Category: etiquette

A Saturday Night in Candlelight.

A Lesson in Dating.

My best friend and I did a little something different last Saturday night for our standing date and decided to indulge in something a bit more refined than usual.  We dressed in our best clothes, he was in a black suit and tie, me slipped into a lilac silk dress.  We set off for the most elegant Italian restaurant in our area, a place that always feels like a small escape from the ordinary.

Traffic was light, which was a surprise for a Saturday night, which brought us to the restaurant sooner than our reservation time.  We parked the car and decided that since we had about twenty minutes to spare, we would take a leisurely walk in the adjoining park that is part of the restaurant property.  The evening air was cool and fresh, and the night sky held starry constellations and a full moon.  The soft lights lit our way on the curved paved walkway, and by the time we made the full circuit, it was time to meet our reservation.

We stepped through the glass-and-wood doors and entered the lounge, which is our favorite room in the entire establishment.  A carved oak bar was well-stocked and gleamed beneath soft lighting.  Together they created a warm, inviting ambience that seemed to embrace us the moment we arrived.

A poised hostess, dressed head‑to‑toe in black and adorned with a star sapphire necklace, remembered us and greeted us with a gracious smile.  She guided us into the main dining room, where we were soon settled into a high‑backed booth.  The varnished oak table covered with a crisp white linen tablecloth held tall, elegant salt and pepper grinders, and a large votive candle flickered at its center, casting a gentle glow.  We placed our drink orders, a Peroni for Best Friend, a pinot noir for me.  Our waitress brought warm slices of fresh bread accompanied by herbed olive oil and took our orders.  I was blissfully content.  Restaurants of this caliber are rare in our area, ones that have heavy silverware, substantial furniture, chandeliers, leatherette seating, and soft, unobtrusive music that completed the atmosphere.

As we settled in, we lingered over conversation until our first course arrived: a crisp, chilled salad for Best Friend and a steaming cup of Italian Wedding Soup for me. Before long, our entrées followed.  Best Friend’s pollo con verdure and my pollo alla cacciatora, were both fragrant, beautifully plated, and still releasing curls of steam.  Our waitress completed the moment with a delicate snowfall of freshly grated Parmesan atop our entrées.  Each bite was rich and comforting, and we allowed ourselves the luxury of eating slowly, savoring both the food and our company.

Then the music began.  A pianist’s gentle melody drifted through the restaurant, subtle, unhurried, and perfectly attuned to the evening’s mood.  It wrapped itself around the room like a soft ribbon of sound, enhancing the glow of the chandeliers and the warmth of our little corner.  In that moment, with good food before us and quiet elegance all around, the night felt complete with a small reminder that even familiar rituals can become something extraordinary when shared with someone dearly loved.

 

 

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Ciao, Baby.

The family of one of our more pungently aromatic residents has officially left the building.  The U‑Haul is sealed and locked, the cars are idling, and with them, their smells are preparing to embark on a cross‑country tour.  I imagine the exhaust fumes themselves are already begging for mercy.

Yes, one of the most infamous contributors to our high‑rise’s atmospheric instability has departed: Adonis and his clan, whom I privately (and accurately) referred to as The Stankles.  They are now barreling down the highway toward Pennsylvania, where they will no doubt introduce the Poconos to a whole new category of air quality alerts.  Adonis will be taking a new position onstage every Sunday and Wednesday, and Mrs. Stankle will continue her lifelong mission of single‑handedly keeping Bath & Body Works in business.  The kids will probably continue their behind-the-scenes vandalism and hijinx, because that’s what they do.  Their daughter is someone I would like to know where her life will go, since at the now-tender age of 12, she also walked the hallways every summer nearly naked in her bikini.  I suppose her father, Adonis, doesn’t preach modesty on stage every Sunday and Wednesday.  sigh

As you may recall, if scent could take physical form, this family would have traveled through life inside a permanent soft green fog, something between a cartoon stink cloud and a Department of War desert field experiment.  Each member of the household believed cologne was not something one applied, but something one soaked in and marinated.  Not spritz.  Not dab.  Full immersion, and ideally overnight.

