Even though it sounded like a promising idea, activists for the "scent sensitive" have gotten the chocolate chip scent banned from bus shelters after only one day! These complainers - oops, I mean activists - claimed that the smells could potentially trigger an asthma attack, although there were no cases of such things occurring. CBS Outdoor, the company that put up the scented strips for the California Milk Processor Board's campaign, said that the strips used no chemicals and that there was no way that they could have directly triggered any allergic reactions, although they are complying with the city's request to take them down.

Honestly, if you can't handle the scent of chocolate chip cookies, how on earth can you handle taking a bus in a big city? Do these activists actually walk around San Francisco? It's not the cleanest-smelling city in the world. Besides, in just about any city the scent of chocolate chip cookies would be an improvement over exhaust, sewer and trash fumes. Perhaps they found the scent to be too appealing and were actually worried that cookie cravings would cause people to hyperventilate in excitement. Or maybe they were worried that their own cravings would make them blow their diets the next time they walked by a bakery.

At Chowhound, there is an interesting discussion going on about dinner invitation etiquette. The question is whether you should extend an invitation to someone who probably will not be able to make it to the event. The chowhound who started the thread had a friend who was offended that she was not invited to a dinner, though she admitted that she probably would not have come anyway. On one hand, you might think that if she wasn't going to come, it does not matter whether she was invited. If she had decided to show up, though, it could have caused problems for the group, which was dining at a restaurant.

Excluding large events, like weddings, most dinner parties at restaurants or at home have a lot that depends on the dynamic of the group. When you are planning the party, you want to make sure that everyone will get along and that you have a good mix of people. You want to invite people who will get along and you have to know in advance how many people are coming in order to place a reservation or make the appropriate amount of food.

Personally, I think that the friend was out of line. Do you have to be included in every single thing a friend does? No - and if you're not going to come anyway, don't complain about it.