Date’S Display Is Enough To Cancel Dinner

Dear Miss Manners: I went to a banquet with a nice gentleman and we were seated at a table for eight. A lady complained of sore feet. My friend took off his shoes and dangled his inner soles over the table!

My face was purple and my ears were ringing. What would you do in this case?

Gentle reader: Skip dinner.

Dear Miss Manners: It often happens that in the course of conversing with friends and acquaintances, one of you begins to tell an anecdote or story that has been shared before. Is it proper to interrupt the speaker and inform them that you have already heard this particular item?

I believe the speaker must have good reason for sharing the story, and the listener should politely listen to it again in its entirety.

My mother believes it is acceptable to wait for a pause and gently say something to conclude the anecdote like, “Oh, yes, you found the dog at the neighbor’s house. I’m so glad he wasn’t lost.” My husband allows for selective interruptions based on the status of the speaker and/or the length of the story.

What rule applies? And does it change if the speaker informs you at the start to interrupt if you’ve heard the story before? If you are the speaker and the listener interrupts you, what is the proper response?

Gentle reader: Funny how this keeps coming up. Even funnier that Miss Manners can’t remember if she dealt with it before.

The key factor here is to avoid embarrassing the speaker and, if humanly possible, to do so while avoiding hearing that story again. It wasn’t all that amusing the first time.

Besides, simple self-sacrifice doesn’t always work. There is a danger that one’s enthusiastic reception could trigger the speaker’s memory and expose the charade, thus embarrassing the speaker, after all, by the discovery that he or she was being humored instead of humorous.

The art is in catching the story at the right time. Once the speaker gets up steam, it is cruel to make him swallow it.

Even the speaker’s instruction to interrupt has a bit of steam behind it, so, as your polite relatives realize, you don’t just say, “Yes, I’ve heard it,” much less hold up several fingers to indicate the number of times.

Miss Manners prefers “Oh, yes, that’s a wonderful story.” If there is another listener present, you can suggest the speaker tell it to that person, while your attention is free to wander. If not, you will at least hear an extremely abbreviated version.

Dear Miss Manners: I use a “one-hand” knife to cut food, due to paralysis of my left arm. When I am paying my own bill, I request that the knife be rinsed off, and I tip 20 percent as a thank you for the help.

When I go out and another person is paying for the meal, what should I do - take my knife to the ladies’ room with me when I leave while the bill is being paid, or ask the waiter or waitress to please rinse and return it to me?

How might this be reflected in the tip?

Gentle Reader: You wouldn’t want to make Miss Manners’ life easy by wrapping the knife in a tissue and taking it home to wash, would you?

Even if it might make the restaurant staff’s lives easier, too?

Restaurant kitchens are busy places, and getting to a free sink, even for the moment it takes to wash a knife, may be more complicated than you imagine.

Nevermind. You must have your reasons, and in her sympathy for labor, Miss Manners shouldn’t be suggesting that her job is more difficult than it is.

Have your tip ready - a dollar to five dollars, depending on the price scale of the restaurant - and slip it into the hand that returns your knife.