Addition Of Thin Cover Completes Act

Dear Miss Manners: What is a silk or muslin blanket cover? I usually just put down sheets, then a blanket, then the comforter or bedspread.

Gentle Reader: Is Miss Manners correct in surmising that you are actually making your bed?

You are not just dumping on a lumpy old bag of feathers or foam, a miscellaneous assortment of pillows (whose cases were last changed during the O.J. Simpson trial), and the remote control for the television set?

It has been so long since Miss Manners has heard from someone who knows what a bedspread is that she hates to add to your work. But it is true that the fastidious among us manage to add another step to the art of making a proper bed.

We add a thin cover, decorated with sweet little touches such as piping, eyelet inserts, and perhaps the sleeper’s monogram (which faces the foot of the bed). It covers the blanket on top, as the so-called “top sheet” covers it underneath. A margin of top sheet is then folded over both blanket and blanket cover, which means that the person inside never touches anything other than presumably clean linen.

Dear Miss Manners: Should you wear a white cotton dress to your husband’s funeral?

Gentle Reader: Not unless he is buried in a society where white is the color of mourning. Otherwise it looks as if you are planning to attend a picnic afterward.

Now would you please explain something to Miss Manners? Why, when most ladies insist on showing up at weddings dressed in black, are they unable to find black dresses to wear to funerals?

Dear Miss Manners: Our neighbors have a 4-year-old son who has become rude, uncontrollable and seemingly without parental guidance. They choose to ignore his impolite behavior, name-calling and disobedient actions.

We like our neighbors very much, but we find their son’s behavior intolerable. Several other neighbors are reluctant to allow the lad to play with their children of a similar age.

The parents seem oblivious to this fact. The boy is about one year away from going to school and will experience a variety of problems unless his behavior changes drastically in the near future. Should we say anything to the parents?

Gentle Reader: Such as “Everybody in this neighborhood finds your son intolerable”?

To which they can reply, “Really? We hadn’t noticed, but we are grateful to you for bringing this to our attention; he is rather intolerable, isn’t he? Perhaps we should upgrade.”

One does not make negative generalizations about other people’s children or child-rearing. For one thing, it is rude; for another, you may be unaware of what the problems are and how the parents may be working on them.

And last, it doesn’t help. Their first loyalties are to him, however misguided their methods, and you will simply anger and upset them.

But Miss Manners does allow you to complain about specific things that affect you. If you promise to speak with a sorrowful air of understanding the waywardness of children and the difficulty of a parent’s job, you can say “I’m sorry to have to tell on him, but I thought you’d want to know that Clarence has been screaming obscenities around the neighborhood again.”