A blog post wherein I take etiquette questions from magazines and answer them myself.

Here we go.

My husband’s sister is morbidly obese, and we are very concerned about her health. We know her weight is a delicate topic, but if she were drowning in a lake instead of in fat, we would try to throw her the same kind of lifeline. We feel compelled to express our concern about her health. We know that how this is approached can make a big difference. We both feel she would benefit by seeing a counselor to confront life issues that may have caused her overeating. Can you please suggest a way to phrase it? We love her and want her to live a long and healthy life.

Damn if this isn’t some seriously judgmental shit. You find yourself compelled to express your concern? About how she is drowning in fat? Are you also compelled to act like an asshole? Because I’d like to express my concern about that.

I 100% guarantee you based on how you phrased your question that your sister-in-law knows very well exactly how you feel about her weight. I’d be incredibly surprised if this woman didn’t already feel that you were pitying, shaming, or judging her.

I don’t believe there is a fat woman alive in the US today who hasn’t gotten the message from someone or something nearly every day of her life that she is fat and that therefore her body is open for their commentary and judgment, and that health and acceptance equates to being thin.

If she has so-called life issues that would benefit from therapy, by all means, she should seek therapy. Therapy can be a fantastic healing experience for anyone, regardless of their weight. Having a supportive, empathetic, accepting, non-judgmental support system can also be fantastic.

But it seems to me that even if this woman went and sought such help to work through any life challenges she had, you would not be satisfied unless that resolution included weight loss. In which case, it seems to me that you are the one drowning – in a lake of your own bullshit judgmental self-righteousness.

Our new next-door neighbors asked if they could “share” our trash service. They only have a bag or two each week and wanted to avoid the trouble of hauling a bin to the curb. I was so dumbfounded by the request that I said yes. But now I’m having a big problem with it: I go to great lengths to keep our trash from being smelly, and there’s no way to control the type of trash they put in our bins. How can I renege?

Here’s what you say: Hey neighbor, I’ve thought about it and this actually doesn’t work for me. Starting next month you’ll have to secure another option for your trash service.

It’s fine to change your mind about something and it’s fine to not want to do something. You don’t need to come up with a justification for why (though I’m dying to know the extreme lengths you go to to ensure your trash doesn’t smell).

It seems like we have somehow equated coming up with bullshit reasons to make sure another person doesn’t feel bad or that you don’t look bad for being polite. Being honest and direct is polite. And it saves you from having to come up with yet more justifications when a person responds to your reasoning with – oh ok, so how about we _______ instead?

Now that we have covered that, I’m actually really curious about this situation. A bag or two of trash a week is probably about what I have so ok, but like… wanting to avoid the trouble of hauling a bin to the curb…? How far away is this curb? And wouldn’t it be further away and more trouble to carry bags of trash to somebody else’s house?

A mystery is afoot my friend. Who are they really? And what are they hiding in that trash?!

My mother-in-law visits about once a week. She always brings something (papers, mail, a gift) in a zip-top bag. I’m not an all-out sustainable person, but the excessive use of plastic bags when they’re not necessary drives me nuts. Is there a nice way to let her know that we don’t need everything in a bag – and that it’s not good for the earth?

The more I hear people complain about the weird annoying habits of their mothers-in-law, the more I would like to create a coffee table book about it. But, I digress…

I feel like this one falls pretty concretely in the “very very minor things to be concerned about” bucket. Once a week she brings you over stuff and you might end up with a Ziploc bag in your house? I mean… ?‍♀️

I’d guess she does that because she doesn’t want to bring over containers she has to remember to bring back or get back from you later. Or maybe it’s just a matter of convenience for her.

I would recommend:

• Creating a collection of the bags and giving them back to her at some point so she can reuse them.
• Getting her a couple of cute reusable Baggu bags or the like for her to use instead.
• Trying to give fewer shits about things that don’t really matter.

Do you have an etiquette question you'd like me to answer? Leave it in the comments below!