Inviting daughter’s pal on trip doesn’t require footing her bill
to me from the other floor, I frequently can’t understand him, so I have taken to calling back, “Honey, I can’t hear you. If you’re trying to ask me something, you need to come into this room.”
He thinks that if I can’t understand him, then I should just come to where he is. I say that it’s the onus of the original bellower to come to the bellow-ee. I hate repeatedly calling back, “What? WHAT?” and then putting down whatever I’m doing just to go upstairs and learn I’ve been summoned to tell him, for example, that “Yes, I did buy toothpaste.”
Gentle Reader: With some exceptions, the responsibility for being in a position to be understood lies with the person initiating the communication. In other words, the bellower. In saying that there are exceptions, Miss Manners is thinking of the bedridden — not those who lack patience, empathy or volume control.
Dear Miss Manners: While I was shopping in a store, a patron entered wearing a T-shirt with the following message: “Shut the F Up.” I was, of course, dismayed, and more so when the store’s employees didn’t request that the person leave the premises.
Why has this become acceptable?
Gentle Reader: Unfortunately, our rights to free speech extend to vulgar T-shirts. How ironic, however, that the first shirt you mention rudely demanded that you stifle yours.
Dear Miss Manners: How do you politely decline gifts of signs and crafts with sayings on them? It’s just not our thing. It’s our son’s girlfriend who makes and gives them, so we have to tread lightly.
Gentle Reader: Unfortunately, the relative substance of the present and giver are not entirely relevant here. Politely accepting unwanted items, and then discreetly disposing of them as you wish, is the only correct solution.
However, when it comes to the nature of the quotes themselves, Miss Manners will allow the quality of the enthusiasm to differ appropriately. Crafts and sayings of the “adorable downtrodden kitten” variety may be greeted with a pleasant, bemused smile. More provocatively intended ones of a political or religious nature may be received with a much, much weaker one.