Monthly Archives: September 2013

An Etiquette Lesson For My Cat

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This is Victoria’s cat Sir Winston Churchill. Feel free to admire him, but know that behind those innocent eyes is a poorly mannered cat. [Photo courtesy of Ellen Pratt]

We both have cats and we adore them. However, sometimes cats can have manners as bad as humans.

  • Trying to scratch someone for simply giving you a hug is rude.

  • Stretching your entire body over the center of the bed means that no one else has any space and you are only a 10 pound cat. Learn to share.

  • Try to vomit on a hardwood or tile floor as they can be cleaned easily, unlike furniture and rugs. Also try to avoid aiming right where your people will be walking, bleary eyed, first thing in the morning.

  • When your housemate is walking, do not walk in front of their legs. They will kick you, and it won’t be a good situation for either party involved.

  • Drink the water in your bowl before demanding it from the bathtub faucet.

  • While eating, try to keep all of your food and water in their respective bowls, instead of mashing everything into a slurry in the surrounding area.

  • 5 am is not an acceptable time to demand breakfast, and biting noses is not the best way to make such a demand.

  • Try to avoid sticking your butt in someone’s face.

  • Really, you want to scratch our record collection? You have a damn scratching post.

  • Maybe you don’t need to constantly meow like you’ve been abandoned on the side of the road when you are in a loving home.

  • Heatwaves are bad times for cuddling.

  • The people who are visiting think you are so beautiful and just want to play, don’t be snobby and ignore them.

What etiquette lesson would you give your cat?

Let’s Talk About The Magic Words

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AHHHHHHHHHHHH

AHHHHHHHHHHHH

Most people are pretty good at these. Our parents drilled them into our heads as toddlers. They are so ingrained that they barely rate a mention in most etiquette books.

I think that thank you is the most ubiquitous. When I travel, I always make sure to learn how to say hello and thank you in any foreign language, because they pretty much cover most situations and make you sound polite. It’s also the most meaningful of the “magic” phrases. I am thanking you for something. To an extent, I think it has replaced please in a lot of situations. Instead of saying “could you do this, please?” a lot of us will say “could you do this, thanks!” How often have you signed off on an email request with “thanks!” at the end? I think this does add a nice casualness to a request and makes an email seem friendlier.

I was thinking that I almost never say please, but then I do catch myself doing it a lot at work and in situations like ordering at restaurants and other times where I want to be ultra polite. Nowadays, please seems to have taken this passive-aggressive tone, as if you should already be doing the thing this person is asking you to do. Maybe that’s because my mom always made sure “Could you please do the dishes?” sound like a command, not a polite request. Do you say please a lot? When do you use it most?

You’re welcome has fallen off the map a bit in favor of a breezy “no problem!” or “sure!” These are fine, I think, as they do convey your acknowledgement of a thanks, but a stickler for etiquette would say that by brushing off whatever someone is thanking you for, you are diminishing your own actions as unimportant. I struggle with this one a lot and have been trying to make more of an effort to say you’re welcome, but I catch myself throwing out “no problem!”s quite a bit still.

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Do I Really Have to Touch the Toilet in a Disgusting Bar Bathroom?

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Jaya has actually used this bathroom [Via Flickr user gnta]

Dear Uncommon Courtesy,

From a young age, my mother instilled in me the politeness attached to putting the seat back down after using the toilet. This was a universal lesson that was to follow me beyond the two-males-to-one ratio inside my childhood home. As an adult, I traverse unisex bathrooms in bars and find the water inside the toilet bowl to be merely a suggestion for urine, as the entire bowl itself is some sort of blank canvas for avant-garde piss art. With this in mind, is it actually impolite to leave the toilet seat down in a unisex bathroom out in the shared world?

Sincerely,

Curious About Covers

OFFICIAL ETIQUETTE

I adore questions that have me searching the Emily Post Institute for the term toilet lids. They are silent on the subject. Miss Manners has discussed it in terms of asking guests to put the seat down (you are not supposed to mention it). In fact, Miss Manners prefers to think that toilets don’t exist, so not much help there. Fortunately for you, we are happy to acknowledge their existence and tell you our thoughts.

OUR TAKE

Jaya: So my idea is that 3/4 things anyone does in the bathroom require the seat to be down. So on statistics alone you should leave the seat down, always.

Victoria: And REALLY, everyone should be putting both the seat and the lid down to prevent germs flying around. I don’t, but it’s something to work towards. Plus, dudes can take one for the team in being the ones to touch the thing.

Jaya: Totally. And I think this is still the case if the seat is down BUT someone had been in there and peed all over the seat. I mean, at some point everyone realizes they’re in a public bathroom, and things aren’t going to be the best.

Victoria: Wait, what’s still the case? They still have to lift the seat up?

Jaya: Yeah? Or, I don’t know, if you see pee all over the seat, no matter what sex you are, take one for the public bathroom team and wipe it off.

Victoria: Oooh yes, totally. Why doesn’t Lysol or whoever make little purse-sized sprays? Then you could spray and wipe before you sit. They could make a million dollars.

Jaya: THEY DO!

Victoria: They do!??!?!?!

Jaya: Bonus cat!

Victoria: Anyway, in conclusion, the answer to a gross public restroom is to not make it even more gross.

Jaya: Exactly. Just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t mean you have to.