I will not miss the unmistakable aroma of Adonis returning from the neighborhood gym, sweat cascading off him in rivulets that perfumed the hallways with a scent best described as “ancient locker unearthed from a peat bog.”  It was bad enough watching him attempt to walk normally.  Around the building and along the sidewalks, we neighbors would see his bare torso and biceps so inflated he could no longer lower his arms straight down.  He moved like a man permanently prepared to carry two large Thanksgiving tom turkeys.

Whenever that throat‑tightening, eye‑watering haze slapped me across the face, I knew exactly what it meant: the Stankles had either departed for work and school or had triumphantly returned.  They lived on the opposite end of the hallway from me, which made the reach of their fumes all the more impressive.  For the stench to drift all the way to my wing, it must have clung to them like a second skin and through all seven layers.  Frankly, I suspect the fumes had their own lease agreement.

And now they are off to their new life, ready to add a fresh bouquet to the Poconos Mountains.  I wish the region and their new neighborhood luck.  They’ll need it.

Ciao!

 

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Loose Trash and Looser Rules.

When I lived at the Sage Pointe Condominiums, the truth was simple: there were no real rules.  The Declaration contained only a handful of vague guidelines, none of which carried penalties, financial or otherwise.  In practice, nothing had any teeth; no bite.

What we did have was the Infractions Team, a small group of older ladies who enforced whatever they personally disliked.  If something offended their sensibilities, it instantly became a “rule,” and the offending neighbor was told to cease and desist.  Their grievances ranged from the trivial to the absurd, such as declaring certain bumper stickers on residents’ cars to be violations simply because the messages clashed with their unholy beliefs.  Those errant residents were then threatened with legal action.

Meanwhile, these same enforcers stored their own holiday decorations, bicycles, and medical equipment in the common-area closets with complete impunity. They walked their dogs off the leash.  They grilled pork chops on their balconies with open flames.  They filled staircases with their potted plants.  No reprimands.  No consequences.  No surprise.  It was the classic Rules for Thee and Not for Me dynamic, and everyone knew it.

One of the few written directives concerned garbage disposal.  For years, printed signs were taped to the garbage-room doors in the underground garage.  They instructed residents to place all trash in securely tied plastic bags and to dispose of furniture and large items privately, never in the dumpsters.

As the buildings filled with more residents (there was an ebb and flow with the population), the dumpsters began overflowing just two days after pickup.  At a homeowners’ association meeting, a member of the Care and Upkeep Team scolded the community for tossing unbagged trash and furniture into the dumpsters.  The remarks were recorded in the official minutes.

A couple of weeks later, I went down to throw out my own securely bagged garbage.  I glanced into the dumpster, and there it was.  A mountain of loose junk: files, hanging folders, workbooks, an American flag, Navy memorabilia, and other unbagged débris.  Because the book titles were visible, it was unmistakably the personal clutter of the very same Care and Upkeep Team member who had lectured everyone else about dumping unbagged garbage!

It was a perfect illustration of the deleterious culture at Sage Pointe: rules for thee and not for me.  Others were expected to follow the posted guidelines.  Certain individuals, however, exempted themselves entirely.

They were special!

 

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Another Whiff that Crossed the Line.

And then there was the unmistakable contribution of The Weede Family, whose fusty skunk aroma drifted through the hallways with the determination of a creature lazily seeking freedom.

I have lived in buildings that had friendly doormen and fresh flowers in the lobby, and truly dedicated cleaning crews that cleaned and deodorized a couple times a week.  When I lived in one of those large mid‑rise buildings, the kind with long hallways, welcoming vestibules, perpetually humming vents, there was a cast of neighbors who could each produce their own documentary, for everyone had such pleasantly interesting lives to tell.

However, when I lived at Sage Pointe Condominiums, there were odors of marijuana, tobacco, and perfume that were thickly layered and ever evolving on every floor and in the lobby.  That condominium association was immensely different than all the rest.  Life there was, indeed, never dull, particularly if you had a sensitive nose or didn’t care how dirty the common areas were.  Speaking of the common areas, the walls were always dirty with oil or Cheetos® dust, the common hall carpets were never cleaned, the lobby walls were a patchwork of rinky dink Spackle® repairs and paint that never matched.  “They” never wanted to repaint the entire walls the proper way.

