Hi Amy, I just finished reading your article in Psychology Today "I See Rude People" and I am so glad that someone is expressing feelings that I have had for a long time. Sometimes, I wish that I could have about 20 of your books and then when someone is rude, just hand it over to them, but, uh..would that be rude?

Thanks!
Robin

You have two commenters named Robin now! I went to comments to say I'm glad I'm not alone in the airplane pet peeve, and here is another Robin reminding me of something else I meant to mention after reading the article and comments, both here and there. Thanks, Robin.

The article and a lot of the discussion arising from it seems to accept a mistaken premise, i.e., that pointing out or otherwise responding to rude behavior is in itself rude behavior. From this premise, it's easy to characterize the issue of response along the lines of "answering rudeness with rudeness".

This is unfortunate, both because it's not a correct description of what you do, and also because most people have a reasonable desire not to be rude.

Hi, Amy!
I got my copy on Thursday or Friday, I think (pre-ordered from Amazon) and finished it over the weekend. Enjoyed it immensely :-) Also - I had to chuckle because just two days before I got your book hubby had been griping about the asshats he deals with at work and he said he felt like part of the reason he gets so pissed at people is because it's not like he can call their mom and tell her what an ass they're being and that that's probably WHY they're such jerks, too. To then read it in your book a couple of days later just made me chuckle.

Will do (probably this afternoon)!

Oooh! Also of note was your bit about Parisians and children. I'm CONSTANTLY appalled by the manners of kids in restaurants. I've been eating out since I was two years old, and my daddy will tell you that he CONSTANTLY got complimented on my manners and table manners.

Interesting details, though: 1) I'm an only child 2) Daddy's from an older generation. I'm 36, but he'll be 88 this year. 3) He was a single parent until I was 4 (he remarried). He very much expected me to behave like an adult. He wanted to enjoy his meal, and him enjoying his meal did not include me running around, screaming, crying, etc. and so forth. Interestingly, he also never ordered chicken fingers and the like for me off the kid's menu. One of my earliest memories is of him and me standing at the breakfast bar at home and him slicing an avocado and taking a bite and giving me a bite - no fruit roll-ups in our house!

I'm not a parent, but I believe that kids are FULLY capable of behaving in public, the parent just has to have will to enforce that behavior.

Hey Amy did you know there's a post on Gawker mentioning you? Complete with an Update saying he was wrong, you'rre not a right wing loon, but you are batshit crazy on manners. I think it's meant as a compliment.

Now I regret not doing something about the several assclowns I saw in the Delta lounge recently. Even as an infrequent guest[one of my credit cards gets me free access if I happen to be flying them on any given day], I know that they have clearly marked "cell-free zones" in the lounge. While the 1 or 2 folks talking quietly on their cells in this 'cone of silence' were frankly less annoying than several loudly conversing groups, the guy marching back and forth across the area to the bar practically shouting into his Bluetooth was a spectacle. Other airlines have little signs sprinkled amongstthe tables in these areas. I could have avoided confrontation and mentioned it to the staff, I guess ... shame on me for leaving my spine on the airplane!

My boss is like that, Mr. Teflon. Well, slightly. He will go outside if we're at a restaurant and he gets a call, but he used to come in to the office (back when I worked out of the office - I work from home, now) and pace up and down the hall while on his cell. And LOUD - he was so loud. But, really, unless I was on *my* phone, I wouldn't shush him. How do you shush your boss at work? Heh. Thankfully, now that I work from home it's not an issue - I only talk to him a couple of times a day :-)

Unfortunately, the Amazon page has a mistake or two -- the worst being the bit saying that my book was published Nov. 1 or 2, depending on the edition...which makes it look like it came out a few weeks ago and nobody bought it or cared.

Man, that's rude!