Dressing Your Personality at Weddings, Helping People Who Trip, Giving Money to Cashiers, and More

Nick: Hey, everybody. It's Nick Leighton.

Leah: And it's Leah Bonnema.

Nick: And we had so many great questions from you all in the wilderness ...

Leah: [howls]

Nick: ... that we have a bonus episode. So here we go. Our first question is quote, "I will be attending a wedding in Los Angeles soon, which states that we are to, quote, 'Dress your personality.' While I have been to functions that state that we dress California casual, I've honestly never seen this one before. I'd love to know your thoughts."

Leah: My thought is this is a great opportunity for a costume.

Nick: [laughs] I mean, okay. I mean, that's definitely one path. I think—I mean, people, why are we picking dress codes that people don't know what they mean? Like, this is not helpful. The whole point of a dress code on an invitation is to actually make it easier on your guests. This does not make it easier.

Leah: Oh, this is wide open.

Nick: This is wide open. And also, do you really want your guests to dress their personality? Like, have you met your guests?

Leah: [laughs]

Nick: I mean, you don't—you don't want all of these people dressing their personality. You want them to suppress their personality, a lot of them. Absolutely. Yeah, I don't want to give carte blanche just to, like, dress however. No!

Leah: I mean, they're fun people. Carte blanche. Be the most you, the most you that you are capable of being in your outfit.

Nick: I mean, so if you are just a narcissist, you should dress in a wedding dress. You should arrive in a wedding dress. You should actually try to look better than the bride. That would—that would be how you should arrive.

Leah: I think that people are going to dress, like, as pirates or ...

Nick: [laughs] Okay.

Leah: Maybe somebody's like, "I'm an anxious person." And then so, like, they sort of make like a very confused puzzle of some sort.

Nick: Okay.

Leah: I don't even know what that would look like. That's—it's open to interpretation. You know, you'd have to figure out how do I represent this in an outfit?

Nick: Yeah, there's no wrong answers. What if you have no personality? Do you just show up naked?

Leah: Or you're wearing sort of a cloud?

Nick: Okay. Just gauze. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I think that, given that this is the theme, I guess we need to still keep it within the world of wedding. I think I would want to emphasize the wedding part. So however you dress, whatever your personality is, I think we want to do it through the lens of wedding. And we also want to be mindful of what time of day this is, because your personality in the morning is a different wardrobe than, like, an evening personality wardrobe. So, like, I think that matters. And then, like, where is this? Is this at, like, the Chateau Marmont, or is this, like, at Neptune's Net in Malibu? Like, venue matters, I think.

Leah: And then after that, I think with all of those factors, then just go in hard.

Nick: Yeah. I mean, on some level, I do think you have license to, like, go big, right?

Leah: This is a written permission slip.

Nick: Because I think anybody who gives this as a dress code, they're not wanting subtle, right? They're not wanting you to just show up in, like, oh, just a tasteful Talbots, like, two-piece sweater set. Like, that's not what's happening.

Leah: No, they want you to have fun with your outfit.

Nick: Well—or that's how I'm interpreting this. I can see a world in which our hosts are shocked when they see what their guests arrive in and they're like, "Oh, we didn't anticipate our guests looking like this."

Leah: What else could dress your personality mean?

Nick: Um ...

Leah: It means go all in. There's no other reading.

Nick: Yeah. But I think whatever your personality is—like, let's say you're goth. Okay. Then it just needs to be wedding goth. And then it has to be evening wedding goth or afternoon garden party goth. So I think we just still need to have it within, like, the lens of the wedding, right?

Leah: I like that.

Nick: Right?

Leah: Evening or an afternoon wedding goth.

Nick: Yeah, and I'm into that. I think that's great.

Leah: What would you do?

Nick: Dress my personality? Oh, what a question! Okay, let's assume this is an evening wedding in Los Angeles, and it's—my personality is—I think I'm fun. Am I fun? I'm fun.

