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To Miss Manners, please: Open homes occur periodically in my area. I enjoy visiting them to gather ideas for decorating and to see how the houses are laid up.
I always explain to the realtor that I’m simply a nosy neighbor who is interested in the house. The Realtor doesn’t need to spend time showing me around or wasting my time. They react favorably every time.
Am I acting rudely here? My sister believes it to be.
GENTLE READER: The vendor would undoubtedly benefit from this. You might tell people about the neighborhood’s charms and others at the open house might get to know a pleasant neighbor.
Is that the issue? Is your sister concerned that you could turn off potential buyers by telling everyone you meet that there are dead buried in the backyard or by upsetting them in any other way?
If not, an open house might be deemed open. Miss Manners seems to be taking a harmless go at appeasing people’s natural curiosity about other people’s lifestyles, since she forbids anybody from requesting to take a tour of the house or to look through windows.
To Miss Manners, please: Between my son’s and my daughter’s 2019 college graduation ceremonies, something seemed to have changed. Less than 10% of the graduates and their guests stayed until the very end of the two-hour ceremony in 2019, but the audience was present the entire time.
As a matter of fact, nearly every recipient crossed the stage to accept their degrees and then just departed, failing to take their seats again. As a result, relatives and friends began to steadily leave the crowd, but further pupils were still being invited to the platform.
People pushing past our legs as they exited the aisles frustrated those of us still attempting to enjoy the entire ceremony, including those whose grads were at the end of the alphabet.
Was I so far behind the times I was appalled by the mid-ceremony exits?
HUMAN READER: Miss Manners is often perplexed when people who condemn rudeness falsely claim that they haven’t kept up with the times. You don’t have to follow advancements that are moving toward disregard for other people.
It is disrespectful to one’s own peers to conduct a graduation ceremony like a business transaction, when the graduates just pick up their diplomas and head off. If the class had to be told in advance not to do so, that would be unfortunate.
To Miss Manners, please: When my husband and my mother-in-law are having dinner and there’s enough food for a second serving or so, how do I manage that?
The response I get when I ask any of them or both of them if they would like some more broccoli is, “No, I may have some later.”
It appears from this that they are expressing, “I don’t want you to have it.” I serve myself a very little quantity, and they never finish what’s left (so I can leave them some).
Shall I simply eat the final bit and declare that it’s now or never?
HUMAN READER: In that case, yes.
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(Please direct any inquiries to Miss Manners via her email at dearmissmanners@gmail.com, via her website, www.missmanners.com, or by mail at Andrews McMeel Syndication, Miss Manners, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)
