Revenge Daydream Just That
Dear Miss Manners: In a lunch line where one shuffles along, I had ordered soup and the man behind me ordered a sandwich. As I proceeded with soup on tray, he brazenly stepped ahead and, while he waited for his sandwich to be prepared, positioned himself in front of the cash register.
A server handed the man his sandwich just before the cashier returned to the register, and she rang up his bill first. Speechless, I stared at him in disbelief, while he stood there humming.
Should I have shouted, “Hey! I was here first!” or quietly reached over him to say softly to the cashier, “I was originally ahead of this man, but he broke in line”?
As I ate at a table in front of this man, I entertained the thought of pouring my split pea soup down the back of his neck while murmuring a gentle, “Oops! I’m so sorry! It slipped out of my hand,” but this seemed a wasteful use of good food.
As Miss Manners has guessed, I, a self-effacing lady of indeterminate years, did no such thing. Should I have at the outset protested quietly, “Excuse me, but I’m ahead of you in line?”
Can you believe my hesitancy over embarrassing the man, and thus drawing attention to myself as the cause of his embarrassment? Why should I be unduly concerned about a boor’s sensibilities? What would you have done?
Gentle Reader: Perhaps fantasized, as you did. That is what polite people do when affronted in situations of no importance. Then they forget about it.
Far from thinking you timid for refusing to carry out the revenge you envisioned, Miss Manners admires you. Surely there are enough people shooting one another over minor slights. Unlike so many today, you did not actually make a scene or answer rudeness with violence. This is not sparing the feelings of a boor so much as it is refusing to lower yourself to his level.
But as you realized later, you might have politely refused to accept the slight. You could have pleasantly told the cashier you were next. As you did not, Miss Manners suggests you proceed to the next step - of getting over it.
Dear Miss Manners: We have an every-other-weekend visitation with my husband’s 10-year-old son by a previous marriage, and I do everything I can to make the visits go well, including meal planning, grocery shopping and cleanup after the child leaves.
My husband seems to think that I do not need any notice - or very little - regarding changes in the visitation schedule. I have asked for a week, or at least two days’ notice - which I seldom get. He says the child should be able to go freely between homes.
I say if I’m going to play hostess, I need notice, otherwise things will not flow smoothly and I will get stressed out and be expected to run to the store at the last minute, or spread our meal thinner. Am I being too uptight, or is he not using appropriate manners?
Gentle Reader: Your husband is using perfectly proper manners for family members. What you are asking him to do is to use manners appropriate for guests.
Miss Manners suggests you think less about playing hostess, and more about being a mother. She believes it is crucial for children to feel that any home in which a parent lives is also their home.
If you want to enlist Miss Manners in encouraging your husband to do chores when you are feeling stressed - or even when you’re not - she would be more agreeable. But only if you make the point that you need more cooperation in running the household, and refrain from suggesting that it is the child who has created the problem. It should be the child’s household, too.
If you get into the habit of being really welcoming, not to say motherly, Miss Manners will even allow you to throw in a reminder that notice, if possible, does help.
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Judith Martin United Features Syndicate