Etiquette, Elegance, Etcetera

My fancy manners only get dusted off and put on display for a few months each year. They're the months when Nameless Utah College and every other school in sight hold their fancy award dinners, their fancy recognition dinners, and their fancy just-because dinners.

Each year at this time Baby Sister's school takes kids in her grade to an expensive French restaurant. All the kids who go are required to attend after-school demonstration on proper formal dining etiquette. In this demonstration they learn the proper way to use a napkin, to choose the correct fork, to de-snail escargot. The whole thing lasts less than an hour, but the attendees are expected to remember all they learned not only the next week at the French restaurant but at every single formal event for the rest of their entire lives.

This is how I came by my fancy manners in the first place. I, too, went to the expensive French restaurant when I was Baby Sister's age. I also went with Little Sister as a chaperone when it was her turn for the shmanciness. I had responsibility over a group of students, and none of them died or was even injured. Since that clearly meant I was a natural at this whole chaperoning business, it seemed only natural that I should go in for a second round with Baby Sister and her peers.

We got to the French restaurant. We toured the grounds. Again, no one died or was injured. And even though I was very much impressed by how much the French resturant looked like a real piece of history-filled Europe, I managed to remember to be tasteful and not spend the whole time talking about it. Because even though I was pretty sure they never covered the situation in my long-ago manners demonstration, my good sense told me that to constantly talk about a continent my dinner companions had never even seen would be boorish.

Society points for me.

We finished the tour of the grounds, got to actual dinner, sat down, and ordered our food. The smiley waitress brought us our escargot.

Being the experienced formal-manners-woman that I am, I extracted my snail. I did this by clamping the snail-clamp-thing on the shell, held it firmly in place, and then easily removed the meaty part with my tiny snail-fork-thing. Then I placed it on the little slice of bread expressly for that purpose. All was well.

Except only for those few seconds. Because then Baby Sister said, "Uh... I can't get my snail out of its shell."

I didn't know what the fancy manner protocol for this situation would be, either. As a chaperone, though, I supposed that apart from keeping kids from dying or being injured, I should probably help them out. And as an older sister--

Well. I wanted to kick that snail's behind.

I politely reached over, politely took up Baby Sister's knife and her escargot plate. I clamped the shell down, jabbed the knife inside, and attacked that snail.

Immediately all the girls at our table began to exclaim that I was doing it wrong, that I was supposed to use the tiny snail-fork-thing. Probably they were trying to be kind and keep me from embarrassing myself like that--hacking at a snail's insides at the dinner table! Perhaps they even felt a certain pride because they knew better than to behave in such an undignified manner, even if the chaperone didn't.

"Guys," Baby Sister said, "she knows." Her friends shut up, but I could still feel their eyes on me. And by the way, if someone at your dinner table is ever trying to remove a snail in an incorrect manner with some sweat and some grunting and some clattering of china...feel free to look away. It's easier for everyone if you do.

In the end, the snail came free. Baby Sister placed her escargot on her bread. We went back to eating and delicately mentioned the incident no more, as befits well-mannered people.

The rest of the meal went more smoothly. I remembered to tear my roll up into little pieces before putting butter on it instead of buttering the whole thing and then tearing into it with my teeth (a faux pas I committed when I was at prom with my friend Runner Bean and which still sits mortifyingly fresh in my mind on account of how much I liked him at the time). I managed to eat my entire crepe without spilling chocolate sauce on anything or anyone. I even ate the capers that were on my chicken, because if there were a written job description for a well-mannered chaperone, eating capers would probably be, like, the fifth requirement on the list. It sets a good example for the younguns.

And when I tried to place a piece of roll in my mouth but it ended up on my cheek instead and I looked around furtively to discover that Baby Sister had totally seen and I gave her a look that said, "Not a word," she didn't say a word. Not one.

I'm so proud of her. She's almost as well-mannered as I am.