My dinner guests bring me unwelcome gifts. How to feed them the truth?
This story is part of the May 17 edition of Good Weekend. See all 13 stories.
Despite being a chocolate lover, I hate Lindt balls with a passion. Yet whenever I invite guests for dinner, they invariably bring me a box. I'd honestly prefer to receive nothing. Is there any way to politely announce to all my friends that these gifts are unwelcome?
K.M., Bondi, NSW
I actually don't mind Lindt balls even though they sound like something you yank out of your bellybutton when you're lying on the couch, you're a bit bored and your T-shirt's too short. My personal choco-ball dislike is Ferrero Rocher, which I believe is Italian for 'Oversweetened, hazelnut-flavoured styrofoam'. If anyone offers me one, I always make my dislike clear by saying, 'No thanks', then miming sticking a finger down my throat and fake-projectile-chundering.
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But maybe I'm being too subtle about it because, just like you, I keep getting Ferrero Rocher gift-boxes from friends. Either they forget I don't like them or they're unloading their own Ferrero Rocher gift-boxes because they don't like them, either, and they've got a whole Taxibox full of them parked in their driveway. So how are we supposed to deal with unwelcome chocolate gifts in a polite, non-chunder-miming way? It's probably too late to make an announcement to your friends: they'll just be racked with retrospective gift-shame, embarrassed about all the times they foisted their cream-filled balls on you.
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