Ok If Errand Keeps You Moving

Dear Miss Manners: I am a woman who rides horses on weekends at a stable about 40 minutes from where I live. By the time I am done, my hair is windblown, I am sweaty and my boots are dusty and have dried horse sweat on them. My attire consists of riding breeches, field boots and a T-shirt.

What are the rules about making public appearances - other than at a stable - in this condition? By the time I alight from my car, I am no longer sweaty, I have washed my hands and my hair has been pulled neatly back into a ponytail, but a slight aroma of horse remains.

Would it be a violation of etiquette to appear at a grocery store, just to dash in and pick up a few items? A grocery store to do my weekly grocery shopping? A store in a shopping mall to run a 10-minute errand that does not involve trying on clothes?

I promise not to give in to temptation without your sanction.

Gentle Reader: Do you promise to keep moving? As a horsewoman, you probably enjoy going fast anyway.

That is the condition upon which Miss Manners will allow you to do a quick errand or two on the way home. One whiff of horse is bearable; prolonged exposure, especially near food, is something else. By the time anyone is able to figure out the source of what you emanate, Miss Manners expects you to be long enough gone for the problem to have wafted away.

Dear Miss Manners: May I view as an infraction of etiquette my exclusion from a kangaroo court session in which I was the accused?

A few years ago while teaching at a school for overprivileged youth, I became the target of parents whose little darlings were in danger of earning B’s instead of A’s in my class, after they failed to meet several requirements for a major project, thereby risking their preordained admission to an Ivy. My reputation was sullied throughout the community, as this gilded clan slandered and vainly sought dirt on me in preparation for my trial, convened in my absence in one of their tract mansions.

My option of prompting a legitimate court session to restore my honor became moot when the extremely deep pockets of this lynch mob were compared to my own shallow civil-servant resources.

Incontrovertible evidence disproving their allegations forced them to roll up their ropes. I have since found a far better place in which to ply my pedagogical wares, sparing me continued exposure to such pedigreed riffraff. But having never received apologies in any form from any of those involved, I have wondered if there is a proper response that would win me the moral vengeance to which I am rightly entitled. Does etiquette offer me a proper response?

Gentle Reader: Now? Several years after you were vindicated and got a better job?

Had you come to Miss Manners at the time, she would have shared your indignation and assisted you with a spirited but dignified defense. As it is, she feels uneasy with the prolonged vehemence of your outrage, however originally justified. In her experience, people who speak of children as “little darlings” badly need to get away from them.

The point to have been made was not only that parental complaints, even widespread ones, should be made confidentially through the proper channels at school. It is what a dreadful disservice parents do their children when they attempt to free them from responsibility and teach them how to run a cabal instead.