I probably cook for psychological reasons. There’s just something comforting about following a few instructions–“Grill chicken for 20 minutes, let cool for 10, chop the basil and mix it with the mayo”—knowing that things will probably turn out all right, and I’ll end up with this tasty sandwich, or this smooth bowl of soup20150503_182125 (2) (As for the floaties, I switched out okra for this zucchini. OK, but not exciting.)

Why can’t somebody write the cookbook for life? I want recipes for social situations, please.

No, wait. I’ve seen a few of these recipes floating around, like in the newspaper.

I’m talking about the advice columns.

Oh, I like the obituaries, too, as well as the House of the Day (a real estate ad), and sometimes even the restaurant and movie reviews. But if I don’t have much time, I skip a few things.

Just not the advice columns.

Besides my morbid interest in people’s love troubles, neighbor troubles or how-to-keep-the-family-drunk-from-ruining-the-wedding troubles, I love the tidy way the columnists reduce life’s perplexities to one pithy paragraph. The person with the problem has been turning it over and over in her hand for years perhaps, like a Rubik’s cube spun all out of whack, and making no headway at all. She has suffered through the fog of misery and mixed messages, i.e. “I can’t figure out why my roommate treats me this way.” When she finally hands her Rubik’s cube over to the expert, the expert makes a few twists, lines up all the colors and hands it back. “Here you go. Your roommate’s rejecting you. Now let’s talk about why you put up with it.”

Of course, not all problems involve love, bankruptcy, addiction or other high drama. Sometimes we just want to get through our morning errands without any unpleasantness. That’s where the etiquette experts come in. And Miss Manners is the queen of them all.

Maybe you’ve taken a peek at her recipe book for life, Miss Manners Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior. If so, I congratulate you. But you might go back through it again because who can absorb all that wisdom in one sitting? Besides, the human race is always coming up with new problems and Miss Manners seems to be keeping up.

Yesterday, advice on thank-you note stationery. Today, a ruling on whether baby showers are sexist.

Yesterday, guidance on how to handle the “terror of surprise parties.” Today, counsel on addressing invitations to couples with different last names because, as Miss Manners notes, illicit love has created new quandaries.

What Miss Manners does best is treat the entire human drama with a wry humor. “If you will be patient,” she says, “while Miss Manners explains the reason for

[this] rule, Miss Manners will help you circumvent it.”

Can’t you just see the sly smile on her face, the amused arch of one brow, as she types that sentence?

Now, as much as I love Miss Manners, I could really use a purse-sized pack of advice, yep, just like the mini-Kleenex. This would be like a quick check-list to go over before I walked into some scary meet-and-greet. And wouldn’t you know, somebody has already been hard at work on this problem.

If you’re on the mailing list, I’ll pass it along to you soon.