DEAR MISS MANNERS: Would you please explain to your readers, in your well-reasoned and irrefutable way, why people should not inflict surprise parties on their friends?
I just discovered, accidentally, that a surprise bridal shower was in the works for a date and time that would have been disastrous for me. If I hadn't discovered this and persuaded the host to reschedule, one of two things would have happened: either I would have reacted very ungraciously, thereby alienating my friends and relations; or I would have grinned and borne it but resented them forever for throwing off my plans for the day (which couldn't have been reconstructed at any other time).
Why can't people manage a simple "I'd like to organize a shower for you, would the 20th at 11 a.m. work, or is something else preferable?" Such an approach would elicit the feeling of happiness that someone going to the effort of planning a party on another's behalf surely hopes for, and it would ensure that when the event arrived, the guest of honor was prepared -- physically, mentally and cosmetically to enjoy his or her own party.
Please say Miss Manners agrees with me; it's all I've ever hoped for in life.
GENTLE READER: After that declaration, Miss Manners would probably agree to anything. But she agrees that you have deftly pointed out the problem with surprise parties: They take the guest of honor by surprise.
Her idea of a successful surprise party is one at which the guests, having had their fun popping out and shouting "Surprise!" spend the rest of the evening asking the perfectly groomed and relaxed guest of honor, "You mean you really had no inkling?"
DEAR MISS MANNERS: I realize this letter will not be read by the people who should read it, but right now I am so disappointed, disgusted and mad that I have to vent to someone. I have just come home from my grandson's fifth birthday party, to which he invited 15 of his classmates, and only one parent called in regrets. Well, five classmates attended!
My daughter put R.S.V.P. Regrets Only on the invitations. Do parents nowadays not know what that means, or are they just rude and inconsiderate?
My daughter planned for 14 cupcakes, punch, goodie bags (which aren't cheap to put together). What should people do to plan for a party -- call each person and ask if they're coming so they won't be out extra money?
GENTLE READER: It's not the extra money. Miss Manners doesn't care how much those goodie bags cost, you didn't get disappointed, disgusted and mad over the financial loss.
What is bothering you, and rightly so, is your grandson's heartbreak about having been stood up. And that, yes, there are a great many rude people who don't answer invitations.
Still, your daughter could have done more to protect your grandson, including, unfortunately, calling around to find out who was attending.
She should not have trusted in "regrets only," a peculiar construction generally associated with parties so large that the hosts feel they require only a rough count. For that matter, she would have done better to put "please respond," rather than R.S.V.P., which is not only unnecessary with "regrets only," but a term unlikely to be known to 5-year-olds in case they read -- or were read -- the invitation.
Any normally intelligent 5-year-old would understand "Please respond" to mean that a response was required. Why their parents do not is another question.
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