In today’s essay, I’m introducing you to one of the more fusty aromatic residents, The Weede Family.

They lived on my floor and at the far end.  One would never think that the odors from their wing would reach way down to my wing, but they did.  Whenever I opened my front door or stepped off the elevator, I braced myself.  I never knew what stench or invisible cloud would greet me, or what new olfactory assault would come barreling toward my unsuspecting nose.

The fetid odors were unmistakably marijuana.  Not just one kind, but several, and one would never know from one day to the next what strain they’d be smoking.  The worst was the kind that smelled like dead, rotting skunk.  Sometimes that stench was mixed with cheap perfume, and it was enough to suffocate a maggot.  Truthfully, I was surprised I never smelled it in my own condominium unit, but only out in the hallway.

By the time I learned to recognize their specific bouquet and the shifting medley of strains that was each more pungent than the last, I also learned something else: in a building like ours was, no door was ever fully closed, no hallway ever truly empty.  Scents travelled like rumors as they drifted, settled, and rose again when you least expected it.  The Weede Family managed to turn our peaceful corridor into a living, breathing testament to that truth.  Their skunky, dank fog became part of the building’s strange ecology, and a reminder that even in the most ordinary mid‑rise building, the air itself can tell stories you’d never believe unless you smelled them yourself.

 

 

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The Mark of Mordechi.

There were always dirty spots on the hallway carpets and in the elevators when I lived at Sage Pointe.  At first glance, they looked like the usual suspects, perhaps greasy take‑out containers leaking through flimsy bags, or perhaps the aftermath of a dog with poor timing.  Whatever their origin, the stains remained year after year after year, since no one on the board of directors ever bothered to call a carpet‑cleaning company to shampoo the carpets.

One weekend, though, someone obviously made an effort.  A sharp smell of Resolve® or Shout® hung in the hallways, proof that some anonymous soul had tried to scrub away the blotches.  Whoever it was deserved a medal for attempting to keep the place somewhat presentable.

Then came the Saturday afternoon when I stood waiting for the elevator to reach my floor.  At last, the doors slid open, and there stood Maddee and her younger brother, Mordechi, dripping from the pool and armed with their usual assortment of floaties and bottles.  Just as the doors parted, I caught Maddee in mid‑swoop, giving her water bottle a final flourish and spraying the elevator carpet.  When I looked down, I saw she had left a large, wet “M” beside the other permanent stains.  She and her brother stepped out quickly, their faces tight with guilt and silence.

I greeted them anyway, asked how they were. “How you doing?” I asked.  Maddee’s cheeks flushed deep crimson, and she stammered and babbled through a jumble of half‑formed words as she tripped over her tongue.  She knew that I knew.

The next morning, more than twelve hours later, I rode the elevator again.  The wet “M” was still there.  If it had been water, it would have evaporated long before.  Whatever she’d squirted (soda? juice? suntan lotion?) had soaked in and stayed put.  It’s still there to this day.

Funny, isn’t it, how the Stankle kids, the offspring of Adonis the preacher man and his aromatic wife, aren’t always the paragons one might expect.  And the kids weren’t toddlers; at the time this happened she was about eleven, he was about nine.  Both were old enough to know better and old enough to choose differently.  After all, their father preached it every Sunday and Wednesday on stage.

In a condominium association like Sage Pointe, the carpets in every building told the truth long before the residents did.  Every stain, every spill, every careless squirt from a child’s bottle became part of the story we all had to live with.

Courtesy, like cleanliness, is a shared responsibility.  It’s one that begins with small choices made when no one is supposed to be watching.  And yet, as those lingering marks remind us, someone always is watching, even if it’s only God.

 

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Not-So-Sweet Tarts, and When No One’s Minding.

A Lesson in Modesty.

In a lot of areas around the country, this weekend marks the opening of public swimming pools, so dig out your floating devices and the skimpiest swimwear you can find.  This story comes from a time when I lived in a condominium with swimming pools, a wading pool, a cedar-lined steam room, and all the inconsiderations you can imagine.

