What do I do with this mysterious plant?
DEAR MISS MANNERS: When I got home I found an overturned potted plant on my porch. It wasn’t there before and wasn’t mine.
As I opened it, I discovered a sealed card with a name on it that neither belonged to me nor to my partner. I concluded that this plant must have been a gift for someone that was delivered to the wrong address.
Since all I had to do was put the name on the card’s cover, I went into my local social media groups and tried to find this person, but so far have been unsuccessful.
I’m at a loss as to what to do. I thought about opening the envelope to maybe see if a certain florist or nursery shipped the plant so I could contact the shop and let them know they shipped the plant wrong, but opening an envelope, addressed to another person crosses a line that I am unwilling to cross.
I’m also not willing to keep a plant that isn’t meant for me, nor am I willing to throw it away. Obviously someone paid money for someone else to have it.
What should I do in this situation?
GENTLE READER: sorry, what was that? Miss Manners was distracted, wondering if a potted plant that has been knocked over is technically an unpotted plant.
You are absolutely right not to open someone else’s mail. If you can’t find a clue — perhaps a label identifying the delivery service, who can then be asked to cart it away — treat it the way you’d treat any other potted guest: give them an appropriate time in a quiet corner to recover yourself (or reclaim it from its owner), after which you can keep it with a clear conscience or hand it over to an organization that will take care of it.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: As the pandemic has changed all of our lives, our daughter has begun to step away from family functions altogether.
She makes suspicious claims that the pandemic is directing her decisions while simultaneously inviting her personal friends and construction/cleaning crews to affairs that suit her personal needs.
We get tired of the repeated “thanks but no thanks” responses to our invites, only to hear later that she spent a weekend with friends or that her kitchen was being remodeled by a construction crew.
Part of me wants to be an unconditional loving parent, but I’m not very resilient when it comes to blatant rejection from my offspring. It’s been like this since the beginning of the pandemic. I’m at my wit’s end and ready to give up.
GENTLE READER: It’s not always wrong to use polite fiction to avoid hurting feelings, but when done wrong it hurts feelings even more.
Miss Manners trusts you to know that you may not be able to force your daughter’s attendance. But you can ask them to either drop the excuse or try harder to make it believable.
Please send your questions to Miss Manners on her website www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or by mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/03/30/miss-manners-mystery-plant-needs-a-home/ What do I do with this mysterious plant?
