My husband was upset and informed me I should not have requested to be seated elsewhere. He sulked for a very good a part of the meal.
This has occurred earlier than, and whereas I’ll generally settle for the seating to keep away from an argument, it usually makes the meal much less appetizing for me. The nearness to a restroom and its accompanying site visitors and smells is disagreeable, and if there are open seats elsewhere, I’ll ask to be reseated.
Am I fallacious to take action? I might vastly recognize your opinion.
However your husband won’t. The etiquette drawback right here will not be the seating, however the sulking.
He has made the frequent mistake of believing {that a} restaurant is one thing greater than a industrial institution, which advantages from satisfying its prospects. In your case, particularly, as you might be common prospects, the chance to please you by making a easy adjustment needs to be welcome — because it apparently was.
Miss Manners is conscious that eating places have their share of impolite prospects, who behave as if the kitchen workers had been their private cooks and reprimand the workers as in the event that they had been their very own (mistreated) servants. However you aren’t considered one of them.
Your husband, nonetheless, errors restaurateurs for social hosts, whom it might be impolite to criticize. Particularly, he’s considering of the imply type of social hosts, who make a passion of snickering at everybody’s desk manners.
Expensive Miss Manners: I used to be buying at a preferred retailer and observed that my favourite bar cleaning soap was on sale at a shelf-clearing value. I loaded up my cart with rhapsodic ideas of not having to return to purchase cleaning soap for fairly a while, and stood in line on the money register.
Two aged women checked out my cleaning soap haul and considered one of them exclaimed, “You couldn’t probably be THAT soiled!”
I then observed that their cart was brimming over with rolls and rolls of bathroom paper. I used to be tempted, oh boy was I tempted, to reply that they couldn’t probably be that filled with … however as a substitute counted to 10 and easily smiled as sweetly as I may muster.
Do you admire my restraint, Miss Manners?
Expensive Miss Manners: I do know it’s customary to nonetheless ship a present to a few getting married if you find yourself unable to attend the occasion. Does the identical customized embrace different varieties of events, comparable to graduations or retirements?
No, it’s not customary, even for weddings. Miss Manners doesn’t wish to damage anybody’s fundraising tasks, however solely congratulations and greatest needs are required.
New Miss Manners columns are posted Monday via Saturday on washingtonpost.com/advice. You possibly can ship inquiries to Miss Manners at her web site, missmanners.com. You can even observe her @RealMissManners.