The elevator car came to a stop on the lobby floor.  The doors slid open, and I was ready to step out, until I froze mid-step.  What made me pause were the three young women standing directly in front of me, momentarily blocking my path, dressed in barely-there bikinis and entirely unbothered by their own near‑nakedness in a public hallway.

They were college‑age visitors, laughing and carefree, accompanied by one of the downstairs middle‑aged neighbors who was wrapped in a thick beach robe.  The trio of girls, I found out later, spent the weekend coming and going, and the next day I saw them again, heading down the back stairs toward the pool.  As those sweet tarts walked, their swimsuits shifted and rode up, leaving little to the imagination between the ripples of fat and even less to modesty, by cracky.

There was even a time in the dead heat of summer where it just happened that an older, senior-type crowd was having a get-together under the heat of the blazing sun.  A group of teenage girls in tiny bikinis made their way down the pool’s stairs, smirking and walking slow and seductively right in front and past the men.  The women were at another corner of the pool and appeared not to notice the bru-ha-ha.

Throughout the swimming season, the indoor pool area itself told the rest of the story.  In the corners were mounds of inflatable toys stacked so high they reached halfway up the walls.  Beach balls, float rings, plastic ducks, water pistols, and abandoned gadgets cluttered the water.  More than once, if you wanted to swim, you had to fish out stray and abandoned toys or dive to the bottom to retrieve whatever had been left behind.  Interestingly, the steam room was always left clean and uncluttered.

Yet, it was the renters and short‑term visitors who were the ones who mostly descended upon the pools and hot tub, and that’s where most of the disorder began and remained.  Sure, they enjoyed all of the amenities but had no real stake in the property, so there was little incentive to care for it.  And, truthfully, the same could be said for the owners who hosted these guests or rented out their units.  The result was the same: a shared space treated as disposable simply because it belonged to everyone and therefore, in their minds, to no one.

In the end, what unsettled me was more than the exposed full butt cheeks and almost-to-the-nipples cleavage, or the toys or even the noise, but the casual indifference that trailed behind them all.  A shared space only works when the people passing through it feel some measure of responsibility for what they touch and leave behind.  When they don’t, when visitors treat the place as a weekend playground and owners look the other way, the common areas slowly erode.  And standing there in the elevator doorway, watching another wave of guests drift toward the pool, I realized how quickly a condominium building can lose its hominess when too many people forget or just don’t bother to care for it.

 

 

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Cutting Cardboard.

We had just ordered our meal, when a party of four was seated two tables from us.

Grind.  Grind.  Grind.

“Where is that sound coming from?” I asked Best Friend as he sipped his drink.  “It sounds like somebody cutting corrugated cardboard with a serrated bread knife.”

“What’s that?”

“I hear someone cutting corrugated cardboard with a serrated bread knife.  It’s that specific of a sound.  Listen.”

Grind.  Grind.  Grind.

“It’s the dog,” Best Friend nonchalantly quipped as he put down his drink.

“Whoa!” I whispered.  I leaned over a little bit to the left and looked past Best Friend’s shoulder.  Sure enough, at the table where the party of four sat, was a Yorkie on the man’s lap, chewing on food from the man’s plate and making a sound like somebody cutting corrugated cardboard with a serrated bread knife.  Then I witnessed the man put down one of those doggie pads on the floor and set the Yorkie on it, whereby Yorkie promptly did his business.  Everyone else at that table was oblivious and didn’t bat an eye.

Ewwww.

I am not a fan of dogs or any sort of animals in restaurants and stores.  I find it dirty, and it puts the question of health codes out there.  Service dogs are okay, but not “emotional service” or those “just because I can’t live two minutes without Fluffy” animals inside stores and especially restaurants.  Bleh.

One of the grocery store chains in our area put a stop to people bringing dogs or any animals into their stores, except for service animals.  I agree with that.  And, please, no dogs in grocery carts.  I saw that exact thing at one grocery store a couple years ago.  Where have those rear ends been?  I never saw anyone wash those grocery carts, either.

