Dear Annie: Hostess starts, ends conversation
Dear Annie: My wife and I just visited good friends we’ve known for over 40 years.
The hostess talked from “good morning” to “good night.” What a performance!
At dinner, I was able to get a word in and remark that we had seen a moose on the road to their house. As was typical for the hostess, she butted in before I was done talking, and in a minute or so, she was talking about what her aunt Sally Smith’s neighbor, Joan Nobody, had for dinner at her daughter’s birthday party. Why would any intelligent person have any interest in this? These are people we don’t know, and there was nothing special about the dinner. I would rather have kept talking about the moose.
I now never want to visit them again. My wife tells me I am a social misfit and am being unreasonable. I feel our hostess is out of touch with polite behavior. Your thoughts? Please sign me – Tired of Boring, Never-Ending Chatter
Dear Tired: The hostess is the real social misfit here, but everyone is too polite to let her know it. Do visit them again. But when this woman interrupts you, you must gently snag the conversational reins again. Let her speak for a minute before reminding her that you were in the middle of speaking. Say something like, “You stopped the moose dead in his tracks.” A little humor will keep the tone friendly and spare the hostess some embarrassment.
Dear Annie: I’d like to add something to your response to “Tears and Fears for the Victims All Over,” who wondered how to help when witnessing violent or unpleasant situations. I have been in such situations, too, and in a couple of instances, I have gone over and asked whether there was anything I could do to help. Obviously, one does not want to put oneself in harm’s way, but for events such as the ones ”Tears and Fears” described, what I might suggest also, seeing as there were automobiles included in the scenarios, is for the people who see what is happening to take the license plate down or take a brief video of the incident using a cellphone. Getting the license plate would enable them to contact the police after the fact and possibly get some action taken in that way. I was once being chased by someone on the freeway in the Los Angeles area. I took the license plate down and called the police when I got home. They told me that they would go out and talk to the person.
Sometimes there is more we can do than we realize in situations such as this. I once saw what appeared to be an assault going on in a car in the parking lot of a hospital, and I went over to try to intervene. It turned out that a young woman was having a grand mal seizure in the back seat, and her father was trying to restrain her so she would not hurt herself. I quickly ran to the hospital and got somebody to bring a gurney out so that the young woman could be taken immediately. Apparently, the mother had gone into the hospital earlier but was not forceful enough at the intake desk to tell the people that her daughter needed immediate help. I said that someone was having a really bad seizure in the parking lot, and they acted immediately.
Thank you, concerned citizens, for the good work that you do to make the world a better place. –Good Samaritan
Dear Good: Your story of the family in the hospital parking lot underscores how the kindness of strangers can make all the difference. Thank you.