Friend pokes reader during conversations
Dear Miss Manners:
For several years, I have been the recipient of a friend’s annoying habit of “punctuating” what is being said by touching me. While walking, and sometimes while sitting, this person will frequently poke my shoulder or give a little shove with the back of the hand. I am already listening intently, so it is not to ensure my attention.
I am not averse to touch and thoroughly enjoy warm hugs, but this physical contact is distracting and bothers me. My friend is a wonderful person, albeit with a bad habit. What to do?
Gentle Reader:
Start screaming. Develop your own bad habit of yelping in alarm every time your friend pokes or pushes you, pleading that you were startled and taken off-guard.
Then when they inevitably tell you that you are overreacting, Miss Manners suggests you say, “Well, I was reacting normally to what you were saying, but that wasn’t sufficient.”
Dear Miss Manners:
Is there a polite way to ask my guests to PLEASE SIT STILL? (Oops, sorry — didn’t mean to yell.)
Most of my furniture is nearly antique (as am I), and it is showing its age. After 80 years of service, it is not as sturdy as it once was. People squirm and shift, cross one leg and then the other, lean this way and that, all while the chair creaks and squeaks.
In the past few years, I have had three chairs break. Most recently, a guest kept leaning back in a straightbacked chair as though he were trying to make it recline. I anticipated what would happen, but didn’t know what to say. Sure enough, soon there was a distinct crack, which both he and his wife ignored.
Can Miss Manners suggest some genteel way to head this off ?
Gentle Reader:
PUT THE FURNITURE AWAY. Oops. Sorry. Miss
Manners does not mean to yell.
And yes, she knows that furniture is meant to be used. But if something is particularly fragile, it is easier to remove it than to police squirmy guests.
Barring that, an occasional “You might be more comfortable on the other couch; I’m afraid that old settee is a bit creaky” could serve as an adequate — and genteel — warning.