Leah: Of course you're fun.

Nick: [laughs] So I kind of want to be a little fun. I am classic, though. I do like classic sort of tailoring, and I like sort of a classic look, but with a little bit of a twist. So I think I would want to have a very nice, very fitted suit, but then I would want to make sure that, like, the cufflinks and, like, the studs are like some blingy something. And I would want to have a fun bow tie that maybe I made, because, like, I have a lot of bow ties that I've sewn myself. So maybe something that, like, it shows that I'm crafty.

Leah: Wow!

Nick: And then I would want to have, like, a coordinating pocket square that's like a pop. I think all those could be kind of fun. So my personality is like, I look better than you. I think maybe that's my personality. [laughs]

Leah: My personality is I look better than you. Oh my goodness!

Nick: [laughs] I mean, I maybe—is that wrong? I don't know. So maybe that's how I interpret this. What would you wear?

Leah: Well, this would give me an identity crisis. What is my personality? You know, it's ...

Nick: Yeah, who are you?

Leah: Who am I? It gets pulled from so many different—I like a little rock and roll.

Nick: Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I could definitely see you going that direction.

Leah: And then I also like, you know, my tracksuits with my white whites.

Nick: Okay. I can see sort of a formal tracksuit look from you.

Leah: I could see, like, a formal tracksuit with, like, a little bit of rock and roll.

Nick: Okay. I mean, I would love to go to this wedding now.

Leah: This seems like a really good time.

Nick: Well, letter-writer, go take pictures, report back, let us know how wild this gets.

Leah: I assume that we're right, but if we're not, please let us know what they meant by 'Dress your personality.'

Nick: Yeah. I mean, how could we not be right?

Leah: How could that not be ...?

Nick: I mean, right? Right. So let us know. So our next question is quote, "What should you do if you see a stranger trip and fall in public? Obviously, if the person is elderly or seems hurt, I would offer to help. But what if the only consequence is that the fall is embarrassing? In these situations, I'm tempted to immediately look away out of politeness. I know I'd be mortified if I fell and people were staring at me or trying to talk to me. So would you advise that I simply pretend not to see the fall? Or should I go out of my way to ask the fallen person if they're okay?"

Leah: This is such a good question.

Nick: This is an interesting question, yes. Because I've never actually thought about it in this way. So it's interesting to, like, walk through the thinking process.

Leah: I've actually—I always went and checked on people.

Nick: Yeah.

Leah: And then I was out of town, and I was with two friends, and a man, an adult man fell and I went over and was like, "Are you okay?" And he sort of brushed me off. And my friend said to me, "If somebody's not hurt, you shouldn't run over to them. It embarrasses them."

Nick: Yeah, okay. I mean, I can see that sentiment, but I guess the question is: how would you know if they're hurt or not?

Leah: How could I tell if they were hurt or not?

Nick: Right?

Leah: I don't want to embarrass somebody, but I'm—I was worried that they were hurt.

Nick: Yeah. And so I think I would rather err on the side of caution and just find out. And I would much rather embarrass someone than, like, ignore someone who's hurt, like, given those choices.

Leah: Also, it's not embarrassing to fall. I fall all the time.

Nick: [laughs]

Leah: I took a real big one on the corner of Hollywood, which is a—you know, on Hollywood Boulevard. Very busy. I was wearing those slip-on, like, Adidas shoes.

Nick: Okay.

Leah: That was my first time out with them, and I wasn't really aware of how slippery they were on the bottom. And I came around the corner with Lacey Jane. She was at a trot, and my feet just—I went down.

Nick: Okay.

Leah: Down hard. And people came over.

Nick: Yeah. I mean, I think I don't want to live in a world in which we just sort of ignore people who may be in distress. Like, I don't think that's a direction we want to head in as a society. And yeah, I don't think we want to embarrass people. But, you know, health and safety always comes first. And so, like, you know, let them be momentarily embarrassed. But I think if you also ask, like, "Oh, are you okay?" in a tone that's not judgmental.

