A Labor Party for Early Birds

If guests arrive as much as 90 minutes early to a party I'm hosting, is it OK to excuse myself to take a shower or to ask early birds to help set up the drinks?
J.R. in Kennebunk, Maine

I think someone who arrives 90 minutes early - 90 minutes! - is pretty well begging to be pressed into service. What else are you supposed to do with them? Running off to shower is a different story. If the early bird is a very close old friend - a college roommate, a veteran of your Sunday softball game - it might be all right. If there's any doubt in your mind about the appropriateness, though, skip the shower and make do with a quick sponging. Or you could shoo the early comer (why is "latecomer" a word but "earlycomer" is not?) off on an errand that will take up sufficient time for you to groom at leisure. Surely there's some fancy cheese or liqueur without which the party will not be complete, which can only be obtained across town. Bob Earlycomer wouldn't mind running out and picking it up, would he?

As someone who has spent several months on crutches, I am very sensitive to litter. Litter, especially the slippery kind, can be hazardous to those who have trouble getting around. I am writing in the hope that you will help by asking us all to pitch in to help keep public walkways clear.
R.O. in Jamaica Plain

Consider it asked! Last spring, I actually slipped on a banana peel in the Park Street subway station. It was comedy gold, I tell you, especially considering I was wearing fishnet stockings and an academic gown at the time. (It was graduation day; even in Cambridge, people don't dress like that normally.) Comedy gold, indeed, but it could easily have put me on crutches for a month or more if I hadn't been lucky.

People often think it's all right to discard food on the street, working on the notion that it is biodegradable or that ants will eat it. This is true enough, but food scraps are usually slippery, never hygienic, and all too attractive to dogs and the occasional orally fixated toddler. So please, drop those crusts and peels in the appropriate containers!

A year ago, a friend suggested that a group of nine friends should rent a vacation home in Paris and split the costs. Then, last fall, the friend's husband lost his job and has been out of work since. A couple of weeks ago, she told me that she and her husband would not be able to afford the trip. The rest of us are still very excited about going. Would we be horribly selfish if we continued to plan the trip (after discussing it with her)? Or should we just forget it?
W.L. in Boston

It would make sense to postpone the trip if it were just you and the other couple, but managing to get nine people organized for an intercontinental trip (or even a movie and Chinese) is no small feat, and if you drop the plans now, you risk a terminal loss of momentum. By the time your friend's husband reenters the workforce, some other member of the party might have a financial crisis, new puppy, or kidney stone that would make travel inadvisable. And forgoing the Paris trip might make your friend and her husband feel worse. If I had to choose between unemployment, and unemployment seasoned by the knowledge that I'd just deprived seven of my closest friends of a trip to France, I'd choose the former.

Do talk to your friend, as you've said you would, and make sure she's comfortable with the rest of you going ahead with your plans. Try if you can to suss out what would be the kindest way of handling the situation as it progresses. I can't give you specific advice on this, because people are idiosyncratic. Some people in your friend's position would want to get as close to the action as they could and would love postcards and souvenirs and hearing every detail about Montmartre. Others would find mentions of the trip to be painful reminders of their own difficult circumstances - or surprise-spoilers for a brighter day when they can afford the trip themselves.

I received an invitation to a friend's wedding, in an envelope addressed only to me. The reply card has a place where you can write how many guests will be attending. Can I write in two if I want to bring a date, or am I obligated to say one because only my name was on the invitation? I don't want to have to ask the bride, but I also don't want to go alone.
V.C. in Boston

Yes, the invitation is intended only for you. It's what's written on the envelope that counts, even if the RSVP card does not exactly correspond. Because some invitations are sent to multiple recipients, the cards have a place for the number of guests. It would be an extra expense, not to mention yet another thing to keep track of, to get some cards with "number of guests" and some without, and make sure that multiple- and single-recipient invitees all get the correct card. Go alone and have fun! Social muscles are like any other kind - you've got to stretch them regularly.

My Word!

As ragweed season approaches, those who are not allergy sufferers should give thanks for their good fortune and be patient with the inevitable unattractive spectable that the allergy-ridden will present. Those of us with allergies should strive to be as in-offensive as possible and to sniff, blow, or wipe only if to do so is the least worse option.

Miss Conduct is Robin Abrahams, a Cambridge-based writer with a PhD in psychology.