DEAR MISS MANNERS: I’m going to be wed quickly and plan to have a receiving line. This might be through the cocktail hour between the marriage and reception, whereas the venue is rearranged.
Is there a method to politely decline hugging individuals throughout this?
I’m dreading the mishaps that can happen whereas holding foods and drinks, to not point out mussing up my hair. Are two-handed handshakes appropriate sufficient?
GENTLE READER: No and sure. That’s, handshakes are appropriate, however hugs from the awkward uncle who doesn’t know what to do along with his plate — even when he has not but had a cocktail — could also be unavoidable.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: I’m the janitor at a truck cease. What’s one of the best ways for me (a person) to announce myself when coming into the ladies’s restroom to scrub it?
I begin with calling out, “Hello. Janitor. Is anyone in here?” however it simply doesn’t sound correct. Some women say nothing in response, and if I didn’t look beneath all of the stall doorways, I’d have walked in on them. Different women sound fully panic-stricken, like I’m going to storm proper in.
I work the night time shift, and there may be not one other woman on workers to ask.
GENTLE READER: An answer to that is in use in most American airports in the present day, though Miss Manners is unaware of the identification of the intelligent colleague of yours who first put it into follow.
Purchase a small signal saying that the power is being cleaned, and place it in entrance of the doorway to the ladies’s restroom — then go away it there whilst you go work on the boys’s room. That ought to give anybody within the girls’s restroom sufficient time to filter out, permitting you to proceed there with a transparent conscience.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: I inwardly cringe after I’m given a plant that doesn’t match with my backyard plan.
I normally let it sit in its pot for some time and ultimately drop it into the compost heap.
Which is the higher response: Settle for the present and later compost it? Or inform the particular person I’d choose to say no their present, because it doesn’t match my plan?
GENTLE READER: The previous. The plant, even when its emotions are harm, received’t be capable of inform anybody.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: Whether or not at house, at one other particular person’s home or in a restaurant, what does one do when meals from one’s plate drops on the desk?
GENTLE READER: Though she is inclined to consider these as three separate questions, Miss Manners acknowledges a typical first step in all situations: Don’t faux that it didn’t occur.
At house, you’ll seemingly have to scrub it up your self. At another person’s home or in a restaurant, it would be best to draw it to the eye of a number or waiter. Ask for help, but additionally provide to do the work — with roughly conviction and insistence relying on the setting, the extent of ritual and the extent of the ensuing mess.
Please ship your inquiries to Miss Manners at her web site, www.missmanners.com; to her electronic mail, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or by way of postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas Metropolis, MO 64106.