It’s so gross!

 

 

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Hack, Steal, Swipe, and Other Modern Courtesies.

It’s the Language of Plunder, and it’s all the rage I’m talking about today.

Every so often, my thoughts drift toward the strange new definitions floating around in the modern lexicon.  It’s those little word fads that flare up, spread everywhere, and then vanish the moment a shinier bit of slang arrives.  A word fad, as I see it, is a piece of language used mindlessly, repeated without understanding, and destined for the linguistic landfill as soon as the next trend rolls in.

One of the most abused is hack.  We now have hair hacks, cooking hacks, travel hacks, security hacks, hacks for everything under the sun.   The word is slapped onto any tip, trick, or mildly useful suggestion.  Yet its true definitions include “gaining unauthorized access” and “cutting with heavy blows.”  Neither definition suggests something gentle, clever, or admirable.  Hack!

But instead of offering tips such as hair tips, security tips, cooking tips, we hack, hack, hack.  Take unauthorized access.  Grab and run.  Rip off.  Steal.

Which brings me to another disturbing phrase I hear far too often: “I’m going to steal that idea!”

Usually, it’s said when someone supposedly admires another person’s décor, recipe, style, or skill.  Once upon a time, we might have simply complimented the person.  We might even (brace yourself) have asked permission to borrow the idea.  However, courtesy is apparently passé these days.  Why ask when you can proudly announce your intention to steal from that person?

Why, indeed?  Hands up!  Hand it over!

So now everything is framed as theft: steal, swipe, take, hack.  Even admiration is expressed in The Language of Plunder.

It’s a small thing, perhaps, however, small things shape habits, and habits shape culture.  When our everyday speech defaults to the vocabulary of taking, it’s no wonder the world feels increasingly coarse, transactional, and grabby.

And yet, here we are.  This is the way of things now.

In the end, these little phrases are not harmless quirks of speech; they reveal how casually we treat one another.  When the language of theft becomes the language of admiration, something in our cultural posture shifts away from gratitude, away from courtesy, away from the simple dignity of asking.  Words shape habits, and habits shape the world we build together.  If we want a gentler world, perhaps we begin by speaking as though one is still possible.

 

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When the Hallways Talk.

A short story from the past.

For hours, JeVaughn Willard sat in his recliner, frowning at the sporadic thuds and rolling rumbles echoing through the Sage Pointe Condominium building.  He took another puff of his Kools and listened hard.  The sounds came and went with no discernible pattern, bouncing off the walls and rattling his nerves.  He strained his ears, trying to pinpoint the source, but the building’s acoustics made it maddeningly elusive.  He slid out of his recliner and ambled over to the picture window.  He pushed aside the slats of the Venetian blinds and was glad he was not in the howling thunderstorm.  JeVaughn returned to his recliner.

As the clock struck eight, he took a break from reading his latest mystery novel.  His overflowing garbage bin finally gave him a reason to investigate the noise in the hallway.  He grabbed the bag and shuffled out into the dimly lit hallway, trying to keep his ragged brown corduroy slippers from flying off of his feet.  The carpet muffled his footsteps, but the strange racket had grown louder.  Then, as he rounded a corner, the mystery revealed itself.

Two neighborhood kids, the brood of the Reverand and Mrs. Stankle, were tearing up and down the long corridor, kicking a slightly deflated soccer ball between their feet.

Bam!  The ball slammed against a wall, leaving a faint smudge before careening into the air.

Thud!  The ball rebounded off the ceiling, narrowly missing a flickering light sconce as it came down.

JeVaughn Willard sighed, the corners of his mouth twitching with restrained annoyance.  He trudged to the garbage chute and let the bag drop with a hollow clang, watching it disappear into the void.

“Pointless,” he muttered under his breath, sparing one last glance at the kids.  They laughed and shouted, blissfully unaware of their disruptive echoes.

JeVaughn tightened his terry cloth robe and shuffled back to his door.  “No use mentioning it to their parents,” he thought grimly.  “The reverend’s sermons are loud enough.  I don’t need him aiming one at me!”

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