When grilling outdoors, remember not to pierce the sausages or over-flip the burgers; or, you might ruin the inedible chunks of charcoal you’ll be serving.
Themed dinner parties are fine but avoid unappetizing themes such as the Medici family, historical infections and typhus.
How do you determine when to break out the good china? Think of your most prestigious guest: Would you feel a sense of great loss if she were removed from your life or if you were removed from her will?
Your guest of honor should always be at your right hand. If your right hand has been amputated or “bitten off”, that seat should remain empty lest your stainless steel hook deal some damage.
Remember that champagne should be served in fluted glasses; whereas, red wine should be served in shallower stemware. What you’ll be serving can just as easily be drunk from the bottle and passed to the nearest guest.
Paper plates and plastic cutlery are perfectly acceptable for a casual dinner party at say a prison or insane asylum.
Eye-contact should be brief but noticeable… no staring… despite the fact that your host has a hook for a hand.
Even if you’re not serving shrimp, a shrimp fork can be useful for demonstrating to your guests what a regular fork looks like to an elephant.
The host should carve the poultry at the table, unless he is missing a hand… then, that honor goes to the person on his left or to the host’s helper monkey.
If you are eating at a table, you should keep your napkin in your lap. If you’ve forgotten to wear pants, you should probably have two or three in your lap.
Potatoes and the Promise of More Potatoes 
Not really certain where the database programmer expertise comes in, but that napkin advice will save my social skin one day.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’ve had lunch at a nudist camp near Dallas and, believe me, that advice is good!
LikeLiked by 1 person
😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
That reminds me of an important announcement made last weekend by the South Australian government. They are abolishing all single use cutlery. Why do I mention this? Black market opportunities abound.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sometimes you just want to eat with a spoon you can also see through…
LikeLike
We took 20 plastic teaspoons caravanning for three months. We came back with eighteen
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sadly, I carve them into shivs…
LikeLike
Excellent advice. Nothing ruins the mellow mood of a get together like typhus.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Don’t get me started on typhus…
LikeLiked by 2 people
I liked all the references to the hook and “If you are eating at a table, you should keep your napkin in your lap. If you’ve forgotten to wear pants, you should probably have two or three in your lap.” 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
If you make a list like that, you need a few self-referential items. Most stand up comedians use that technique and, although I am too lazy to stand up, I am not too lazy to steal their techniques…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good advice there. I always drink wine from the bottle these days. It saves on cleaning up, or having any leftover wine.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Plus, you can look at the label like we look at the cereal box while we eat our cereal.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That is so true.
LikeLiked by 1 person
SELECT database_references, COUNT(*) FROM this_post GROUPBY database_refererences
LikeLiked by 1 person
You haven’t lived ’til you’ve written a recursive function in PL/SQL…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I haven’t had the pleasure.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve done it a few times and I haven’t had the pleasure, either. My guess is, the pleasure kicks in after a decade or so…
LikeLike
I would love a dinner party themed around historical infections!
LikeLiked by 1 person
And, I’d love to see who comes…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am so well qualified for any party of this type. Parasitic infection, septicemia, ringworm to name a few…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I went to a ringworm-themed dinner party once… The centerpiece was gloriously disgusting…
LikeLike