Poor manners

If you read this, indeed this isn't fiction but you I'm talking about and Hyacinth would agree with me.

The older you get the more you experience and remember the past. Maybe that happens because you are no longer so busy and have more time to think?

Table manners, manners in general that was emphasised to me as a child. Good behaviour, speaking in two words, greetings and shaking hands were not rewarded but punished in a way one would call child abuse today. Like it or not you gedtoeg you and even though I found a lot of transgressive behaviour or exaggerated you still retain something as an adult.

For example, table manners are important to me and because I think so do my children.

The way someone eats, chewing per se, spitting food scraps around because they are talking with their mouth full, burping, slurping, smacking.... these are all things that say a lot about someone. To me, these are as much turn-offs as smokers blowing cigarette smoke in someone else's face, people coughing, sneezing or spitting in your face. I have no respect for those and don't want to deal with them.

Years back, I was chatting with someone. He was playing chess. It always took a long time before I got a reply so in between I could do the other things. He seemed nice to me. That feeling was soon over when he mistakenly turned on his webcam. There he sat, unwashed, unshaven, unclothed, eating in a terribly dirty way while tapping a letter on the keyboard in between.

He reminded me of the pen pal from overseas who once visited, had poor manners and couldn't eat with cutlery. With a fork, he tried to shove all the food into his mouth. During a date, eating out is not so crazy. The choice of restaurant, the meal, the way you eat and dress tells you within a few minutes whether you want to be friends with the person you are sitting at the table with.

For me, that one is definitely not. I would get annoyed all the time and no one in their circle of friends is waiting for an annoyed person. To keep it cosy, neat and stay friendly it's better to be and stay alone.

No idea who set this table but the first thing I see is that the knife is placed in the wrong way even Hyacinth Bucket knows that.

Enjoy Hyacinth

Ps. Poor manners or not I do love Onslow!

Prompt used: poor manners