Category: letters

requited

I wanted U
I hoped for U
I waited for U
Time after time
I looked for U
But U passed me by
U went to others
I thought U would never come to me
Then when I had given up all hope
That I would ever be able to hold U
U appeared
U came to me
Finding U fulfilled a need
Because without U
I might well have finished
Forlorn, distressed and clutching
That little tile
Imprinted with
The letter Q

more note-writing tips from Ms. Mismanners

Dearest kind readers,

It has been some time since I have offered you my advice in matters of etiquette. I believe that some of you may be shy about seeking advice in so public a forum, and have attempted to make your requests in subtle ways. For example, I recently received the following note:

we have mr barkworth pay or else await instructions

As I have not had the pleasure of being personally aquainted with the Mr. Barkworth referenced in the above communication, I must assume that either this note was sent to me in error, or that more probably, the note-writer was requesting advice about the proper wording of ransom notes. I am happy to oblige.

The first point I would like to address is on a matter of style rather than etiquette. While use of capitalization and punctuation is a often a matter of personal style, I would heartily recommend using at least some punctuation. I would like to point out that in such matters, it is particularly important to avoid ambiguity. In the note above, I presume that as the specifics of payment have not yet been made explicit, the writer is not actually suggesting the choice between the option of paying vs. waiting for instructions. I believe the author intended to communicate the coercive suggestion “Pay, or else” and the explicit directions “await instructions.”

Secondly, while brevity is certainly a trait to be admired, I fear that the intended recipient of your original note may have found your wording to be somewhat impolite. Might I suggest the following rewording:

    Dear Madam or Sir,

    I hope that this day finds you well, and that you are enjoying this fine spring weather. I have recently been admiring the lovely flowers that are now blooming in your garden, and I expect that they bring you much pleasure.

    It may have come to your attention that your beloved Mr. Barkworth was not in attendance this morning. Rest assured, he is unharmed, and I am certain you will be reunited with him soon.

    I am certain that you will wish avoid any unnecessary unpleasantness, especially out of consideration for the aforementioned Mr. Barkworth, and therefore I must suggest that you refrain from contacting any third parties. I will forward to you additional information about our upcoming transactions shortly. I eagerly anticipate continued communication with you in this matter.

    Warmly,
    A Friend

I hope that this information has been of some help to you, and I wish the best of luck to you in this endeavor.

Sincerely,

Ms. Mismanners

calling it off

Dear Dell,

This may be difficult for you to take, but I need to convince you that there is nothing between us. There will never be anything between us. I am in a deep, serious long-term relationship with another. I have never been interested in you, not even as a friend. I know that sounds harsh. But I need you understand that this must stop. You need to stop sending me pictures of yourself, and other details about you. It’s creeping me out.

I never even open what you send me, just toss it right in the recycling bag. Over and over again. But recently I realized that I’m just ignoring the problem. The real problem is you. You need to leave me alone.

So I made that call. I thought it would be simple, straightforward, if a little awkward. I’ve had to end other relationships like this not too long ago. And those others took things in stride, agreed right away to stop sending me things, even though it made them sad. But you. I had trouble even reaching a live human body. I got tossed around voice menus. In desperation, I had to pretend to want something from you that I really didn’t want. A fiction to try to get through to you. I felt dirty, teasing you like that. I selected the menu options for “purchase a desktop computer,” just so I could speak to a live person. “I’d like to get off your mailing list,” I said.

What followed was more run-around. The person I spoke to said I could make this request on your website, but she could still help. She tried to find the page. She put me on hold. She passed me off. I held some more, and was eventually disconnected. Meanwhile, I went to your website. Hunted for this page that the voice on the phone alluded to, but couldn’t find. There were links leading nowhere, and everywhere, more creepy pictures of you. Finally, I found the form I needed, deeply, deeply hidden, only revealed through keyword searches. You really have made it hard for people to break things off with you. But I’m strong, persistent. I’m tired of you and your kind harassing people who want nothing to do with you, and creating so much waste.

So I am writing you now to gloat over my victory, to make sure that you understand that you must leave me alone now. You can keep your damn catalog.

Sincerely,

alejna

p.s. To spite you, I will share with the world at large how to be removed from the Dell mailing list: here is the form.

p.p.s. You should know that LL Bean and Crate & Barrel took things much better than you, and let me call their customer service number and talk to someone. Who then removed me from the mailing list, no questions asked. It took maybe a minute for each. And those were folks I’d actually had brief flings with, catalogs we’d once ordered from.

p.p.p.s. You’re not the only offender, and I realize that. I’m working on finding ways to get you all to stop.

p.p.p.p.s Here’s a paper on this topic that might be of interest: in pdf or the html version. I heartily recommend the pdf, as it has some useful diagrams that don’t come through in the html version.

driving in a pedestrian manner

Dear kind readers,

I must apologize for the delay in responding to your queries. I’m afraid that it’s been almost 2 months since my last column, and I fear that I have left you unadvised on some important matters of etiquette concerning driver-pedestrian interactions.

Here is our first query, submitted by a kindly reader in response to my last column, and repeated below for your convenience:

Ms. Mismanners, please lend your thoughtful advice to me, in my time of need.

