Stop expectifying me!

The other day I was out to supper with some people, and they were talking about wedding gift expectations--how, despite anything the etiquette books say, we're expected to spend so much money on them. My argument was: A gift should be a factor of what you can afford, and how you feel about the person/how close you are. One of the people was arguing that he agreed with me, but since people expect you to spend more, you have to!

...Meeps! Since when?

That same night, one of the women coming to dinner had seen me earlier in the day, wearing boots with my skirt. So when she went home to change for dinner, she put on boots too. When her husband said: "You can't wear boots, winter's over!" She replied: "Mabel's wearing boots, so I can too!"

What the--there's a rule about boots??