Road Apples by Tim Sanders
June 27, 2011
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Mr. Mannerly Man answers charges My secretary here at the Mannerly Man Institute received the following letter addressed to me: Dear Mr. Mannerly Man, if that actually is your name, Since your advice column is always printed under the ‘Road Apples’ heading, which denotes drivel written by alleged journalist Tim Sanders, I strongly suspect that you, Mr. Mannerly Man, are only a figment of that idiot’s imagination. Perhaps an alter ego. I do know that while I’ve seen photos of Mr. Sanders, and of other contributors to The Post, I’ve never seen a photo of you. I’d like to see one. To be precise, I’d like to see one of you and Sanders together. My guess would be, however, that a photo of you and Sanders together would be as likely as a photo of Clark Kent and Superman, or of Congressman Barney Frank and Elmer Fudd, together. And furthermore, I’ve driven through Gaylesville many times over the past few months, and never seen a speck of evidence that the Mannerly Man Institute even exists. I believe you are a fraud! How do you answer these charges? Denton Tweed, BS, MA, PhD, DDT, ETC. Vice Chairman, Etiquette Fraud Investigative Unit Montgomery Etiquette Advisory Board My response, Mr. Tweed, (if that actually is YOUR name) is that you are barking up a horse of a different color so to speak, per se, as it were. First, my name certainly is ‘Mannerly.’ Actually the full name is Minton Monroe Mannerly Jr., named after my father, who was a senior Mannerly, of the Madison County Mannerlys. No, I have not submitted a photo to the editor of The Post, but only out of modesty. To assume that I bear any resemblance to Mr. Sanders is insulting. He is a short, weird looking gentleman with a very round head and mismatched socks, while I am tall, slender, impeccably groomed and quite handsome, if I do say so myself. I would never agree to posing with Sanders for a photo, but only because the contrast between the two of us would make him despondent. Suicidal, perhaps. And that is not what we at the Mannerly Man Institute are all about. We accentuate the positive, and we always eliminate the negative, which in this case would include another photo of poor Mr. Sanders. As to your inability to locate the Gaylesville Campus, that is probably due to our new camouflage paint which covers the Administration Building and the Library, and blends in perfectly with the surrounding honeysuckle thickets, wisteria vines, and cattle crossing signs. So, as you continue your investigation of our fine facility, we will continue to answer those critical etiquette questions which must be addressed if we are to distinguish ourselves from the surrounding livestock. Q: Speaking of Sanders, in his last column he mentioned the World Naked Bike Ride held on June 11, so I went onto the Internet and I seen a photo of two old geezers standing buck naked beside of their bicycles in front of a Starbucks sipping mocha bell grande or whatever they call their eight dollar cups of coffee. So my question is why do old naked guys think they have to raise their little pinkies when they drink coffee? A: We do not know anything about naked octogenarians and their little pinkies. Next question. Q: My neighbor Ronald he won’t never let a man get a word in edgewise and when you try to get away from him because you got an important call coming in or there’s something in the microwave he’ll just go on like he didn’t hear you. Yesterday I told him I weren’t sure but I think I heard Meemaw calling for more toilet paper but it didn’t faze him a bit because he only launched into a long story about how he read somewhere that they make toilet paper out of recycled dryer lint and old cereal boxes and once at the toilet paper plant in Utah a terrorist put fifty pounds of double ought steel wool into the vat and there was over a thousand cases of hospitalizations due to people who darned near sanded theirselves to death and they was getting up a class action suit and I ought to watch out and when I started to back away he grabbed ahold of my arm and wouldn’t turn loose until he told another completely different story about one legged geese. Even if I had wanted to, which I didn’t, I couldn’t of told him about how once a man I knowed who worked for Coca Cola cleaned out a vat and found a big, hairy fourteen pound– A: Is this leading to a question which in any possible way might involve etiquette? Q: How did I start off? A: You were telling me about the neighbor who wouldn’t let you get a word in edgewise. Q: Oh yeah, I remember now. My question is how do I get away from him without letting him follow me into the house which he sometimes does? A: Ask him if he’d like to come in and hand the toilet paper to Meemaw while you make a phone call. Q: In a June 23 edition of the Chattanooga Times Free Press I read that the body of 76-year-old Kenneth Ray Manis will be exhumed in order to retrieve the dentures buried with him “after his family learned the dentures belonged to an intensive care patient who shared the same [Parkridge Medical Center] hospital room. The article states that “the hospital has apologized and will be paying for new dentures ...” A: Mr. Mannerly Man is waiting for an etiquette question (and not something stupid like “Who gets the new dentures?” or “Is there something in the Chattanooga water system that affects brain function?” Q: Okay then. Is it bad manners to remove your grandfather’s dentures which tend to clack a lot while he’s snoring in the recliner? A: Not bad manners, necessarily, but bad luck if he chomps down on your finger during the extraction. Feel free to send in your etiquette questions, or to stop by the campus, if you can find it. |