Miss Manners 10/12

DEAR MISS MANNERS: In the grocery store today, I saw a woman pick up a closed plastic container of fresh blueberries, open it, reach in barehanded, pick up a blueberry between her fingers and squeeze it.

She then put the blueberry back and tested two more berries in the same container. She then placed the container back in the bin, picked up a different container and proceeded to test the blueberries in the same fashion. Then another container.

I was disgusted and could not believe my eyes. Certainly it’s fine to feel for the ripeness of a fruit that has a skin, such as an apple, but this seemed out of line!

Should I have said something to her in the moment? I grabbed a container far away from where she was shopping and said nothing. I will be washing my berries a lot more thoroughly!

GENTLE READER: Policing the fruit is not your job, which Miss Manners assumes comes as welcome news. This does not absolve you of all responsibility, but it will be easier to report the offender to a store employee than to confront her yourself.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband, a doctor at a large medical practice, has started hanging out with some of the other doctors outside of work. Some of them like to golf, and he is coordinating the next outing.

However, he’s not sure how to pick out a golf course. We live in a part of the country where everything is very overpriced, golf included. There are many courses in the area that my husband says are ridiculously expensive (his words; I know very little about golf).

Apparently, some of the more reasonably priced courses are booked for that day that they are planning to get together. So now he’s wondering if he should reserve a tee time at a course that charges double what he would normally pay, or take his new friends to a course he considers subpar (no pun intended).

I’ve always spent outings with people who had similar budgets to me, or politely declined expensive outings, so I don’t know how to help. How would you advise him?

GENTLE READER: The group rotates coordinators as a way of sharing the cost – without the unpleasant necessity of having pockets emptied in the parking lot after every outing.

Miss Manners says this not to suggest that they should start doing so, but to remind you of the premise. The solution is for your husband to explain to the group that he had his heart set on taking them to course X or course Y – but that neither is available on the date in question; would they mind moving the date?

This will be more easily accomplished if the selected courses are not wholly out of line with what others are paying when it comes their turn. If his preferred courses are known to be less expensive, your husband will either have to pay more, or rely on his new friends to understand that the companionship and the quality of the course are more important than the dollars spent.

Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website www.missmanners.com.