TABLE MANNERS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

There are many etiquette books that teach proper table manners. For example, this is taken directly from an Emily Post book: “After a fine meal, never pick your teeth with your fork. You could inadvertently stab your lip. Instead, use the sharp tip of your steak knife. If fish was served and therefore no steak knives are handy, it is acceptable to borrow someone’s ballpoint pen.”

However, I wonder why they continue to publish table manner etiquette books when hardly anyone eats at a table anymore. Nowadays most meals are consumed everywhere except at an actual dining table. The most common places where meals are eaten today are: at your desk at work, in the car, on the couch, in bed, and while sitting on the porcelain throne in the bathroom. (As a bonus, if you happen to be eating food from Taco Bell, your burrito can make its entire journey—from take-out bag to city sewer system—all in one fell swoop. Hopefully the medicine cabinet is within arm’s reach to get some Pepto.)

There should be etiquette books about proper manners when eating a meal in these unconventional locations. (That’s the third time I’ve typed the word “etiquette” in the last few minutes—oops, fourth time now—and every time I attempted to spell it a different way, which has been very stressful for my computer’s Spell-Check function. After the last time, Spell-Check said to me, “If you try to use that word again, pal, I’m going to have the computer mouse bite your finger.”)

Anyway, there are some important rules to keep in mind for the modern food connoisseur. (Spell-Check didn’t have a clue what to do with my first attempt at spelling THAT word.) In our current crass and coarse culture, this may not exactly be an issue of proper etti— whoops, I mean, manners. But these guidelines will help people avoid unnecessary problems.

• At work. Never eat wet stuff at your desk. Soup, soda, and tumbler glasses filled with vodka should be discouraged in the workplace. If you accidently spill on your computer, it could result in either of two terrible problems: all of your company’s business records from the past seven years will be wiped out forever as the result of an electrical short circuit, or Spell-Check will get angry at you.
   
• In the car. Never eat items with powder or extra ketchup. Which means: NEVER put extra ketchup on your jelly donut. If you get powder on your face or shirt, a passing police officer might think you’re snorting cocaine and pull you over and arrest you. And if you get ketchup on your face or shirt, a passing police officer might think you’re bleeding to death and pull you over and arrest you. (Arrest? For what? For bleeding without an approved hands-free device.)
   
• On the couch. This one’s a little tricky, because it really depends upon the couch. One the one hand, if the couch is similar to the one that was in my fraternity house at college, then it already is incredibly greasy and slimy and dirty, so feel free to eat whatever you want on it, then dispose of the McDonald’s wrappers and used ketchup packets by shoving them behind the seat cushions. On the other hand, if the couch in question happens to be the one my wife picked out and which now sits in our living room, you are not allowed even to speak the words “potato chip” while sitting on it.

There, I’m glad I could be of help to all you connasewers of fine eddakitt.