Good morning.
Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 29. Sunrise is 7:08 AM and sunset 6:59 PM for 11h 50m 28s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 67.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Planning Board meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1930, news of the discovery of Pluto is announced by Lowell Observatory.
Over at the Washington Post, there’s an account from a troubled civilization. A reader writes to the Miss Manners etiquette column about a dinner invitation.
The account:
Dear Miss Manners: About once a month, we go out to dinner with another couple and always have a good time. We tend to order roughly the same things — one drink each, no desserts unless it’s a special occasion — so we just split the bill.
We were surprised, but fine with it, when they suggested that we should eat at their house next time instead of going out. We’ve all been doing a lot of creative cooking during the pandemic, and I offered to host the following time.
We had a nice meal — but then they told us what our share of the cost would be! I’m in shock that our friends would be so stingy as to charge us for eating at their own home. We thought they were close friends!
From the reply:
There is, indeed, a huge difference between a restaurant and a home. Or rather, there should be. But the habit of eating in commercial establishments has resulted in all but obliterating the meaning of private hospitality.
….
Your friends have carried this to a crude extreme. To anyone who remembers the ancient tradition of hospitality, this is sad. Planning and overseeing entertainment were a pleasure that people enjoyed taking turns doing. The claim that it put all the burden on the hosts was false because reciprocity evened it out.
Miss Manners might have been inclined to make this point by asking your friends whether the price they quoted included the service charge.
It’s a confused expression of friendship to ask private guests for a portion of a meal’s cost, but it is — truly — a great story to tell others. I’ve never had this happen, but it would be worth the experience to be able to say, “you’ll never guess what happened last week when we went to dinner…”
Metal fence stands no chance against fleeing gator in Florida: