Miss Manners: Should I risk insulting my neighbor by being blunt about her dog?

DEAR MISS MANNERS My neighbor has a new dog Frequently she sees me out back with my dogs and asks to come into my yard so that our dogs may have a playdate Related Articles Miss Manners Strangers want to take our photo and they re bugged when I say no Miss Manners She contaminated the soup and then got petulant with me Miss Manners The frustrating tennis tournament is a dark cloud in my life Miss Manners The secret about my new house got out and now things are awkward at work Miss Manners The bride s mother sent me a bill How should I respond This is fine occasionally However she asks me every day and her dog barks a lot This is too much Sometimes I just want to be alone with my quiet pups We have a chain-link fence and a taller privacy fence is not an option How do I politely tell her that her dog hurts my head and I need to recharge by being alone I ve already informed her that barking dogs give me headaches but nothing has changed GENTLE READER As this neighbor puts their dog s necessities ahead of those of humans Miss Manners suggests you respond in kind Hamlet isn t feeling very sociable currently Perhaps the two of them can have a playdate next week when his head is feeling better We ll reach out DEAR MISS MANNERS My husband and I are good friends with a couple who were kind enough to cook us various delicious food They brought back ingredients from their country of origin the last time they visited family there and made us a dish using a recipe from their grandma They even went to the trouble of freezing the dish so they could give us a minimal containers of it the last time we all hung out The next day my husband heated up the food in the oven He and I enjoyed the meal immensely and then we both got food poisoning that lasted a couple days Now we re supposed to go out to dinner with this couple After all the trouble they went through of making us something special they will obviously want to know how we liked it I m not sure if the polite thing to do is to tell a half-truth that we loved the food and appreciate them making it for us or the full truth that we loved the food we appreciate them making it for us but that it made us sick This is now the second time that friends have made the kind gesture of cooking for us only to give us food poisoning It occurred with a different couple before Now that it s happened again I m wondering if etiquette dictates transparency or if we should stick to the half-truth like we did the first time If we knew these friends were going to be eating a few of what they made for us it would feel like a residents facility to say something but that s not the scenario here GENTLE READER The more concerning question is Why are all of your friends trying to poison you Even though this couple may not be consuming the food themselves it would still be a constituents provision to warn them about transporting perishable food internationally It was delicious you may say but I m afraid something in the dish did not agree with us I wonder if the ingredients you flew in might have lost something in transit Related Articles Asking Eric I m a bad friend Maybe I shouldn t be her friend at all Harriette Cole My friend laughed off the blunder but it stung to realize how people see me Miss Manners Strangers want to take our photo and they re bugged when I say no Dear Abby My genius daughter won t get a job and it s wrecking her marriage Asking Eric I don t love my mom That doesn t make me a sociopath Miss Manners would not go so far as to say that you should take a break from your friends cooking but she might recommend that until this unfortunate streak dies down you make sure to see them take a bite before you do DEAR MISS MANNERS How can I become a better listener and not think I m inevitably right GENTLE READER Practice 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 Walnut St Kansas City MO