Miss Manners^®

DEAR MISS MANNERS: A group of friends has been showing up at a restaurant bar for as long as 30 years, and on rare occasions, a latecomer may be the recipient of three or four drinks already purchased by the group. By the time he gets an opportunity to reciprocate, everyone, including himself, is ready to leave.

The bar manager thinks the lucky one should leave a heavy tip for being so lucky. Some members feel the buying of drinks for their friends caused them to have higher tabs and took care of the tip according to the increased amount they spent.

Should the lucky one have to tip the bartender a second time, even if he made no purchase?

GENTLE READER: Speaking of tips, Miss Manners advises you not to accept any on etiquette from those who stand to make a financial gain if you act on their advice.

It sounds as if all these friends are leaving the bar too late. You all should have left for good the moment the bar manager started nosing into who was treating whom. Let us hope that he does not go around explaining to other patrons' dates how lucky they are to be asked out and demanding that they give him a cut.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My roommate and I got along well for the first few months. Now we barely talk. I find that we (we're girls) get along fine. She says, "I hope you can be a better roommate." That annoys me. I feel all I need to do is show respect and give her space. Am I correct?

GENTLE READER: You also have to give her back her stuff, including her beau, presuming he wants to go back.

Sharing living quarters with another person is a tricky and complicated business even for those bound by blood or passion. It requires going beyond the fairness of rules, although that is the place to start. A harmonious atmosphere, not just one person's way against another's, should be important enough to both to allow them to make the sort of small concessions that render life at close quarters bearable.

First you should agree on such crucial matters as noise level, guest policy, bill divisions and the use of shared appliances. Strict observance of the law is not enough, however. You should also be trying to put up with as much as you can tolerate of the other person's quirks and habits and to curtail those of your own that are found intolerable. If your humming drives your roommate crazy, it is no justification for you to point out that there is no rule against it, and if she leaves hair all over the sink you're not going to be happy when she points out that it is your week to clean.

If you are doing all this and still have no clue as to why your roommate is fed up, Miss Manners certainly doesn't. Unlike her, however, you have the opportunity to ask politely if there is anything you have done to offend her. Not that Miss Manners necessarily thinks that you have. Someone who would make such a cutting remark is a good candidate for being a bad roommate.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: In the wake of the tragic attacks on New York and Washington, my wife and I canceled a trip to attend the late September wedding of an old friend in Europe. While we believed that flying was safe, our parents were terrified, and we did not want to put them through the anxiety they would feel during our absence.

We anguished over the decision, in part because our friend and his fiancee had attended our wedding in the United States earlier this year, but finally decided that it would be better to call off our travels.

Although I suggested to my friend soon after the tragedy that we might need to cancel our trip, I told him only six days before the wedding, in a long letter of apology that explained our reasons. I then sent him, the bride-to-be and their parents flowers with a note of both regret and congratulations. I said that though my wife and I would not be able to be at the ceremony, we had postponed our trip for later in the year, and hoped we might be allowed to toast their happiness then.

My friend is now very angry, and the letter I received in reply was chilly. I fear I have permanently damaged our relationship. Did we do wrong, and, if so, how might we do right? Or should our friend be more understanding of the difficult decision we made?

GENTLE READER: On the one hand, it is rude to rescind the acceptance of a wedding invitation. On the other hand, etiquette makes allowances for emergencies, and this was a major emergency. On another hand, your friend considered his wedding to be a major event.

How many hands does that make? Miss Manners hopes you have at least one left to stretch across the seas, in a generous gesture of friendship. Perhaps if you ignore his chilliness and apologize for being caught up in strong and stressful emotions, he will realize that he, too, was acting under emotional distress, although of a different sort.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: When a guest brings a package to a party I have normally thanked the person and then put the gift off to the side inconspicuously. I did not want others who did not bring something to feel like this was a required "entry fee."

However, last year one present was food; I only discovered later that this was a dish meant to be served that night. I am sure the giver must have thought I did not approve of the dish or the food since it never made it to the table. What is the best way to handle this situation?

Finally, when these types of gifts are received, I normally send thank-you notes. If this is correct, what is the difference between a regular present and a food gift in terms of thank-you notes? I have been told the host does not need to do this, that the partygoer should send me a thank-you note.

GENTLE READER: Everyone has to be thanked. You have to thank the guests for their presents. They have to thank you for the hospitality. So the question Miss Manners is left with is whether this should be done in writing, or by word of mouth, or by chewing of mouth.

If possible, you should thank anyone who arrives with a present, grabbing a quick look at it, perhaps on a trip to the kitchen. You need not serve any food that is brought, because you presumably have a meal planned, and can assume you will enjoy this later.

The guests are obligated to write their thanks to you, but you need write only if you have not managed to thank them on the spot, or if the present is an extraordinary one beyond the category of hostess present. A whole ox, perhaps.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was feeling tortured last year at Thanksgiving and was wondering how to avoid that feeling this year.

For the last 20 years, my husband and I have been invited to the house of his brother and sister-in-law. I really do appreciate all the work that is involved. However, people do thank them for their work, and they get to keep the leftovers.

We drive more than eight hours (sometimes it's worse, depending on ice and snow, overheated engines and the number of diaper changes), and last year was emotionally the worst. Our 16-year-old daughter decided to use that time to tell us how much she hates us. Our 13-year-old son, usually very calm, was upset when somebody stepped on and broke his boom box. My 6-year-old said every other minute, "Are we there yet?"

When my husband started yelling, I asked to get out of the car, but that doesn't really work because then it takes longer to get there.

The minute we got there, my brother-in-law sent me right out for pizza for the whole family. I think he wanted to be sure that we pay our share and do our share. My sister-in-law made an angry comment that we hadn't brought the kind of Scotch they wanted. (I couldn't find it.) The next day, I grocery shopped, and I always spend more than $200, which I'm happy to do, except that it's never enough.

I don't think it's an accident that their uncle's wife stopped coming to Thanksgiving as soon as he died. I don't believe she ever felt truly welcome. I know another cousin feels that way, too.

I'd have it at our house, but the others all live elsewhere. I just wish that once they could do the drive, and they might treat us better when we got there.

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners is not as confident that exposure to the behavior in your car would inspire your relatives to treat you better. Perhaps it might shock them into realizing how horrid family life can be when people feel free to unload their ugliest feelings on one another.

Yet that does not seem to have occurred to you. Please, then, allow Miss Manners to make some recommendations.

Before you get into the car, you need to have a pleasant family council, asking for suggestions on how to make the trip enjoyable, or at least bearable, for all of you. A few rules would be in order, such as no yelling and no unloading pent-up grievances. There's not much you can do about "Are we there yet?"

The next topic should be how you can assist your hosts, including showing patience and tolerance if they seem unreasonable, perhaps to set them a good example. In this regard, Miss Manners believes you would find it helpful to avoid dwelling on their great good luck in being able to keep the leftovers in exchange for merely entertaining a houseful of grumpy people.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: The media have been printing and airing lots of photographs and videos of dead bodies. I was under the impression that it is wrong to photograph the dead or take pictures at a funeral. Is it really bad manners, or is it just something I find offensive?

GENTLE READER: It is not, per se, bad manners to photograph the dead in a dignified way. Indeed, representations, sometimes including death masks, were sought as keepsakes by the bereaved in past times.

It is displaying these, including in public venues, that is an etiquette problem and an extremely difficult one. The trade-off for the media is between protecting people from being unnecessarily horrified, and giving them the news of any horrors being committed. Weighing these factors in each case is what Miss Manners considers proper behavior for journalists.

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