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May I Have A Word?

Expert etiquette advice from John Bridges

Travel-Sick

I’m just back from a major trip to Europe to celebrate my birthday. The trip was great because I invited a crowd of good friends to come along. My mother and her husband were logically in the group because I love them. Well, I guess I do. Everything went well for the first week, but from then on out, they started bickering over everything — where to eat, where to meet, what to see. It got worse and worse to the point where I seriously thought about putting them on a plane home for everybody else’s sanity. I didn’t, but what could I have done? —Anonymous, East Nashville

The flight home would have cost a great deal more than sipping an aperitif on a quiet terrace and calming down. As coordinator of this grand tour, you probably deserved a drink. Your mother and her husband deserved one too — but locked behind the doors of their hotel room. They deserved privacy, and so did the rest of the troop.

A two-week trip to Europe has its challenges, no matter whose birthday it is. After a week and counting, you might well have expected to encounter a bit of surliness, but that’s no excuse for impropriety, whatever the local language.

Good manners get involved — even if it’s your mother. You might have sat down with them (in the few open minutes on your agenda) and told them to keep their conniptions to themselves.

Their nettlesome behavior may have been precisely the same way back home. You’ve taken them for a big trip; show them iPhone pictures the next time.

company’S company

My daughter-in-law recently had us over for dinner along with her own parents. We sat on high stools at an island in the middle of the kitchen. While we were waiting for a bowl of chili, we passed around bowls of chips and Cheetos. We weren’t expecting silver and china, of course, and her parents didn’t seem to mind, so I didn’t say anything. But she can do better than this. How can I help her? —Anonymous, West Hills

This time, you got precisely what you were expecting: stainless — or even heavy-duty plastic — in the kitchen with her mother at a bar stool.

There’s a bowl-of-chili thing running in your daughter-in-law’s blood. Her mother seems perfectly happy with it. Did you check out her dining genes? No reason to share your concerns with her mother. Over a cup of tea, you’re headed for disaster.

You might be able to help them by asking the pair over for dinner, complete with the silver and china. But I bet your guest list might run a little bit old for her and her husband’s crowd. If the crowd ran a little younger, there would probably be a lot of untucked shirttails. Be prepared.

You’re on iffy ground as her mother-in-law. Babies may be on the way. You may already be setting a high standard for babysitting. Leave it alone. Let them ladle up their own stew.

by John bridges John is the author of How To Be a Gentleman and the co-author, with Bryan Curtis, of other books in the Gentlemanners TM series. Send your Best Behavior questions to jbridges@nfocusmagazine.com, and check out his up-to-theminute advice on life’s puzzling problems every Friday at nfocusnashville.com.