Leah: Yeah.

Nick: Which is like, "Wow, you're clumsy. Are you okay?"

Leah: "That looked ridiculous!" Like, don't say that.

Nick: "That doesn't look like the first time you did that." Yeah, I feel like it's totally fine. Now I think if somebody stumbles, you know, like, we've all done that where, like, you stumble. And then, of course, we always, like, look back to see, like, oh, what did I stumble over? And it's like, oh, this person is, like, now walking away and is obviously, like, fine, I don't think we need to stop them. But certainly if somebody goes down, absolutely. Yes.

Leah: And on that note, like, another time I went down recently ...

Nick: [laughs] Okay.

Leah: I just needed a second to collect myself, you know?

Nick: Yeah. No, it's definitely—it can be very, like, disorienting.

Leah: So I said to the person who asked, "Are you okay?" I said, "Yeah, I'm totally fine. I just need a second."

Nick: Yeah.

Leah: And then I think give that person a second because people are just regrouping.

Nick: Yeah, I think you just want to use your best judgment based on how the situation is unfolding. But I think, you know, let's not use the risk of embarrassment as a reason not to extend help.

Leah: I think I'd rather feel embarrassed than totally alone.

Nick: Yeah. I mean, also given the choices, like, if you fell and even if you were okay and you saw somebody see you, you know that they saw you and they did nothing, that also doesn't feel great.

Leah: Yeah, that doesn't feel great either.

Nick: Right? So yeah, I think let's just not worry about embarrassment and just yeah, see if somebody needs help. So our next question is quote, "When paying at a counter with cash, do you put the cash on the counter or should you be placing it into the cashier's hand?"

Leah: I always sort of make sure my bills are unwrinkled and facing in the same direction—I think that's left over from waitressing—and I put it in their hand unless they're busy doing something else, then I put it on the counter.

Nick: Okay. Now I so rarely pay with cash anymore. Like, what is cash? What is this? That I actually purposely went to a coffee shop today to buy coffee, and I used cash to see what was my instinct, how did this go down? And so it was $1 billion, because that's how much an Americano costs in New York City. And so I handed over $1 billion in cash.

Leah: So heavy! It's so heavy.

Nick: [laughs] Yeah, I had a whole briefcase. No, it was like—it was like $4 and change, so I had a $5 bill. And so I took it out of my wallet, and I kind of waited for the cashier to decide what is the dance. And also the amount of real estate available for counter space was, like, none because it was, like, all, like, things they were selling, and then there was, like, the credit card thing. So actually there wasn't a great place to put the money that wouldn't require him to, like, lean over the cash register and, like, get to it. So I handed it to him, and his hand was also extending at the same time. So I thought, "Okay, that's what we're doing," and then he gave me change back in my hand. And I felt like that exchange felt polite. So that's how that went down.

Nick: But there are lots of places in the world in which that is not how that goes down. So I do want to just highlight that, like, in Asia, Japan especially, you do not hand money to people directly. You always use a little tray that is gonna be pretty much at every place you pay for things. So always use the tray.

Leah: Oh, very interesting.

Nick: Yeah, there's a lot of cultural reasons why we don't hand money to people directly in Japan, but point being, there's always this little tray. It always has, like, a weird little textured nubby bottom to make it easier to grab coins. And you put your money in the tray, and then you slide the tray over to the person, and then they take the money out of the tray. And then when they give you change, they put the change in the tray, and then they slide the tray to you. And then that's how that works. Also in Japan, a lot of cash still in that society. Definitely still a cash-based society in a lot of places. So that's also interesting. But I think this is a fun question.

Leah: I think it's a very fun question.

Nick: I think in the United States it is, I think, more polite to hand money to someone directly, because the alternative is to put it on a counter, and we don't have trays in the United States like they do in Japan. That's not very common at, like, the gas station. And so just, like, to plop cash down on the counter and then, like, make them reach for it or you're, like, sliding money across the counter, like, that doesn't seem as elegant.

