Birthday card warrants a call
Dear Miss Manners:
Your mom mails you a birthday card. She has no way of knowing if the card arrived the day before, the day of or the day after your birthday. (She is not the mailman.)
She assumes it arrived before or on the day of your birthday. Is she obligated to call you on your birthday, or by virtue of her sending the card, are you now obligated to call and thank her instead?
Basically, it’s “I sent the card, so now he needs to call me so I can wish him a happy birthday.” If you don’t call them to say, “Remember it’s my birthday,” they get miffed.
Gentle Reader:
Then call them. (“Them”? How many mothers do you have?)
You cannot expect Miss Manners to come up with a rule about the timing of irascible courtesies. And even if she did, someone looking for an insult while conferring good wishes is not likely to be satisfied. A more relevant rule is: If you can placate a difficult relative with a trivial concession, do so.
Dear Miss Manners:
My fiance would like me to make his sister a bridesmaid, and I would love to do so as well.
However, my future sister-in-law loves to dye her hair every color of the rainbow and has many large, visible tattoos. Though I accept and love that free-spirited part of her personality, I would rather not have colorful hair and tattoos prominent in photos that will last a lifetime, especially as she would be the only member of the wedding party with such features.
Would it be rude to request natural-colored hair and makeup covering her tattoos for the day? How should I phrase this wish? I do not want to erase her individuality, and especially do not want to come off as a bridezilla.
Gentle Reader:
That would be erasing that individuality you profess to accept and love. And a bride who wants to remake others into matching background figures for her wedding album meets the definition of a bridezilla.
Besides, Miss Manners assures you your photos will mean more if they represent people as they are. Your friends and possible eventual descendants will be more interested in seeing real people than in the phony, generic lookalike versions you think you want.