Miss Manners Throws In the Hankie

Dear Miss Manners,

I worry about you. Though your quest to educate is noble, I fear you've done all you can do here. You are by no means a failure. Yet sometimes, I feel our country is too far from reform for the likes of you. You're a lady with queenly bearing. You have fragile sensibilities, as do I. You are but one of a handful of Americans remaining who still care about manners. As a kindred spirit, I suggest you RUN AWAY. Flee. Go as far away as possible and never look back. Go someplace where people everywhere will be nice, respectful, and well-intentioned. Your work here is done. I wish you a fond adieu.

- A faithful reader in NC

PS- Where have all the manners gone?


Gentle Reader,

The day has come when Miss Manners embraces a reader's advice and lets it guide her. She abandons all reasonable second-thoughts. She cannot see straight for the tears that cloud her vision. She's throwing in the hankie and all the chamomile tea in South Carolina can not comfort her. Where have all the manners gone? Where good manners go when they die.

Miss Manners makes no claim that her efforts have gone unrecognized-that would be unfair. Miss Manners does not claim to embody perfection. That would be rude and, most likely, untrue.

It's not a bad day that taints Miss Manners' eternally optimistic spirit. It is a horrifying epiphany that may crash in at any minute. Miss Manners began her day with a stroll into her favorite used-bookshop, only to find the uncracked spines of her so-called bestseller piling up next to the tattered remains of three or so "How to be a Bitch/Bastard" manuals. She was instantly mowed down by readers who, in their exuberance, endeavored to "find themselves" amid the self-help, customers who remained unaware of life outside their own bodies.

She came to the conclusion that there was indeed a direct connection between the waxing of "self-validation" and the waning of "consideration".

Miss Manners, still with a spark of ingenuous hope, is hard-pressed to assume a human being can't possibly be considerate to both him/herself and another human being simultaneously. Miss Manners sits on the beach in her high-necked gown and grandmother's own cameo, pondering new aspirations; to become shark-food or to get philisophical. She watches the sand run through her fingers like so many unlearned lessons and wonders- do people everywhere believe that to like oneself is to hate everyone else? That being considerate is weak and will force one beyond plankton on the food chain? That following a few simple rules of ettiquitte will destroy the abandonment by which one plans to live one's life?

Miss Manners recalls the day of the profferred arm, of fingerbowls at dinner, the days of letter-writing, of busy signals, when weeping was an act reserved for one's hankie and one's cat, and not a nationally televised affair....and weeps.

She still prefers the golden silence to muzak. And in the golden silence, when after the neighbors' dogs have been asked quietly to settle down, and Miss Manners thinks she can make out the strains to Vivaldi's "Spring" concerto ...she hears another noise..is it Emily Post, turning over in her grave? No.. It's the sound of Miss Manners' heart- quietly, politely, as unobtrusively as possible- breaking.

Miss Manners has enjoyed responding to your concerns, ranging from, "Is it OK to use indigo ink to respond to thank-you notes", to- "What is the least abrasive way to confront a roomate whom you've witnessed lacing your coffee with arsenic? I hate confrontations, what do you suggest?"

She can't stay, however. She will pack her dusty-rose mules, a quill pen, and her grandmother's own cameo, and board the plane to Japan. She'll hold a framed picture of Eleanor Roosevelt close to her bosom. And she'll hope that the gentleman seated next to her on the plane won't ask too many questions.

kick.

;)

:hi:

Being Miss Manners requires the duty of several dozen.

:)

I am reminded of all the bridezillas I've ever witnessed destroying the goodwill of their best friends. Eeeek!

:scared:

:shrug:

Just roll with it...plan something simple and elegant, and if something doesn't go perfect, laugh it off. I attended the perfect wedding recently. I was doing one of the readings and this little plane kept flying over...it just cracked everyone up. Low stress, and BEAUTIFUL. :)

present etiquette.

I find absolutely no problem with a bride & groom asking for money instead of gifts. It's not the same world as it was when she first starting doing her column and many couples who first start out would probably be better off with a cash donation than a $30 muffin pan (that's the gift my mother bought for a wedding she recently attended).

My attitude is this - if I attend a wedding where the guests tried their best to keep the cost of the wedding intact, I have have no problem with them asking for a gift donation. HOwever, if I attend a wedding where they went overboard putting together some elaborate event then they deserve the $25 Salt & Pepper shaker I get them.

