MISS MANNERS : Sorry, but your feet are way too loud
Dear Miss Manners: My husband and I were thoroughly enjoying a Beethoven symphony performance until the woman seated next to us removed her sandals and placed her feet up on the loge wall in front of us. We tried our best to ignore her bare feet, but it was quite distracting and very unpleasant for us.
How could we have politely made it know to her that her feet were best left shod and on the ground?
Gentle Reader: You cannot instruct people not to kick off their shoes at the symphony, even under such extreme provocation. There would hardly be a lady left in the audience.
But you can ask their assistance if you do it politely. Miss Manners suggests whispering (between movements, of course), “Sorry, but would you mind putting your feet down? We can’t hear.”
That should puzzle her enough to make her sit up straight.
Dear Miss Manners: When our niece, Jenna, graduated from high school in June, our three children gave her a card with a promise of a gift, a small refrigerator for my dear niece’s college dorm room. This has become somewhat of a tradition as our children have given two other cousins (not Jenna’s siblings, but her cousins) refrigerators at the start of their college careers.
Jenna seemed delighted, and a happy, caring atmosphere prevailed.
This atmosphere is now all but gone.
Since none of our children live in Jenna’s college town or her parents’ hometown, they had been working on clever ways to purchase and deliver the gift to her room. However, when delivering Jenna, her parents purchased a refrigerator and left it with her.
Then they suggested that our children should send them a check to cover the cost of the purchased item.
My children have declined to do so and have set about to purchase a different gift for their young cousin – a stereo, if I’m not mistaken.
Civility has not prevailed, and I am left to wonder, should my son and daughters relinquish the check, pursue another gift or abandon the whole idea?
Gentle Reader: Among them, your relatives have certainly managed to remove all of the charm from this gesture. And, yes, Miss Manners is afraid that she is including your well-intentioned children.
They had all summer to figure out how to have the refrigerator delivered and to alert Jenna to expect it when she moved into her dormitory. (Miss Manners doesn’t feel especially clever about taking 12 seconds to think of going on the Internet and finding a store in the college town, making it a local delivery.)
Meanwhile, Jenna and her parents panicked at the idea of her having to face college with warm beer. Asking payment for the refrigerator they bought was decidedly ungracious, but not making good on the original promise wasn’t nice, either.
They also missed the opportunity to take the high road by thanking their aunt and uncle for getting the refrigerator for them, apologizing for the delay and the trouble, and sending the check.
Still, civility must be restored. Sending a different present ought to do it if it is accompanied not only by warm wishes but by apologies for the trouble caused by their delay in sending the refrigerator.