Leah: And getting change off a counter is always ...

Nick: Also that. I think that's rude. Yeah, now we have to, like, slide the coins off the edge.

Leah: We have to slide it. It's a whole thing. And I do think it's nice to make the bills not the worst they could be when you hand them over.

Nick: Right. Yeah. I mean, I think actually you can tell a lot about a person and their relationship with money with how they organize the money in their wallet. So if all the bills are facing in the same direction, are all flat and are all in numerical order, that is a very different person than the person who has it all just, like, wadded in in any order in a ball. And I think that's always very interesting, like, oh, how is the money organized in your wallet?

Leah: And there's those of us right in the middle where maybe in the wallet it's come as you are, but when you hand it out, it gets organized.

Nick: Oh, I see. So you kind of have a money mullet. It's a party in the wallet. But it's all business when you're handing it over.

Leah: [laughs] That's—yes, I have a money mullet.

Nick: [laughs] Okay, just want to clarify. So our next question is quote, "My friend who works outside the home was introduced to a group of women who, when asked what they do, stated, 'I work, but I don't have to,' clearly meaning that their husbands make plenty of money to support them. I'd be interested in your thoughts." And Leah has no thoughts, so next question.

Leah: Yeah, this doesn't seem like something I would have thoughts on at all.

Nick: [laughs] I mean, what do we do with this? What do we do with this?

Leah: I would like to say for the record, it could also mean that they have—maybe they've retired early because they invented the Bumpit.

Nick: Oh, okay. So I work, but I don't have to because I invented a as-seen-on-TV hairstyling tool.

Leah: [laughs]

Nick: Okay. I mean, if that's the case, then no problem. But our letter-writer feels like it's just that their husbands make plenty of money to support them. That is our letter-writer's theory about why they're saying it in this way.

Leah: I just wanted to open up the 'I work, but I don't have to' in case they did invent the Bumpit.

Nick: And just for our listeners who may not be familiar with the Bumpit, do you want to describe what the Bumpit is and does and achieves?

Leah: Yeah. It's—you put it on the top of your head, so you can have a bit of a—um, what is this word that I'm doing with my hand that they can't see?

Nick: Like a pompadour?

Leah: Like a pompadour up front.

Nick: Yes, it creates volume where otherwise you may not have that volume. And you can choose to have the volume at the front, in the middle, in the back.

Leah: You just bump it.

Nick: You just bump it. Yeah.

Leah: [laughs]

Nick: [laughs] So this episode is brought to you by Bumpit. So if you were the inventor of Bumpit, you made a lot of money and so you do not have to work, and yet you still choose to. Okay, that is a theory, but presumably maybe that's not what's happening here.

Leah: I think that that way you could say—they say, "Oh, I work, but I don't have to," you could say, "Oh, did you invent the Bumpit?"

Nick: That's a great follow up. Yeah.

Leah: Then they—then they would specify, "Oh no, I meant ..."

Nick: "Oh, I just meant that my husband is very wealthy and takes care of all this."

Leah: And you're like, "Oh, I just needed you to clarify. I didn't—I didn't get it."

Nick: But I guess the real question is, like, why did our letter-writer write us about it? Like, why did this catch their eye? And I guess it just feels like a little bit of a boast. It feels a little tactless, right? It's a little insensitive because there are some of us who don't have that luxury.

Leah: The thing is is that I'm—gonna trot this out. I would be more comfortable with someone saying, "Oh, I don't have to work." And I'd be like, "Oh!" Or, "Hey, I made the Bumpit. I retired, I'm on an island." And I'd go, "Wow!" As opposed to somebody going, "I play at working."

Nick: Yeah. Well I mean, I guess for me what bothers me is, like, the 'I don't have to do it, and that makes me a better person than you because you do have to do it.' I guess it's—it's that 'I'm better than you' is the flavor I get from this.

