By the book

So I was flipping through my copy of The Seventeen Book of Etiquette and Entertaining (1965), as one does, and went to the index, as one does, and landed on this corner of this page:

Now, what I initially appreciated was the suggestion that there are only a very few types of wedding a person might attend:

• Episcopal
• Jewish
• Quaker
• Roman Catholic
• judge's office
• home/hotel/rectory/club

Just as well to be clear about what is and is not appropriate.

But what made me make the leap from smirking to myself to taking a picture, flipping it, and posting it to the internet was "typing, as way to meet boys." 

Because neither typing nor meeting boys have ever been my super-strong suit, but it is not my impression that that's likely to be successful, unless we're talking about actually embarking on a secretarial career to meet men, right?*

Day 26 of our month** of gratitude: I am thankful for books — old books in particular — and the collected wisdom of the ages. I am thankful for rules*** and guidelines and instruction on expectations. But I am even thankfuller for a discerning mind that permits me to follow those guidelines when they apply, to laugh at them when they are foolish, and to reject them outright when they are dangerous.

*I did eventually read the passage in question. Turns out it's the college (high school?) equivalent of a secretarial career: Learn to type, because boys need their theses typed. Ohforcryingoutloud.

**I initially typed "moth." I thought that was funny.

***Unrelated to anything, but amusing to me: My current color of nail polish is called "Princesses Rule." The nail polish company gets points for literalness, I guess.