Q. Recently visiting the city where a niece of whom I am very fond is in her final year as an undergraduate, I asked if she would like to meet for lunch or a coffee. I was taken aback and a little hurt to be told that, as she would have been celebrating handing in her dissertation the previous evening, she expected to have a hangover and did not therefore feel up to accepting my invitation. To my surprise, my sister-in-law, who had been consulted on the matter, encouraged her to take this approach. How should I have responded? Disinheritance seems excessive, but how should I have conveyed to my niece my view that she was both impolite and a bit of a wimp?
Name and address withheld
A. While your niece should be commended for her honesty, it is important that she learns that there could be bitter consequences to cavalier treatment of adult well-wishers.
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