Mara Vey's pellet: are we seriously doing this at dinner now?

The Borough has given this a whole page of letters. One asks for covered dishes at formal dinners. Another asks why the bin wasn't there before the guests sat down. People in this thread are citing both as endorsements of their own position.

marginread · #115 One asks for covered dishes at formal dinners.

The covered-dish letter is mine. My point was that a host can set out a receptacle before dinner and spare everybody the little ceremony of summoning a waiter. Somehow I've become the woman who wants Cairn users sent to a separate room.

letterwriter · #116 My point was that a host can set out a receptacle before dinner

A covered dish at least admits the host has a job here. The part of your letter calling the pellet 'waste' was where I stopped nodding. I know what goes in a bin. It's sealed, wrapped, and dry. That word is doing a lot of work for the people who think I shouldn't sit near their food. They say it as if the category settles how much of somebody else's disgust I have to obey.

phasechange · #117 That word is doing a lot of work

It comes out of your body and goes in a bin. That is bodily waste. I didn't write 'infectious.' I also didn't write that you were disgusting. If your entire case depends on forbidding the ordinary word for the thing, take it up with a dictionary instead of my seating plan.

letterwriter · #118

phasechange · #117 That word is doing a lot of work

If your entire case depends on forbidding the ordinary word for the thing

She asks for a dish and you make her defend the language of rubbish collection. Bodily waste by definition, phasechange. You can put it in a flawless synthetic skin; it still came from an intestine and goes in a bin. Do you make the cleaner say 'relocated matter' before you'll hand over a full bin?

letterwriter · #116 spare everybody the little ceremony of summoning a waiter.

I use Cairn. I'd use the dish. I already bring a bag to dinners; a pellet can sit in it beside a receipt until I find a bin. If the invitation said there would be a dish at the table, I'd use that. The host gets a predictable service plan; I don't have to balance a pellet in my hand while locating a bin.

coatcheck · #120

letterwriter · #116 spare everybody the little ceremony of summoning a waiter.

The host gets a predictable service plan

Whose service plan? If the dish is sealed and the guest puts the pellet in it, fine. If it means the nearest waiter comes when summoned to receive it from someone's palm, you've decorated the old problem with a lid.

I work service at another venue. The entire point of a covered dish would be to know what it is and when to clear it. Don't tell us it's just another bread plate and then act surprised when we ask for an actual procedure. Managers love the phrase 'invisible service' until they have to write one down.

The fund bought a dinner to talk to donors about children. The paper has now spent more space on the pellet than on what the fund asked them to pay for. I don't know whether Mara was right. I know who got a page of free publicity out of this.

smallmercies · #123 The paper has now spent more space on the pellet

yes. and now every letter is an opportunity to take another swing at her. disagree with where she put it, fine. seven days of strangers auditing the contents of a woman's hand is getting a bit weird.

phasechange · #117 The part of your letter calling the pellet 'waste'

My brother forwarded me phasechange's post about the word 'waste.' He still won't let me use his bathroom. He liked the part about how disgust shouldn't decide what people do. Apparently that argument only lasts until I need a toilet in his house.

stillanalog · #125 that argument only lasts until I need a toilet in his house

I've said your brother is wrong every time you've brought him up. You keep handing me his opinions and demanding that I wear them. I don't know how to make it clearer that he should let you use the toilet.

phasechange · #126

stillanalog · #125 He still won't let me use his bathroom.

I've said your brother is wrong every time you've brought him up.

A usable toilet and a clear dinner table are different requests. I want both. But I keep watching one person's disgust become a courtesy Vey must honor, while my brother's disgust becomes a reason to send me down the service corridor. You can condemn him in a sentence and spend six paragraphs explaining why the person who doesn't want a pellet near dinner is irrational. In here you sound like someone who has never had to ask permission for a bathroom.

I've now been called a germophobe, a status shopper, and a public-relations plant for a ceramics maker. I wrote a letter because a covered dish seemed like a boring answer. Some of you need this to remain an emergency.

letterwriter · #116 My point was that a host can set out a receptacle before dinner

Her letter proposes a covered dish at the table. It doesn't propose a ban, a separate dining room, or a new name for the pellet. I've checked the printed page twice because this thread keeps making me think I missed a paragraph.