Miss Manners: Navigating stairs, unwelcoming invitations and server etiquette

A man finds himself in an awkward position, literally and figuratively. He stands at the base of a staircase with a woman, and he's caught between two equally uncomfortable options. If he lets her go first—the traditionally correct choice—he ends up staring at her backside as they climb. If he goes first to spare her that indignity, she's left looking at his. The problem compounds if she's wearing a short skirt. He's written to Miss Manners seeking a way out of this geometric predicament.

Miss Manners offers no escape route. The lady ascends first. That is the rule. The gentleman, she writes, simply keeps his thoughts to himself. She adds a dry observation: should he go first instead, he needn't worry about exciting the woman behind him. The answer is not about comfort or optics. It's about protocol, and protocol doesn't bend for awkwardness.

A second letter arrives about a birthday invitation that has left the writer uneasy. A woman named Jenny is turning ninety-five, and someone has sent out invitations to celebrate. The event itself is momentous—a milestone worth marking. But the wording troubles the guest. The invitation announces, plainly, that no alcohol will be served. It's not phrased as a simple fact. It reads like a warning, as if guests might otherwise arrive with flasks hidden in their jackets. Then comes another restriction: no gifts. But immediately after that prohibition sits an instruction: there will be a box for cards and cash.

The contradiction is the point. The invitation forbids presents while simultaneously soliciting money. Miss Manners calls it an unpleasant invitation, and she's not wrong. There's nothing wrong with choosing not to serve alcohol at a party, she notes, but there is something wrong with issuing that choice as a stern warning to guests. And the juxtaposition of "no gifts" followed by "cash box" makes the real transaction clear: this is a fundraiser dressed up as a celebration. Miss Manners suggests the writer might skip the event entirely and instead visit Jenny separately, on her own terms, to acknowledge her birthday. The person who wrote this invitation—likely not Jenny herself, given her age—might be someone worth avoiding altogether.

The third question concerns the small friction of modern service. A diner thanks a server, and the server responds with "Of course." The diner finds this phrase vaguely offensive. It feels dismissive, like the server is saying, "Well, naturally you're grateful." The diner considers themselves overly polite—they mean their thanks sincerely—and they want the server to know it. They miss the older responses: "You're welcome," or the casual "You bet." This, they suggest, is a new standard among young servers, and it bothers them.

Miss Manners reframes the phrase. "Of course," she writes, can be understood as shorthand for "Of course I am honored to serve you." It's not a brush-off. It's a compression of something gracious. She also notes that this particular grievance joins a longer list of similar complaints—people offended by "No problem" or other modern server responses. The nit, she suggests, has already been picked enough. The reader might consider letting this one go, understanding the response as something other than dismissal. The server is not saying the gratitude is obvious or unwelcome. They're saying the service was their pleasure, their duty, their role. The words have simply changed shape.