Dear Miss Manners

Dear Miss Manners,

This morning I woke up later than usual, so I decided to skip my usual continental breakfast and customary paper. Instead, I went to the lobby to pick up a boxed breakfast of pastries, fruit and juice. The server looked rather tired and quite unhappy, but I attributed this to her post in society and thought nothing of it. It was only after I had got my packaged meal that I realized this woman was sick! To make matters worse, I noticed that she had not been wearing any gloves during the preparation of my meal! Not wanting to appear rude (and too hungry to do otherwise), I ate my phlem-tainted meal; but what, I humbly ask you, would have been the polite and sanitary thing to do in such a crisis?

Arrogant Hypochondriac in Toronto


Dear Arrogant Hypo,

You are clearly a man of good breeding, although you appear to lack what we, uppercrust members of society, call balls. Even I, Miss Manners, small and diminuitive though I appear, have got a fairly large pair of them (figuratively speaking, of course).

There is but one acceptable course of action for dealing with a situation such as this: first, you must take off your left glove (always your left); then, with minimal, but deliberate force, you must slap this woman with your glove and demand satisfaction for her mistake! How dare she get sick, and on a workday no less! Sick days are strictly to be had on the weekends and after hours. Miss Manners is saddened and alarmed by the rise of the unwashed masses in recent years, coupled with their increasing demands for "workers' rights", "equality" and other liberal, progressive nonsense such as "humane treatment". Miss Manners thinks it's high time for those of us who have worked so hard to get to where we are -- by being born into a rich family -- to take back what is rightfully ours!

By eating your phlem-tainted food this morning, Arrogant Hypo, you have single-handedly set back the aristocratic movement by ten, or maybe even fifteen years. I hope you're happy. The next time your INS-dodging gardener refuses to lift a 100lb boulder by himself and demands extra help, you will have only yourself to blame.


Miss Manners