Miss Manners: She was tricked into attending her own shower covered in mud

AdviceYou can send your questions to Miss Manners through her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com.Dear Miss Manners: My co-worker was given a surprise baby shower at her mother-in-law’s house. Her husband got her there by fibbing, saying he needed to pick up a tool and she could just sit in the car.This was right after my co-worker had completed two hours of yard work; she was in grubby, ill-fitting clothes and had no shoes on, as hers were muddy. She had taken them off so she wouldn’t soil the car.Now she is stuck with dozens of pictures from the shower with her not feeling well and looking ridiculous. What would Miss Manners have done?Gentle Reader: That must have come as a shock, although Miss Manners does not quite understand how your co-worker was enticed out of the car once she realized something was up. Perhaps the car was swarmed by well-wishers before she could snatch the car keys and flee.And presumably there were too many witnesses to dispatch the husband with one of the gardening tools.After being gracious with the guests and treating it all as a charming prank, one trusts that your co-worker had a serious conversation with her husband, explaining that he does not wish to learn the consequences of anything remotely similar ever happening again.Dear Miss Manners: I was at a business lunch today and did not order dessert for myself, even though my clients did. My co-workers are telling me that I should have ordered dessert anyway, even if I didn’t want it, so that my clients wouldn’t feel guilty.I feel that my clients are strong-willed people and are secure enough in themselves that they wouldn’t feel bad about ordering it if they wanted it. Am I right in telling my co-workers to cram it with walnuts, ugly?Gentle Reader: If that last phrase was one of the dessert options, then Miss Manners understands abstaining. But, no, ordering food for the purpose of throwing it away certainly cannot be excused as good manners — if, indeed, there is any excuse.Dear Miss Manners: In my mother’s obituary, I asked that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to one of three charities involved in animal welfare. While a few people complied with this request, the majority of the donations were made to other charities, none of which had anything to do with animal welfare.Since these donations were made in my mother’s memory, I believe that the donations should have been made to one of the named charities or, at least, made to a group doing similar work. I’ve sent the required thank-you notes acknowledging the gifts, but I feel that these people basically gave a gift to themselves rather than for my mother.Gentle Reader: If the charities chosen were not ones that would have interested your mother, then you are right to think that those gifts have little to do with her.But you were also right to acknowledge them. A funeral is not a fundraising opportunity, so the gifts are beside the real purpose, which was to honor her memory.Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, gentlereader@missmanners.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.Judith Martin, who goes by the pen name of Miss Manners, is an author and columnist on etiquette authority. Martin graduated from Wellesley College with a degree in English. She began her career in writing as a...