM. Call usually from noon through 11 PM with a high volume area of 6 PM – 10 PM for that nice after work shift. It’s possible that your dealer might have differing hours. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a specific Nite Owl shift.

Because of the high demand, you’re probably going to have to wait. Some times friends of mine have waited for fifteen minutes, others for an hour thirty. You can imagine what it’s like leading up to 4/20 in Brooklyn: some times ending in a three hour wait. Again, you won’t starve without THC so plan ahead accordingly in times of need.

Should I Tip The Delivery Guy?

Fucking OF COURSE you should. A person is bringing an illegal narcotic to your doorstep and you don’t tip? But you’ll tip the pizza guy because…? A friend of mine who uses a service doesn’t tip because it “never occurred to him” and because he’ll sometimes have to wait for an hour. It’s not going to get cold! I asked a dealer once if he gets tipped and he said “rarely.” Jesus Christ guys do I have to remind you again what the fucking burbs were like?! TIP! Tip 20% at least.

What If I Get Shorted?

I can’t imagine that a delivery service would short you on purpose because they will absolutely never get your business again. By all means check and complain and, like any good service provider, they should be able to take care of you on the next go ‘round.

Now that you have acquired weed in a reasonable and polite manner, we’ll tell you how to conscientiously smoke it in Part II.

Part II

M. Anton is fascinated by rituals. He’s also pretty sure the UC ladies really need to revisit the “Should I Put The Toilet Seat Up In A Public Bathroom?” question, cause they’re fucking wrong.

Thank Goodness We Don’t Have to Do That Anymore: Spinster Etiquette

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This subject is very near to my heart, as in doing research on spinsters, I discovered that I have been a spinster for years now and didn’t even know it! So I am very grateful that I no longer have to follow any of these stupid rules.

Spinster is a word that means “one who spins,” like, spins wool for thread because what else could you possibly do if you aren’t married. Interestingly, it was a legal term for any unmarried woman until the early 1900s and you sometimes see it as a designation on marriage documents. From the early 1700s, it’s common use was a woman who was unmarried beyond the normal age for it.

Spinsters created a great problem in etiquette for a long time, because in many ways, they had to be treated like a young girl.

Edith Ordway’s Etiquette of To-day from 1918 instructs spinsters:

Even the spinster of recognized professional standing finds herself somewhat restricted in social pleasures. She cannot go out socially with one man more than occasionally; she has little pleasure in going unattended; she can entertain but infrequently and in a small way, if at all, and never without an older married woman to assist her. She may, however, have her regular afternoon or evening “At Home,” provided she has with her this friend; and with that friend present, she may entertain a gentleman caller until ten o’clock in the evening, but she may not offer him cigarettes, nor any beverage but tea, coffee, chocolate, or lemonade.

 

However, a 1901 etiquette book, by Annie Randall White Twentieth Century Etiquette gives “elderly girls” a bit more leeway:

When a lady passes the age of thirty and has not yet married she is entitled to a matron’s freedom. This is also in a measure true when one has reached the age of twenty five. She is now considered able to judge for herself and knows when to shun the temptations of the world. She however cannot do everything she might wish to without violating some rules of etiquette. In traveling she should either be accompanied by her father brother or a lady friend and should be especially particular regarding her dress. So many charming women are single from choice either because their sweetheart died young or because of the giving up of one’s life to become the matron of the father’s home that to them should be accorded all respect due to a married woman. Many of our bachelor girls live together and are the happiest people imaginable It takes a very superior woman to be an old maid.

It was actually not uncommon to glorify old maids- an editorial called “Honorable Often to Be an Old Maid” in Peterson’s Magazine argued that marrying a man you do not love in order to have a home, security, and to escape being an old maid was a perversion of the sacred institution of marriage.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that spinsters weren’t stigmatized. A 1932 issue of the Vassar Miscellany News quotes another article from The Forum in which the author Ellis J. Ballinger argues that women’s colleges are “booming spinsterhood, encouraging marriage failures.” He suggests appointing a national marriage bureau to make matches and recommends bringing in beauty, style, and etiquette experts to the colleges to teach those girls how to catch a man. In the end, he says, if after all this, a woman chose to be a spinster “I am sure that she would be a happier old maid than the kind we are turning out today.”

Another fun tradition for friends of spinsters was to throw an “Old Maid’s Party,” apparently a New England tradition in which on a woman’s 25th birthday, all of her friends would come over with tea and cakes and genealogy charts to find the old maid the perfect husband. They might even play the card game “old maid.” Charming.

Thankfully, these days, old maids can pretty much do whatever they want, except avoid questions about when they are planning on getting married.

Thank Goodness We Don’t Have to Do That Anymore: Glove Etiquette

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Jackie Kennedy is, of course, a perfect example of glove wearing. [via Wikimedia Commons]

When I talk about glove etiquette, I am not talking about your winter gloves and mittens. Those you can do whatever you want with, no one cares. But if you choose to wear old school day or evening gloves, you can look at this list and be thankful that these etiquette points are one less thing we have to think about these days.

Men remove their right glove to shake hands on the street, but leave them on when shaking hands at the opera or a ball. If it is too awkward to remove the glove to shake hands, the man must apologize for not removing his glove. Women do not remove their gloves to shake hands, except with the head of a church or a head of state.

Gentlemen only wear white gloves at the opera, a ball, or as an usher in a wedding. Part of the reason men wear gloves at a ball is to avoid putting their sweaty hands on a woman’s bare back (cause, gross) or damaging their gown with the sweatiness. Men can wear gray doeskin gloves on the street. Amy Vanderbilt advises that while going gloveless in winter may make a man feel hardier, it results in chapped hands (again, gross.)

Ladies wear gloves to formal dinners and take them off at the table- the gloves go on your lap and the napkin over the gloves. Women’s formal gloves are white kidskin (this means a very fine, thin, soft leather) and are the most luxurious thing because they must be thrown out as soon as they get dirty (which probably takes about 5 minutes.)

Women remove gloves during church to make it easier to handle the prayer books, and definitely removed them for communion. As with shaking hands, women keep gloves on during a receiving line (except, again, with heads of state and the like).

Stylewise, bracelets can be worn over gloves but rings cannot be. One very old etiquette book mentions that you should be fully dressed before leaving your house and pulling your gloves on in the street is the height of ill-breeding.

Brides who wear gloves either take the left one off before the ring is put on or they split the seam of the ring finger so the ring can slide on.

Sources: Etiquette by Emily Post and Amy Vanderbilt’s New Complete Book of Etiquette by Amy Vanderbilt