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When I was little and we were having guests over, my mother would always have me set the table. The salad plate was on top of the dinner plate. The fork was on the left.
And since the salad was always wilted, the knife was in the best position to stab the cook. That is to say, on the right.
I look back fondly on those days, even when I was the one who made the salads.
While we never had white-tie dinners or anything like that, it was cool to see Dad wear a collared shirt to something besides work.
Now we don't go through those sorts of formalities at dinner parties. People say they constrain conversation. It's hard to be natural in a suit.
It's much more natural for folks to show up in T-shirts, work through a few Heinekens, and try to kiss the dog.
We're happier that way. Overly stiff rules of etiquette, and overly stiff collars, may be worse than overly loose ones.
When I was in kindergarten, the teachers taught everyone how to blow one's nose the right way. The way we did it, we made Emily Post look like a boor.
Today we teach children more important things, like how two and two make 22.
Or is it four? Look, I didn't go over that in school. But I do know how to make candles, just in case anyone wants to go back to the 1800s. Any takers? No?
I get it. Really, I do. The modern world requires different things. It's good we're teaching children how to live in it. I mean that without irony.
It's no longer useful to pore over the classics and be a class act pouring a drink. Or maybe it's the other way around.
My day job is in technology. Forget high hats, arrow collars, and white spats. It's a miracle if my coworkers show up in anything more impressive than pajamas.
Even if I don't have a fancy ballgown, I have a roof over my head. I have loads of important things that I wouldn't have had 100 years ago, like voting rights, and also Netflix.
Modern jobs are better than in the past, too. I spend time in a cushy chair instead of a coal mine. Working in technology means I get to cut my teeth on interesting problems.
For example, how to eat all the free pizza in the office without my boss noticing.
But if I'm eating pizza, I'm certainly not throwing fancy dinner parties.
The days of setting tables and wearing formal clothes to supper are long behind me. Sometimes I doubt whether they ever existed in the first place.
That world, half-real or half-imagined, has disappeared for good.
It'd be backward to have things backward. No matter by what standard you measure things, it's better to be alive now than at any other time.
But every now and then I wonder if we haven't left something behind, something more substantial than a top hat or an umbrella.
If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go blow my nose the right way.
Alexandra Paskhaver is a software engineer and writer. Both jobs require knowing where to stick semicolons, but she's never quite; figured; it; out.
Previously:
• 08/21/24: Keeping things simple --- is hard
• 08/13/24: DIY = 'Destroy It Yourself'
• 06/26/24: All in a day's work
• 05/23/24: The state of the art
• 05/16/24: Rounding one's corners
• 03/22/24: Gone loopy
• 03/05/24: Philosophy rocks