A Conversation in Dingle

So here is a conversation between one of my colleagues (C) and an older drunken Irish person (DIP) while we were buying chocolate at the Centra grocery store in Dingle. My colleague's dialogue has been omitted because it hardly matters:

DIP: From America you are, aren't you. What part?
C: .....
DIP: I've been to North Carolina. Horrible, horrible place North Carolina. They have a swamp there.
C: .....
DIP: I've been to New York nine times. Nine times. And Chicago. And Pittsburgh.
C: .....
DIP: Have you been to San Francisco?
C: .....
DIP: I want to go to San Francisco before I die. St. Patrick's cathedral. Market St.
C: .....
DIP: (with increasing volume) Go to San Francisco and die. Go to San Francisco and die. Go to San Francisco and die.
C: .....

(Pictured: a statue of Fungi the dolphin who plays in the harbor at Dingle. Not pictured: drunken Irish person, death, or San Francisco)

Your Etiquette Advice from Some Old Books I Found

Today's etiquette advice comes from The Life Cycle Library for Young People 1969 (Parent and Child Institute, Chicago).

If you know me--and I hope, for your sake, you don't--then you know I am a spectacular social butterfly. Sort of like a conversationalist Mothra--he was a giant butterfly, right? But if you need help when you're at that next networking mixer, here's a quick tip:

Jokes made at someone else's expense, crude or off-color jokes, and very personal questions seldom make good conversation. Pointing out that Wally's teeth make him look like a gopher, even if they do, may get a big laugh, but the laugh is not worth the price of losing Wally as a friend. Laughter at someone else's expense is a sure way of losing friends.

Yeah, Wally really does look like a gopher. And now apropos of nothing--I'm only using that phrase because Heather hates it--this is also the book that clears up this concern:

A homosexual is a person who is sexually attracted to persons of the same sex rather than to persons of the opposite sex. One of the problems that masturbation can cause is that a young person may wonder if something is wrong with him or her. Some young people think masturbation is linked to homosexuality. They believe that if they masturbate, they are a homosexual or will become homosexual. They should realize that masturbation does not cause homosexuality.

So what have we learned? Don't call Wally a gopher and pointing out that masturbation does not in fact cause homosexuality--as everyone surely must have assumed--is probably a great conversation starter. This has been your etiquette advice from some old books I found.