Miss Manners^®

DEAR MISS MANNERS: After enjoying a Thanksgiving meal at a restaurant, I was shocked to be scolded by my elderly and generally very well-mannered mother about the way I interact with waiters and others in service positions.

It has always seemed to me that the world could use a bit more kindness and respect, and people whose job it is to serve the public probably need more than most. Moreover, I have never seen the people working in service industries as in any way beneath me. I have great respect for anyone who is honest and hardworking.

So, I called the waiter "sir" when I needed his attention. I spoke to him in full sentences, made eye contact when addressing him, said "please," "thank you" and "if it is not too much trouble," knowing full well that it was his job to go to the trouble. At the end of the meal, I returned his cheerful wish that we have a nice holiday.

There were brief pleasantries, but no chatting about anything personal, and certainly no flirting.

Apparently, my mother feels that I am inappropriately treating waitstaff and salesclerks as if they were hosting me in their homes, rather than providing a paid service, that I am making them uncomfortable by blurring boundaries, and that I am wasting their time by using too many words.

If this is the case, I am missing it completely. I always seem to be given excellent service, and the service providers seem relaxed and pleasant enough. Is my mother correct that I am too polite in these circumstances?

GENTLE READER: The custom to which your mother is referring dates from when servants were considered robots. When Miss Manners once waited on a table at a charity event, then socialized with the guests afterwards, they repeated much of their dinner conversation -- imagining that she had not heard it when standing silently behind their chairs.

The presumption of invisibility is now recognized as rude. Even period dramas about aristocrats show them chatting with their domestic staff during dinner, which they would never have done.

If you were interfering with service or getting personal, your mother would be right to object. It is also patronizing to assume that waiters are available for friendship, much less flirting. But simple courtesy is always welcome.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it still considered vulgar to wear both gold and silver jewelry at the same time?

GENTLE READER: Please -- Miss Manners gets enough flak when she cites the rule against wearing major stones (other than marriage rings) in daylight.

Some people do not like to mix metals, but if you do, go right ahead.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: The father of my daughter is engaged. At our daughter's birthday party, which I was hosting, his fiancee was introducing herself to my daughter's guests as her stepmom.

They are not married yet! Is this an acceptable way for her to introduce herself?

GENTLE READER: Is this an argument you want to have, when she presumably will be?

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: A friend of mine is staying with me, and he went home for Thanksgiving, leaving his cat here. Well, I woke up the first morning after he left and the cat is gone.

It is common for us to leave the doors open during the day, but the cat has never run off until now. So what do I do? Do I call my friend and tell him over the phone? Or do I wait till he gets back, hoping the cat will return in the meantime? But if the cat doesn't return, will he be hurt that I didn't inform him right away?

GENTLE READER: Have you thought of something to say when your friend returns and says, "Thanks for taking care of Tinkerbell. I bet he'll be glad to see me. Where is he? Tinkerbell! I'm back! Tinkerbell, where are you? TINKERBELL!!!"

No?

Then Miss Manners suggests that you get busy putting up posters around the neighborhood. She will give you a day or two before confessing to your friend, on the grounds that you were hunting frantically, but after that you must break the sad news.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My wife and I were invited for Thanksgiving dinner at a new friend's home along with three other couples. We were asked to bring a dish to pass.

At the end of a delightful evening, we were asked to take home the leftover food we brought. We thought that was inappropriate and rude.

GENTLE READER: Funny -- the complaints that Miss Manners usually gets are from people whose leftovers were kept by the hosts. Or snatched by other guests.

For a holiday that is supposed to be associated with hospitality and inclusiveness, Thanksgiving apparently inspires a lot of unseemly squabbling.

Nor is it in keeping with the spirit of the occasion to assume that your hosts (who might have had an overstuffed kitchen) were just waiting until the end of the delightful meal for the chance to insult you.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband and I had a party to celebrate a big anniversary. We asked that people not bring gifts, but someone gave us a very nice bottle of whiskey anyway.

The problem is that we don't drink, and neither do most of our friends.

Because it's such a nice bottle, I hate to see it go to waste. I suggested we thank the person, explain the issue, and give it back so someone else would be able to enjoy it.

My husband says that would be rude, so it's sitting in a cupboard. It will probably never be enjoyed unless we can find someone to regift it to, which may create a host of other problems.

GENTLE READER: Returning a present to the giver is unpleasant, so let's try to find it a home.

If you don't have friends who drink, how about a favorite restaurant? (Miss Manners is assuming that you are unlikely to have a favorite bar.)

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: How do you address a formal invitation to a married lesbian couple who have the same last name? For example: Lisa Jones and Maggie Jones. Do you write Mrs. and Mrs. Jones? Or Mss. (plural of Ms.) Jones? Or Ms. Lisa Jones and Ms. Maggie Jones?

GENTLE READER: Having lost the grammatical battle of "they/them" -- she is entirely in favor of a nonbinary pronoun, if not the sometimes-confusing plural -- Miss Manners is determined to get ahead of new honorifics.

She will spare you the history lessons about Mrs. being short for Mistress -- which eventually took on nefarious tones, as so many female monikers do -- and about Ms. being historically correct centuries ago, not just a 20th-century feminist invention.

Oh, look at that: She did not spare you the lecture after all.

She therefore humbly suggests: "the Mses Jones."

Lest you retort that Ms. is not for married ladies, it is. It just does not define a woman as married or not. That ought to quell all of those other rightful patriarchal objections.

With this particular surname, you could also just say "the Joneses," but she begs you to resist "the Mses Joneses," as fun as it might be to say.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My spouse and I have different techniques for adding ketchup to french fries. My spouse pours an amount of ketchup onto an empty area near the fries and then dips them. I pour the ketchup directly onto the fries. Does etiquette have a preference?

GENTLE READER: Nope, it does not really care. Once fingers enter the food arrangement, etiquette gets less picky. Unless, Miss Manners warns, you are sharing the fries -- in which case, she recommends whichever method does not bring you to blows.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was brought up to offer drinks and/or food to people who come over to my house. I am engaged to a man whose parents do not do this, and I am trying to manage my feelings about it.

I went to their house for a planned visit, without my fiance, when the parents intended to take me out for lunch. I brought them homemade cookies.

Nothing was offered to me during the hour before we left for lunch. When we returned, not having had coffee nor dessert at the restaurant, we spent about 45 minutes at their house before I left. Again, nothing was offered -- not even the cookies I had brought over. They paid for lunch.

Is it unreasonable for me to have expected that they would offer me a drink? Maybe take out the cookies I brought and enjoy them while I was still there? Or was that not appropriate because they took me out for lunch? In my family, this would be considered very rude.

GENTLE READER: Certainly, a drink or light refreshment may be offered when one is visiting another's home. But in your example, with lunch having been so soon on the horizon, Miss Manners is inclined to excuse your in-laws for the transgression. If it happens during a longer interval with no meal promised, you may rightfully consider them thoughtless.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)