Leah: Yeah, I get that flavor as well.

Nick: Right?

Leah: I mean, is there a way we could read this without—without it being that? I don't know. I would have trouble not giggling if somebody said that to me. "I work, but I don't have to." I would just—I would sort of be like, "How fun!"

Nick: "How fun." Yeah. I mean, yeah, what do you say?

Leah: "How nice!"

Nick: "How nice!"

Leah: I also think, like, the friend who was meeting them wasn't like, "How do you pay your bills?" That wasn't the question. The question is they're trying to have small talk, you know?

Nick: Right.

Leah: "What do you do with your days? Nice meeting you."

Nick: "What do you do?" Right. "Oh, I work, but I don't have to."

Leah: I don't care who's signing your checks. I was just trying to have a back and forth on how we spend our time.

Nick: Right. Yeah, and I guess it's just—it was something to volunteer that was not needed to be volunteered. Like, we didn't have to mention that part, which is like, "The work I do is optional."

Leah: [laughs] The work I do is optional!

Nick: Yeah. I mean, it is. Like, I work, but I don't have to. It's optional. It's totally optional. No obligation.

Leah: Or we could do this—this new thing that I just thought of right now where somebody says that, and you just take it like they said it with absolutely no, no feelings or emotions or judgment attached to it, they're just giving us the facts. They work, but they don't have to. And you say, "Cool. I work, I have to."

Nick: Yeah. And then I think we just move on. Yeah, I guess that's what we do.

Leah: Or you could be like, "Amazing. What's that like? I've always had to work. Tell me everything."

Nick: Okay. I mean, if you could land that in a way that didn't sound the way that just sounded.

Leah: [laughs]

Nick: [laughs] Yeah. I mean, I guess that's how you would respond. But yeah, I think the idea of putting people down, which is kind of what this is, because they have to work, which is most of us. You know, it's just like, I don't—yeah, I could see why our letter-writer wasn't thrilled by this exchange.

Leah: I wouldn't be thrilled.

Nick: Yeah. So there you are. Those are our thoughts. So our next thing is a Bonkers.

Leah: Bonkers!

Nick: And it's quote, "Myself and six coworkers met up with our boss for a team meeting in another state. My boss—let's call her Lisa—brought her assistant who became her chauffeur for these few days. After a meeting at our hotel, we agreed to meet at a particular restaurant at 7:00 pm, and her assistant made a reservation. The group of us seven coworkers leave to drive there, and the assistant says that she and the boss will be right behind us. She confirms the name the reservation is under in case we get there first.

Nick: "The seven of us arrive, give the name of the reservation, and are seated at a large table on the left side of the restaurant. We wait about 15 minutes, and then we reach out to the assistant by text confirming that they are on their way. She says yes, they just pulled up, so we order appetizers. We realize another 15 minutes has gone by and they're not there, so we text again and she says they're seated in the restaurant and asks where we are. We tell her and confirm that we're all at the same and correct location, and we confirm that we gave the correct name when asking for the reservation. We tell her, 'Can you and the boss come and find us, since we have a large table and have already ordered drinks and appetizers?' A few minutes pass, and she texts back: 'Lisa says she's waited for you long enough. We're leaving.' As if to say this is all our fault. So rather than come find us, she chooses to leave her entire team at a restaurant. Needless to say, we all stayed and had a lovely dinner, not having to endure any additional time with our boss. We have a meeting the next morning, and absolutely nothing is said to any of us to acknowledge what occurred the previous evening."

Leah: Bonkers!

Nick: [laughs] This is great! This is so great. I love when people do bad things and then double down. Like, what a great thing!

Leah: I—I would be—I would be, like, chomping at the bit to be like, "Are you not gonna say anything?"

Nick: Also, what is the other side of this story?

Leah: There is no other side of this story.

Nick: Like, I arrive at the restaurant after you. You're already seated. The restaurant for some reason sat me somewhere else, so I don't know how that happened, but we don't want to solve the problem, which just felt very easy to solve. It was just easier to just, like, leave in a huff? I guess so.

