Methods don’t violate bagel etiquette

DEAR MISS MANNERS: How does one spread cream cheese on a bagel?

Assuming the bagel is cut in half, does one spread cream cheese on an entire half of the bagel? Or is a bagel treated as, say, a dinner roll, where one only butters the pieces that one breaks off?

There’s a very nice bagel shop across the street, and I will enjoy it so much more when I know how to eat the bagels properly.

GENTLE READER: Either method you describe is indeed proper, depending on whether you consider it a piece of bread or a sandwich.

However, Miss Manners warns you: Before you enjoy the bagels from across the street, make sure that you specify that they be delivered to you dry and/or whole. Otherwise, the shop will generally do the spreading for you, leaving you with a warm, cream cheesy gloop that will be nearly impossible to eat neatly.

DEAR MISS MANNERS:

A close relative had to cancel her wedding due to

COVID-19. While we expect a new date to be decided soon, nothing has been announced.

Then we received a very confusing missive, which contained two announcements. The first was a note canceling the original wedding, and the second was an invitation to a shower-bymail.

I understand the bride’s dilemma, and I sent her a gift from her registry because that’s what I would have done anyway. But my traditionalist self is troubled by what ends up being a straight-up request for gifts.

Perhaps you can come up with a way to negotiate these new shoals: one that will satisfy both young brides and old aunties like me.

GENTLE READER: Was there ever to be a shower in person? Or was the bride simply terrified that with the wedding canceled, presents would be forgotten?

A shopping list is not an invitation, except to hand over one’s credit card information. If guests made the assumption that presents were no longer required, then they will presumably re-remember when new wedding invitations are sent.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: In reading about an operetta, I discovered that a scene which took place at a wedding included a joke that virtually all the wedding presents were spaghetti scissors.

I assumed the notion of spaghetti scissors was an invention of the librettist, but then I began to wonder: Were spaghetti scissors once actually sold as a piece of cutlery?

GENTLE READER: Itisa joke. Cutting one’s spaghetti with scissors is best left to comedians.

Submit your etiquette questions to Miss Manners at dearmissmanners@gmail. com.