Amateur filmmakers are everywhere

Dear Miss Manners: On Halloween night, I heard what I thought was a large group arriving at my door. They seemed to take quite a while to organize themselves before ringing the bell.

When I opened the door I saw why: I was met with two children on the step in costume, two adults carrying large battery-powered lights (would these be called gaffers or key grips in the industry?), one adult with a video camera aimed at me, and another adult I assumed to be the director/producer.

I fought the urge to shut the door and distributed treats as required, since anything I could have done would have been permanently recorded for the family’s future entertainment.

Is this a new common practice, just now reaching my area? Am I wrong to feel put upon? As a shy person, should I plan to wear a costume of my own next year, so I can wave a broom at the camera?

Gentle Reader: What a good idea. Indeed, you were put upon and, also indeed, you were stuck. The most Miss Manners could suggest would have been saying politely, “Would you mind turning off those lights, please? I can’t see to give the children their candy.”

Amateur filmmakers are a plague, Miss Manners agrees. At least professionals would have known the union rules in regard to contracting featured players.

Dear Miss Manners: HELP ME, PLEASE! I recently went out with a man who took me on an unusually nice first date. The bill came to $150 (I peeked, and gasped) and he insisted on paying for everything. When I said that I would like to pay the tip, he replied, “That’s unacceptable.”

I caught on right away that he was very much an old-fashioned (26-year-old) gentleman. Everything he did was right out of a gentleman’s handbook.

However, I never heard from him, even after a fabulous date with sparks flying everywhere and a sweet kiss goodnight. I couldn’t figure it out!

I ran into him this past Saturday, and he said that I was supposed to call HIM to say “thank you.” He said that if a man takes you out on a nice date, that it’s rude not to call and say “thank you.” Once we figured out that I didn’t KNOW that (who would?), I apologized, and now we’re going out again.

I know that he has always liked me, but I really think that it’s true that a man is supposed to call YOU! What do you think? Please help, I’m dying to know if he is really right or not!

Gentle Reader: No, and Miss Manners is afraid that she is a lot less enthusiastic about him than you are. It is not his being mistaken in thinking that the lady must add a second-day call to the thanks she gives a gentleman for having entertained her. It is his sulking about it – not a gentlemanly thing to do.