Each week, Miss Manners answers questions exclusively from the MSN audience on all of your etiquette dilemmas. (Have an issue you want help with? Send in a question today or talk about your own problems on our Miss Manners message board.) Read on for this week's hot topics:
Dear Miss Manners,
When I had several good friends over for some snacks, drinks, and conversation, one of the guests brought a friend whom I've met before but don't know well. Soon after walking in, she declared loudly that she couldn't stand the music that was playing and said she was going to pick out something else to play.
I didn't want her to change the music, but I didn't know what to say. She, of course, picked out something completely inappropriate and kept turning up the volume all evening, even after I surreptitiously turned it down several times.
Then the next weekend, my husband's college buddy and his wife stayed with us for a visit. I spent a little extra time the first morning setting a nice breakfast table, and I was pleased with how sunny and pleasant the room looked. When his wife came downstairs, she complained it was too bright in the kitchen and closed the shades. She then continued to close all the drapes and shades all weekend long, saying that she liked using lamps better.
I know that I could just not invite these people to my home again, and that is certainly something I consider, but do I have any recourse in situations like this? Do I have to let my guests just do whatever they please, even when it seems a little cheeky? Is there something charming, yet effective I can say?
Gentle Reader,
A charming way of saying "Hands off, it's my house, and if you don't like it, you can leave"?
Yes, of course. It is "I’m sorry you're not happy here, but I'm trying my best to please everyone." That is all you need say to the party guest, or sort-of guest, as you change the music back to what you had chosen.
The houseguests are a slightly different case. Had the wife confided that she had eye trouble, of course you would have run around shutting out the light. That is what a polite guest would have done, and you can treat her as if she had been polite by showing tremendous solicitation for her problems with light. Just be sure to say "But let me handle it, as I know the house" (the latter being the polite way to remind her that it's yours). You need not darken the whole house, but do so in each room for the time that she is in it.
*******
Dear Miss Manners,
I would like to know if there is a rule about who contacts who when relatives come back home to visit. My two nieces (aged 30 years and 18 years) have moved away from the town where they grew up/were born and come to visit periodically and stay with their mother and father in the same house where they grew up.
After inviting them to lunch to catch up, I found out some interesting things. They feel that all of the relatives here in town should contact them and make arrangements to see them while they are here (for 2 weeks). Last visit they did not see their 80-year-old grandmother because she had not called them. Is there any particular rule here?
Gentle Reader,
One that Miss Manners just made up: If you are going to neglect your grandmother, you should come up with a better excuse.
Judith Martin's latest book is No Vulgar Hotel: The Desire and Pursuit of Venice. She is also the author of Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior(Freshly Updated). She and her husband, a scientist and playwright, live in Washington, D.C. They have two perfect children, of course.
