Each week, Miss Manners answers questions exclusivelyfrom the MSN audience on all of your etiquette dilemmas.(Have an issue you want help with? Send in aquestiontoday.) Read on for this week's hot topics:
DEAR MISS MANNERS,
The other day at the grocery store, I unloaded the contents of my shopping cart onto the conveyer belt. Other people were behind me in line with their carts full of food.
The considerate thing to do, once one has unloaded one's cart, is to move the cart out of the way so that the person behind can begin unloading their stuff. This time, however, I was absentmindedly daydreaming about something and didn't do this.
So the man behind me loudly and rudely castigated me for my "rudeness." How should I have responded? Should I have begged his apology? Or just moved my cart out of his way and said nothing. Or ignored him and left my cart where it was?
I think that if I had begged his apology, this would just encourage him to verbally abuse people in the future. So my instinct is to just move the cart as I should have done anyway and not reward him with an apology. What's your opinion? How do you respond to people who are right in their complaint, but rude in their expression of it?
GENTLE READER,
"With the realization that you are responsible for your own manners, not for teaching them to strangers, Miss Manners agrees that it was rude to accuse you of rudeness. An inconvenienced shopper could easily have said, "Excuse me, would you mind moving your cart?"
Nevertheless, you did inconvenience him, and therefore you owed him an apology. And if you do aspire to teach manners, you should know that a good examples may work, while retaliatory rudeness never does."
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DEAR MISS MANNERS,
I have a friendly acquaintance who I believe is suffering from clinical depression and memory loss due to a health condition. There have been a few times recently when it has appeared that he had no idea who I was and our conversations were very odd. My grandmother has dementia, and it felt very much like speaking to her.
What is the best way to handle this sort of situation? He's a lovely, old fashioned gentleman with impeccable manners, and the last thing I want to do is embarrass him; however, it is difficult to pretend that nothing is wrong.
GENTLE READER,
"That you are concerned about your friend is admirable, but it does not entitle you to pronounce an amateur diagnosis. Or even a professional one, as he is not your patient.
For all you know, his failure to recognize you may only mean that he needs new glasses.
However, Miss Manners does feel that you could say a tactful word to his family, along the lines of "Is Clyde all right? He doesn't quite seem himself lately." If they are not already aware of a problem, it will alert them to observe him."
Judith Martin's latest book is No Vulgar Hotel: The Desire and Pursuit of Venice. She is also the author ofMiss Manners' Guide toExcruciatingly Correct Behavior(Freshly Updated). She and her husband, a scientist and playwright, live in Washington, D.C. Theyhave two perfect children, of course.