Every day I take the bus home, I cross a busy highway. At the crosswalk. With the appropriate crosswalk sign (the steady walking person). And nearly every day I do this, I am faced with a stream of irate commuters trying to make a right-hand turn through the crosswalk onto the highway.

I do my best to express my gratitude to the kindly drivers who actually notice this lowly pedestrian, generally by waving, smiling, or nodding to them. But what is the appropriate response to the drivers who speed up at the sight of me (to better zip around the corner, mere inches from my nose), or those who actually swing around the kindly drivers, and then yell at me when they have to come to a screeching halt or run me over?

Thank you in advance for your advice.

Dear conscientious pedestrian,

Your query is indeed a difficult one, and I have spent many an evening researching in the historic tomes of etiquette. One possible response would, of course, be to behave in a manner similar to the appropriate response to drivers who rudely splash nearby pedestrians by driving through puddles, as discussed in my previous column. Specifically, one may respond by hurling colorful rotting produce and idiomatic expressions. I recommend eggplant, tomatoes and the expression “rat bastard,” which was suggested as a useful phrase by a kind reader. However, for cases where driver rudeness pushes within life-threatening ranges, you may want to refer to the following sources:

The book Favorite Everyday Hexes, Spells and Sangria Recipes: a How-to Guide, by Philippa Martin-Rodriguez. Oxford University Press, 1963. In particular, chapter 27, entitled “How to exact revenge upon a discourteous driver” should prove to be particularly useful to you.

You may also find this more recent article to be of interest: “Crosswalk Curses and Highway Hexes,” by Martin Quimplemeyer, in Black Arts for the Urban Commuter Quarterly, Spring 2006, pp 38-45.

I hope this information will be of use to you.

Best regards,
Ms. Mismanners

The second query is on a very related topic, and I can only hope that the writer of the previous query has not become acquainted with the writer of this one due to my slow response.

Dear Ms. Mismanners,

I’m in a bit of an unusual situation, and would greatly appreciate your knowledgable advice. I would like to buy a gift for a fascinating and extraordinarily attractive young woman with whom I became acquainted quite recently, but I do not know what gift would be most appropriate to mark the occasion of our meeting. We met last Saturday as I was on my way to a convention of squid enthusiasts. As I passed through the intersection of Main Street and Fourth Avenue, I was reflecting upon a recent article I’d read on the mating habits of Batoteuthidae, and chuckling to myself about a gaff made by the author of the article, when I couldn’t help but admire the graceful movements of a stylishly dressed young woman as she rolled across the hood of my car.

While this remarkable young woman sustained only minor injuries, and is expected to be released from the hospital within the week, I still wish to extend to her some token of my regrets over the unfortunate incident, as well as my admiration of her character and person. Could you please suggest what gift I might present to her?

Sincerely,
a cephalopodophile

(Editor’s note: this letter is actually somewhat of a paraphrasing of the original query, which came via search engine requests in the form of a search for “gift pedestrian hit car etiquette”)

Dear cephalopodophile,

It is always difficult to shop for those whom you do not know well, even in cases where you have shared a connection such as the one you have described. Not knowing the young woman’s taste, you may want to consider a basket of fruit. An arrangement of a dozen or so long-stemmed pineapples makes a dramatic statement, and one that the recipient won’t quickly forget. You may also want to consider a limited edition commemorative figurine from the Precious Moments Death, Dismemberment and Debiliating Disasters series. Of course, either of these gifts will be most appreciated in combination with the receipt of a large insurance settlement, and the knowledge that your driver’s license has been revoked, that your car has been impounded and a that a restraining order has been issued.

Warmly,
Ms. Mismanners

I would be very happy to address other etiquette concerns from readers who may wish to submit questions to me. I promise that I will respond to those requests in a timely manner, unless I find I have better things to do.

mismanners

I had a funny experience a couple of nights ago. I got a call from a woman in my graduate program that I hadn’t seen for several months. She said she had a question about thank you notes. I sputtered for a moment in confusion. Had she found out about my blog, where I’d recently posted about being several months behind in writing thank you notes? To confuse me more, this is someone who had given a present for Phoebe, and to whom I had not yet sent a thank you note. Was she asking about that? Hey, dude, where’s my note? (Not that she’d ask that way. She’s very polite. Also Japanese. Can’t picture her saying dude.) In a moment, I remembered that I’d gotten a message from her a couple of days before saying she was going to a job interview. Aha! She must mean thank you notes that she would be writing. Indeed, this was the case. She was calling to ask me about the etiquette of writing post-interview thank you notes. But let me repeat and rephrase, she was calling to ask me about the etiquette of writing thank you notes. Me. I laughed maniacally. Somewhat to her confusion.

I guess I know a fair amount about etiquette somehow or another, and have reasonably polished manners. (I mean, when eating in a fancy restaurant, I know which is the proper fork to use when skewering the last piece of potato off your companion’s plate when he’s looking the other way.) But it strikes me as funny that someone would ask me for advice on etiquette on a matter where I’ve been so terribly delinquent.

Anyhow, if anyone out there has some etiquette questions for me, lay ’em on. I’m thinking of writing a column. (And by the way, no, I haven’t yet finished the damn thank you notes I owe. So don’t ask. That would be rude.)