Miss Manners Throws In the Hankie - Democratic Underground

Sugar Smack

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Fri Jul-29-05 01:37 PM
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Miss Manners Throws In the Hankie

Dear Miss Manners,

I worry about you. Though your quest to educate is noble, I fear you've done all you can do here. You are by no means a failure. Yet sometimes, I feel our country is too far from reform for the likes of you. You're a lady with queenly bearing. You have fragile sensibilities, as do I. You are but one of a handful of Americans remaining who still care about manners. As a kindred spirit, I suggest you RUN AWAY. Flee. Go as far away as possible and never look back. Go someplace where people everywhere will be nice, respectful, and well-intentioned. Your work here is done. I wish you a fond adieu.

- A faithful reader in NC

PS- Where have all the manners gone?

Gentle Reader,

The day has come when Miss Manners embraces a reader's advice and lets it guide her. She abandons all reasonable second-thoughts. She cannot see straight for the tears that cloud her vision. She's throwing in the hankie and all the chamomile tea in South Carolina can not comfort her. Where have all the manners gone? Where good manners go when they die.

Miss Manners makes no claim that her efforts have gone unrecognized-that would be unfair. Miss Manners does not claim to embody perfection. That would be rude and, most likely, untrue.

It's not a bad day that taints Miss Manners' eternally optimistic spirit. It is a horrifying epiphany that may crash in at any minute. Miss Manners began her day with a stroll into her favorite used-bookshop, only to find the uncracked spines of her so-called bestseller piling up next to the tattered remains of three or so "How to be a Bitch/Bastard" manuals. She was instantly mowed down by readers who, in their exuberance, endeavored to "find themselves" amid the self-help, customers who remained unaware of life outside their own bodies.

She came to the conclusion that there was indeed a direct connection between the waxing of "self-validation" and the waning of "consideration".

Miss Manners, still with a spark of ingenuous hope, is hard-pressed to assume a human being can't possibly be considerate to both him/herself and another human being simultaneously. Miss Manners sits on the beach in her high-necked gown and grandmother's own cameo, pondering new aspirations; to become shark-food or to get philisophical. She watches the sand run through her fingers like so many unlearned lessons and wonders- do people everywhere believe that to like oneself is to hate everyone else? That being considerate is weak and will force one beyond plankton on the food chain? That following a few simple rules of ettiquitte will destroy the abandonment by which one plans to live one's life?

Miss Manners recalls the day of the profferred arm, of fingerbowls at dinner, the days of letter-writing, of busy signals, when weeping was an act reserved for one's hankie and one's cat, and not a nationally televised affair....and weeps.

She still prefers the golden silence to muzak. And in the golden silence, when after the neighbors' dogs have been asked quietly to settle down, and Miss Manners thinks she can make out the strains to Vivaldi's "Spring" concerto ...she hears another noise..is it Emily Post, turning over in her grave? No.. It's the sound of Miss Manners' heart- quietly, politely, as unobtrusively as possible- breaking.

Miss Manners has enjoyed responding to your concerns, ranging from, "Is it OK to use indigo ink to respond to thank-you notes", to- "What is the least abrasive way to confront a roomate whom you've witnessed lacing your coffee with arsenic? I hate confrontations, what do you suggest?"

She can't stay, however. She will pack her dusty-rose mules, a quill pen, and her grandmother's own cameo, and board the plane to Japan. She'll hold a framed picture of Eleanor Roosevelt close to her bosom. And she'll hope that the gentleman seated next to her on the plane won't ask too many questions.