Dinner Guests From Beyond Hell

My dinner guests are TWO HOURS late! I’ve already packed up the appetizer course (my best caponata, Red Hook and Humbolt Fog cheeses, cornichon, calamata olives, etc…) and also decided to serve the Prosecco with the meal, instead of with the appetizers, since they’re no longer on the menu, and instead of my special bottle of Gary Farrell Sauvignon Blanc. My mussells are starting to die. My flowers are wilting. My eyes are getting bloodshot. I’m not that hungry, either, having eaten half of the appetizers myself, and we’re going straight into dinner when they get here. I hope I can muster up a good mood. What would Miss Manners do? Oh, also, I called him at 9–this was following our conversation at 7 in which he said they’d be here between 8 and 8:30–and he was in a DIFFERENT bar across town from the one he was in during our 7 o’clock call, and said he was on the way. They are now TWO AND A QUARTER HOURS LATE!!! I’ll report tomorrow on their excuses…