DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband’s aunt and uncle live in an area a short plane ride away from us that is considered a destination. She sometimes visits us, and is always asking us to visit her, so last year, we finally committed to a date and visited for a week.
She didn’t have any food, so we were required to go grocery shopping, which I didn’t mind. I also made sure to help cook, do the dishes, and clean up the dining area after each meal.
However, she requested that my husband help her with some labor-intensive jobs. She asked him to dig out a patio area that had fallen into disrepair, fix her washing machine, replace multiple steps on her outdoor stairs, and more.
Is there any polite way to say no to such activities when you’re visiting someone else’s home? It made him feel as though she only asked us to visit in order to get these tasks done.
Not that this matters much, but she and her husband are quite wealthy and could easily have hired someone to do some of this work. We find this to be a common issue with his family, although it had not yet happened with this specific aunt.
GENTLE READER: The polite way out is to claim incompetence.
Miss Manners assures you this is always possible, even if, for example, your husband’s day job is repairing washing machines. In that case, he will need to examine the unit, look behind it, scratch his head and pause to consider -- before explaining that this item is entirely outside of his experience, requires special parts, and will take more days than your visit.
Do not despair when the aunt later discovers that the person she finally has to hire disagrees. Your husband’s expression of pleasure at having been wrong will strengthen his claim to incompetence next time.