Serene wrote:

It is okay to just avoid people one finds to be rude.

Normally, I'd just agree and shut up. But in this particular case, I had
misread the original post and thought that the hostess had been described as
"a wonderful kind woman, not much of a cook, but really nice, and lives in a
lovely home in a nice neighbourhood." If that had been the case, then the
hostess would obviously have redeeming qualities which could offset this
particular aberrant rudeness.

A closer reading reveals that that description had actually been applied to
the person being invited, not to the hostess. The hostess herself had only
been described as "the chef's wife." Presumably, this is a case of the OP
(Dave Smith) following the adage, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say
anything at all."

And I'm now reminded that Dave has posted here about his "Big Niece." Here
are a couple samples from his posts:


| Big Niece... can be counted on to show up early and it is a struggle to
| keep her away from the food. She once showed up at her step sister's place
| uninvited when the step sister was expecting company, but she was invited
| to stay, "helped" in the kitchen and ate ALL the food before the invited
| guests arrived


* After all the food is served and people sit down to eat you have to keep
* an eye on her. No matter the variety of dishes set out for guests, the
* niece will sneak back into the kitchen and root around through the fridge
* and cupboards and take whatever she fancies, even opening boxes of soda
* crackers and breakfast cereals.
*
* Her food theft is legendary. I once hid a double batch of chocolate chop
* cookies in the far corner of the bottom shelf of a lower cabinet behind
* the pots and pans. After she left I discovered that she had found them.
* She ate the entire double batch, almost 5 dozen cookies. That same day
* she sampled the apple pie I had made for dessert. She was not content to
* take a small slice. Not even a large slice. She ate the middle of the pie.
* Not only was there not enough for us, even if the host and hostess did
* without, but the pie was ruined. Who would want a slab of crust?
*
* The last time she was at our house, and I am now confident it will be the
* last time, I saw her descend upon the Devilled Eggs and cheese platter. By
* the time I came out a few minutes later the whole batch of eggs (I had use
* a dozen eggs, so there were 2 dozen little devils) were gone, and she was
* into the cheese.

Dave, you sure run into some odd people!

Bob