Proper etiquette can be a blessing and a boon to our interactions . . . provided it isn't used as a weapon. This is a lesson I learned early in life when, as a participant in a major metropolitan newspaper's summer youth program, a brief interaction with one of its newsroom's managers led to him inviting me out to lunch at a nice restaurant nearby.
During the meal the man said little, leaving me to carry the conversation – which is rude, but not as much as the reason he asked me to dine with him in the first place. Immediately I was aware that he was watching me like a hawk, specifically how I consumed my soup, whether I knew the proper fork to use for salad and how to hold my utensils during the main meal: all things my mother required me to master from the moment I could feed myself.