My opinion, for what it's worth!

And she has witnessed the cost of salt & pepper shakers rising to the point at which an ordinary person would have to hold down two jobs just to be able to afford them. Miss Manners recalls the days when hard-working people were able to afford them on the cheap.

:hug:

chick?

Plus she wears dresses with trains to the opera, and it's really, really hard to avoid stepping on them when you're returning from intermission and stuck behind her! (I don't think I stepped on it, tho)

She feels she must wear a no-tailgating sign on her back when she travels on foot. People are very invasive of personal space these days. It's as if they cannot distinguish the line between their own bodies and the rest of the world. She nearly got ass-rammed waiting in line at the supermarket last week.

so i'm planning this little dinner party/salon gathering of my closest big-wig, fat-cat cronies & so i ask her, & so she responds via pm, "seat them as follow: bilderberger, trilateralist, bilderberger, trilateralist, and so forth..." it seemed a simple enough plan. but then this nut-ball from the carlyle group crashes in & plops himself next to a bilderberger, sitting next to little ole moi @ the head of the table w/hubby @ the other end, with an ill temper, apparently, in that he then proceeds to eat the flowered center piece cinnamon-scented pine cones & all; i mean it took reginald (our hindi man-servant we'd acquired during the great; our great, as it were, darjeeling excursion) 45min to peal him off the chandelier my god what...a...mess!

why can't such such protocol be viewed for the 3-dimensional properties so clearly present from within even chaos theory for that matter; by they considered to be experts, sheesh; all i want is a little chateau briand, a spot of melon sorbet & a lively exchange as to contemporary art but noooo.

it was not to be :thumbsdown:

she would have the world by the balls. There is a true story floating around about a dinner party given by Eleanor Roosevelt. It seems one of her guests lacked the urbanity to realize the fingerbowl placed next to her containing a flower was not some exotic soup. The guest sipped the water from a spoon and then ate the flower. So Eleanor's guest would not feel uncomfortable, she ate her flower as well.

In her seemingly endless search for Mister Manners, Miss Manners has been the participant of some very interesting seating arrangements herself. This Carlyle man showed up at several, and so I know from experience that it requires a small dab of PowerOrange to peel guests off chandeliers.


:hug:

to pack her entire life into tiny boxes of bubble-wrapping and get her fanny on a plane to Japan; however, she may reconider if you, dear reader, can show her some good karate moves.

:hug:

yes, I've also studied karate but I'd rather dazzle em with my smile AND I'm not running away to foreign soil so there Miss Manners.

with each ladylike sip of her apple martini and the notion that she prefers to remain on the same continent with a highly-skilled propagandist. :D

so when are you two heading north

but we'll take my girl's car and we will see you and have, as she says, TWO balls!

hmmm ... two balls .... that does deserve some consideration

in high esteem again, and that people practiced them.

Like her, I can't wait until I can move to japan permanently, where I can be around, polite respectful people, who have deference for not pushing their shit on others, for the rest of my life.

Are you actually planning to do it?

I love Japan. But it will be a few years yet before we're situated properly to move there.

*steps out of character* This is the reason I love your writing so much. You have such a good attitude; we both cuss like sailors but it's in the name of humanity. You make yourself clear- I never misunderstand what you say because you're very articulate.

So thank you. :hug:

I'm one of a kind, fer sure, dude.

:hi:

how i know is, of course, a secret.

there's a certain boyfriend who returns to her life now and again and, upon departing, tends to make embarrassing disclosures/ slight exaggerations. Miss Manners will plead the fifth.



:bounce:

written with a good repeating high powered rifle with a scope.

:rofl:

Miss Manners finds that closely-placed landmines are more subtle, especially since her own aim is something that requires work. Besides, she doesn't want to accidentally hit any songbirds. That would be dreadful.

YOU are fabulous, m'darling! :hug:

You, for at least the day, get the Jonathan Swifty Award.....

I humbly accept your wonderful compliment.


*curtseying*

i guess i'm destined to have the manners of a cave-dwelling troglodyte for the rest of my life. :pals:

:rofl:

For "withholding of etiquitte" favors. But I'll be willing to kiss your bloody knuckles better.