DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was in the grocery store produce department and witnessed a woman sampling cherries before selecting a bag for purchase.
I was actually repulsed, because I wondered how many other people sampled without paying.
Any other shoppers who followed would not have received the same amount of fruit for the price (the cherries were sold by the bag, not the pound), and they would risk whatever germs that woman was carrying.
I didn’t say anything, but I tried to select another bag farther into the display.
Should I have said something? She was actually stealing from both the store and the other shoppers.
GENTLE READER: “See something, say something” does not require you to say something to the perpetrator. Miss Manners reminds you that the person with whom to speak, if you chose to, would be someone in authority, such as the store manager.
No good ever comes of grocery shoppers trying to shame one another, no matter how well deserved. In keeping with the general irritability of the populace, grocery stores have become areas of contention, and everyone is armed with ramming carts. So please stop confronting one another.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: I got a colonoscopy on Halloween. Most of the staff were in full costume, including the doctors. Think skintight red dresses with Superman capes, Spider-Man bodysuits, etc.
I’m totally OK seeing adults dressed in costume at their kids’ Halloween parties, but at a surgery center? It seems off-putting for everyone to don a costume when I’m about to have a procedure. I’m not a Debbie Downer, and yes, it’s Halloween, but is this the place for it?
There were also nurses with Halloween-themed scrubs, pumpkin earrings, and devil-horn or cat-ear headbands. Those options seem more appropriate.
Do I need to lighten up, or do you agree this is the place and time to maintain professionalism?
GENTLE READER: Eeeewww! Scary!
Miss Manners is referring to the possible outcome of a colonoscopy, which she would think scary enough. Perhaps the hijinks were intended to distract patients from worry.
Personally, she would prefer the medical worry. Surely if ever detached professionalism is needed, it is when one is in the position required for a colonoscopy. It is not the way you want to present yourself to jokesters.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it OK to sit down at a cocktail party? To sit in a chair, on a couch or at a table to eat?
GENTLE READER: Yes, and Miss Manners would go so far as to say that it is not OK to give a cocktail party where there is no place for the infirm, the weary and the over-cocktailed to sit down.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: So many people get Veterans Day and Memorial Day mixed up. What is an easy way to help the confused?
GENTLE READER: Alphabetically? Memorial Day comes first, in May, and Veterans Day is in November. (This requires forgetting that Veterans Day used to be called Armistice Day. So Miss Manners has just added to the confusion.)
Anyway, she would prefer that you memorize the meaning of the days in question: “memorial,” meaning in memory of those who lost their lives; “veterans,” who are among us, in gratitude for their having protected us.
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.
