Jim Bunny Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

It was enough to make me gag on mother-in-law's wildly flavourful and buttery turkey stuffing at Christmas. You know, the stuffing that's baked outside the cavity, is crunchy around the edges and spongy soft in the middle. Sublime!

But what just about made me spatter semi-masticated turkey stuffing all over the family Christmas table was the story of LA podcaster Amber Nelson being hit with a $20 bill for a friend's home dinner invitation. 'This is weird right?” Amber asked rhetorically. What's the world coming to? - a friend charging a friend to spend quality friend time at a friend's house. Yup, weird Amber!

People can do what they like I suppose, but it doesn't make it polite and acceptable and right.

And it's not an invite, it's a reservation, to come, eat and then pay at my house. 'Outrageous,” offered a ‘banter meister' who is reading Social Niceties at the University of Life on a lifestyle block near Katikati. He should know. 'They've destroyed fabric of society, now they're destroying the fabric of hospitality.” I didn't quite understand but it sounded Armageddon-ish. Forty thousand people online, and me, agreed Amber's friend was the turkey this Christmas, and like the turkey, should get stuffed. My house, my treat, my responsibility – they're the tacit contractual terms of a private dinner invite Amber, that's how the real world rolls Amber.

But that didn't stop a wave of suspicion. Had mother-in-law read the Amber story? Was she plotting to claw back a bit of the goodwill and Gold Card she had invested in the family Xmas dinner. I decided if she presented a bill I would pay in Venezuelan Bolivars, the weakest, cheapest and poorest currency in the world.

A cheap trick deserves a cheap response. Or I could just up end the dinner table and flee.

In case any gorse-pocketed Kiwis get ideas, let us clobber this stink practice before it darkens our dinner tables.

Let's create a manual of etiquette and politeness to shame any potential pay-your-way dinner hosts.

For example, if you are invited to pay for dinner at a friend's house, demand to see a menu before accepting. If there's nothing that kick-starts the saliva glands, decline. It's only an invitation, it's your right to say no thanks.

If unsure, impose some dietary requirements. If they demand to know how long you have been Ketogenic, say: 'about $20 ago”.

No room for sensitivity here.

On arrival, don't hand over your $65 Antillis Estate Pinot Noir 2011 to the grabbing, grasping host. Drain every last drop yourself, because these not-your-best-friend cheapskate hosts will put your bottle away and fill your glass from their cask. Always happens – how many times have you taken a box of nice premium Garagista IPAs to a dinner party and the host replaces your empty drink with a Speights or dirty water from the Waikato.

Remember these people are charging you to be their friends.

They will stop at nothing.

When seated for dinner, politely decline the entrees and suggest you and your wife/partner/mistress share a main.

'And just two forks please?”

Remember when you are paying for a meal, it gives you rights and privileges.

The less food, the smaller the bill. And if your stomach is still rubbing against your coccyx when you leave, it will be early enough to get to Maccas, BK or a pizza joint with all the Venezuelan Bolivars you have saved.

There's always the favourite fall-back strategy – ‘the runner'.

After mains, the partner/wife/mistress goes to the powder room. Five minutes later you excuse yourself from the dinner table to go check on her. Then, with no one watching, it's hats, coats and bags and scram: ‘vamos' we're outa here!!

You will experience intense self-satisfaction – you have just diddled the diddler.

But be ready, because when the milk of human kindness sours, it generally curdles too. The hosts could resort to shaming by putting around the 'sad and disturbing news” that one couple hasn't paid for their meal. Then it is time for the coup-de-grace, the final humiliation.

A crap idea, crap hosts, a crap ambience and crap food and service demands a crap review.

Post some candid reflections of your evening on their Facebook page. Surely that would stick in the craw longer than a bad turkey stuffing.

My bro is a maestro host. He doesn't normally do drama, or confrontation, but he excelled himself this time.

He suggests waiting until evening's end when guests are being extorted over their bill and then say loudly, '...and while we're on charges for the evening, honey, here's my ‘appearance' invoice”.

Ouch!