Don’t you hate, hate hate it when people have NO FRIGGIN CLUE that what they’re doing might possibly bother you? Like the time I was in a bookstore, asking the cashier (might have been the owner) about something. While he was talking, he started cleaning his (tobacco) pipe. With a pocketknife.
I cannot describe the horribleness of the skreak, skreak, skreak sound it made. He didn’t seem to notice that I was shaking convulsively. I finally had to plug my ears and walk out of the store. Then when I came back, he wondered what was wrong with me.
I feel for you, Siemsi. And poo to the people who say “Don’t put it in a napkin.” Cover it up, for shit sake! Although in your case, it was already too late. And that’s what I really can’t get over: his first transgression.
He reached into his fucking MOUTH to fish something out!! While his mouth was still full of FOOD! Christ almighty, who raised this clown?
erl, most people would say that he should hold the napkin up to his mouth, discretely spit it into his napkin, and leave it in the napkin.
Miss Manners and the old school say that you should quickly remove the gristle from your mouth with your fingers (not fishing around and making a big production, not spitting it out into your hand) and without comment or minute inspection (here Siemsi’s dinner companion is certainly in error) place it at the edge of your plate. Miss Manners is against hiding it in your napkin, as mentioned in the column linked above, because the person who cleans up is then in for an icky little surprise. Another objection would be that your napkin is supposed to be in your lap, and I can’t imagine how you would keep the gristly bit safely cached while the napkin continues to serve its purpose.
These objections hinge on non-disposable cloth napkins, though. In a restaurant that provides copious paper napkins, I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t surreptitiously spit out a bit of gristle into a napkin, wad it up and leave it by your plate, and put a fresh napkin in your lap. But Miss Manners has some kind of a deal about paper napkins, so she refuses to address the situation (at least where I’ve seen it.)
No, your intuition was right, Podkayne. I was under the impression said bit of food was stuck in his teeth, but now I see that this assumption isn’t borne out by the facts we have here. If it wasn’t stuck I’m not sure what I’d do. I’ve done both in my life, actually. Seems to depend on what sort of object is actually in there. Hard things like bits of bone, for instance, or gristle… I don’t think I have a rule for it, I just act surprised at finding something strange in my mouth, and do something to correct the situtation.
The pipe thing… shit, I would have just said something. I’m sure he wouldn’t have minded. That’s being silly to get mad at someone for something but then refusing to say anything about it.
erislover, in all the history of the world, there has never been anything more effective than the saying of something.
People do what they want. If it happens to disturb someone else, the someone else is wrong for trying to infringe on the right of the first person to pull disgusting things out of their mouth while it’s full of food, or scrape metal against wood, or sing tunelessly at 80 decibels at 10pm. The trick is to be the person who commits the offending act, so you can claim victimhood.
Oh, d’oh! I really am just gonna have to leave that location blank!
Let me rephrase that last post.
I have said things to people. I asked the tone-deaf guy in my dorm if he could please refrain from singing after 10pm, and sing more softly when he did sing. His response: “[pained sigh]Yeah, but Rilch, see, that would be like me asking you to stop wearing your glasses. I have so much happiness in me, and I have to let it out.”
The bookstore guy asked me why I left, and I said, “Your knife [shudder] scraping against that wood…It was horrible!” and I got nothing but a blank look.
And my uncle who hocked a tremendous loogie in my direction and, when I told him, “I don’t like to see people spit,” responded, “Well, isn’t that just too bad about you. [hock…ptooey]”
People get just as offended at being called on uncouth behavior as others are offended at having to see/hear it. Everyone thinks they’re perfect, that’s all. When people ask me to stop doing something, I stop immediately, but when I ask them to stop, I’ve trampled on their freedom of expression. But I’ve long since given up asking.
BTW: The chair squeaking bothers me. But there’s nothng I can do until I’ve saved up enough for the ergonomic chair.
Well, if one thing’s for sure, we know you can’t just pick it out of your teeth.
This point, in fact, goes far beyond just removing gristle and cleaning a pipe. This same behavior goes on in the pit all the time; one person bitches, others bitch back, and now all of a sudden bitching is only ok if someone agrees with the OP (that is, the OP gets upset about the response being substantially the same thing as the OP’s post itself). You know what I mean?
Now see, this is a perfect scenario for the justified use of violence.
Keep in mind though, that some folks (like me) were brought up to do it the Miss Manners way. I didn’t know people did it any other way until I saw this thread just now. Now obviously, I wouldn’t open my mouth very widely and ostentatiously dig around for the offending matter and then embark upon a minute inspection of the food particle, and if he did that I’m not backing him at all. But if he just inconspicuously (except to you) pulled it out and put it on the side of his plate, well that’s just what I would have done, so I find it difficult to fault him.
I once had the delightful pleasure of sitting down in a University of Waterloo cafeteria opposite a recent immigrant-- who proceeded to spit out gristle onto his plate. I counted two pieces of expurgation before I stood up, grabbed my tray, and walked across the room, screaming “Oh my god that is sick!” over and over.