Leah: "We've waited for you for too long. We're leaving." Oh, but we've been over here waiting three times as long.

Nick: [laughs] Right? I mean, I think what is interesting is that, like, Lisa thinks that she's, like, getting one over on her team, which is like, "Oh, I'm gonna leave. I'll show you!" And the team is gonna have a nice night. Even better now. So if you were trying to make a point, I don't know, I think the team actually enjoyed the fact that you left.

Leah: I would have trouble speaking to this person and not be like, "Can we just discuss what happened at the restaurant? I don't understand."

Nick: [laughs] Well, what is there to say?

Leah: I know, but ...

Nick: I mean ...

Leah: They'd be like, "Hey, can I have this whatever from you?" And you'd be like, "Can you just explain why you abandoned us?"

Nick: [laughs] Yeah. Well, the assistant—on some level, I think the assistant is actually the problem here. I wonder if actually the assistant did something messed up, and threw the team under the bus, and—instead of getting in trouble with Lisa.

Leah: Oh!

Nick: I wonder. That just came to me as I was reading this. I wonder if the real etiquette crime here is the assistant.

Leah: Mmm!

Nick: Maybe the assistant actually accidentally booked a meal at a different, like, restaurant. It was like El Cantinero instead of Il Cantinori, and the assistant didn't realize their mistake until they were seated at this other restaurant.

Leah: Yeah, but they went to this restaurant and there was a reservation.

Nick: Right. So then did the assistant go somewhere else? I mean—okay, I mean, there's still some mystery here. There's still some mystery, but I just wonder, like, oh—I mean, Lisa's obviously a problem, but is the assistant also a problem? Because I feel like our letter-writer is giving the assistant a bit of a pass here, and I wonder, like, oh, is that actually correct?

Leah: I don't know. Now that you've pointed it out, it seems like the assistant is a huge red flag.

Nick: Right? That did not occur to me earlier, but now that I am thinking this, now I'm gonna not stop thinking about this and I'm gonna get obsessed.

Leah: Or this Lisa is just extremely who she is, and then the assistant's caught in the crossfire.

Nick: Yes. I mean, that's possible.

Leah: We would have to see if there's been other moments.

Nick: Right. I mean, this is a data point of one, so it's hard to plot a graph with just one data point.

Leah: Yes.

Nick: That's true. But it does—because it's so insane. What an insane thing.

Leah: What an insane thing!

Nick: To be like—that it just feels like there must be some other very material detail for why Lisa and the assistant did what they did in a way that they could justify to themselves as being rational, because we all have to, like, tell ourselves some sort of story that makes sense to us. Because, like, we don't want to actively be rude for rude's sake. Like all of us, like, you know, tell ourselves the story for why what we're doing is okay. So, like, what was the story they were telling themselves for why this was okay? And that I don't know if I feel I understand at this moment.

Leah: And also so weird that we never saw them.

Nick: We never saw them in the restaurant. That's why I'm like, oh, I feel like there was some mishap.

Leah: Were they even in the restaurant? Now that you put that in my head ...

Nick: Right? Was it a different restaurant? Right? So there's something there.

Leah: Did the assistant not even ever bring the boss?

Nick: Whoa!

Leah: Was it a whole ruse?

Nick: Is there a boss? Is the assistant actually Lisa?

Leah: [laughs]

Nick: Have we actually ever seen the assistant and Lisa in the same room? That's a good question. [laughs]

Leah: [laughs] Pow! My brain just exploded.

Nick: So do you have any other good questions for us? Anything Bonkers, a vent, a repent, an etiquette crime? We'll take it all. So please send it to us. Send it to us through our website, WereYouRaisedByWolves.com. Or you can leave us a voicemail or send us a text message: (267) CALL-RBW. And we'll see you next time!

Leah: Bye!

Nick: Bye!