SPITTING IN PUBLIC

Dear Etiquette Bitch: My boyfriend has this disgusting habit. He’s always spitting on the sidewalk when we leave a theater or restaurant. Sometimes, while we’re waiting at a stop light, he even opens the car door to spit on the road. He swears that men have to spit the stuff that builds up in their mouths, but I think he just thinks it makes him look cool. How can I make him stop?

--Tired of Spit on My Shoe in Salt Lake City

Answer: Dear Tired, I think the more pressing question here is how we get you to stop dating and undoubtedly kissing a man who has something in his mouth that is so repulsive he can’t bring himself to swallow it. Be assured there are healthy, cultured men in this world who have nothing more alien in their mouths and throats than saliva. There is no need for you to continue to associate yourself with someone who thinks it is “cool” to expel revolting bodily fluids near your feet. Leave him. Leave him now.

DISPOSING OF EAR WAX

Dear Etiquette Bitch: I need your help. Sometimes when I'm in a business meeting, I get bored and without thinking find myself digging in my ears. What should I do with the wax I pull out of them? Normally, I just roll the wax into a ball and flick it under the table or wipe it on the chair seat.

--Flicker in Bozeman, MT

Answer: Dear Flicker, I hesitate to think about how you amuse yourself when you run out of ear wax to play with. Let me be clear here. Since you've indicated that you don't suffer from a medical malady that causes wax to leap unbidden from your ears, there should never be a need for you to dispose of your ear waste in a public place. You are welcome to coat the interior of the barn you live in with anything you can pull out of your body, but when you're outside the privacy of your abode you must refrain from using finger tips, toothpicks, keys, or Q-Tips to explore your body's orifices or the contents of what you find in them. There are no exceptions to these rules.

TOUCHING OTHER PEOPLE'S FOOD

Dear Etiquette Bitch: Every morning, my company leaves large bowls of chips and crackers out for the employees to snack on throughout the day. A few of my co-workers use their hands to scoop out the tortillas and chips. How do I tell that it’s a bad habit to handle other people’s food and to use one of the utensils instead?

--Germ-o-Phobe in Portland, OR

Answer: Dear Germ, Child, you are working with savages. I don’t know what concerns me more: that you’d ever have to tell anyone not to handle communal food or that your company leaves unattended food out for its employees to graze upon. Apparently you’re working for and along side imbeciles who for whatever reason wish for you to be struck down by intestinal maladies that I cannot even bring myself to discuss. Considering how few individuals wash their hands after using the lavatory, you are in essence eating chips that others are using as a bathroom trowel. My advice is simple. Every time you see someone handling the food, raise your voice and say sternly, "You there! Keep your feces-covered fingers out of the snacks!" In a very short time, you'll see a change in the miscreants' behavior.

CELL PHONES IN THE RESTROOM

Dear Etiquette Bitch: This is kind of a delicate subject, but lately more and more of the women in my department are using the restroom to make cell phone calls to friends. It makes it difficult for me to use the restroom for the purpose it was intended. How do I discourage this behavior?

--Bound Up in New York

Answer: Dear Bound, do what comes naturally. They'll get the message.

SNEAKING PHOTOS OF YOUR CUTIE

Dear Etiquette Bitch: After what seemed to me to be a great first date with the woman of my dreams, I can't get her to respond to my text messages, e-mail, or phone messages. All I have left of her is the phone photo I got of her while we were waiting for dessert to be served. If I can't get her to talk to me, how can I find out what I did wrong?

--Desperate in Wichita.

Answer: Dear Desperate, what were you thinking? Never...I repeat...never use your camera to "playfully" take a photo of your date on a first, second, or even third date. Sneaking a photo of someone you barely know smacks of trophy hunting, and is as creepy as asking a total stranger for a DNA swab. My advice to you is to erase the photo from your phone, stop texting, calling, and e-mailing the poor woman, and take down all the photos of her you've already taped to the wall above your bed. Consider yourself dumped and deservedly so.

SHOES UNWELCOME

Dear Etiquette Bitch: Lately, when greeted at the door of a friend's home, I'm always asked to take off my shoes to protect their carpets or hardwood floors. Last week, my mother-in-law posted a sign on her door that says her home has a no shoes policy. What's with this? My friends and family don't live in the tropics, and I'm getting tired of frozen feet.

--Numb to My Knees in San Francisco

Answer: Dear Numb, rich people can afford to replace their floors as normal wear and tear take their toll, so they don't need to worry more about their floors than they do the comfort of their guests. The faux-wealthy, on the other hand, place plastic covers on their furniture or ask you to run around their homes on bare and frozen feet. To combat such disgraceful lack of manners on the part of your hosts, I'd suggest the following: the next time you're asked to remove your shoes, comply with your hosts' wishes, and then walk about their home mentioning the new drug-resistant fungal infection you heard about on the evening news. Explain that folks are picking this toe-nail eating infection by going barefoot on their friends' hardwood floors and white wall-to-wall carpeting. Add that the CDC is recommending that hostesses use bacterial cleaner on their floors and rugs, and provide guests with disposable rubber flip-flops to avoid catching the oily, scale-producing disease.

FOOD FUSS

Dear Etiquette Bitch: I'm dreading visiting my future in-laws. They're vegetable lovers, and I know I won't recognize anything I eat the entire week my fiance and I stay with them. How do I politely tell them in advance that I turn green at the sight of green things on my plate?

--Nauseous in Dallas.

Answer: Dear Nauseating, it's been my experience that food-fussy people (e.g., steak-and-potatoes people, folks who don't like their foods to "touch," or individuals who send their plates back to the kitchen when the chef forgets and leaves the lettuce on their sandwich) should wear warning signs on their chests that say "I'm a pain in the ass." By all means, don't go to any trouble to hide your adolescent food aversions from your future parents-in-law. Be bold about calling them and outlining your every food requirement. Never give a thought to the fact that you'll be exposing yourself as an arrested food freak. After all, they can do nothing to stop your marriage to their son. At most, they can write him out of their will or refuse to allow him to give you his grandmother's diamond wedding ring. At the very least, they can buy you steaks taken from downer-cows and lace your mashed potatoes with laxatives.

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