Miss Mild Manners Apologises to KH of Hollywood

Dear, dear, dear. The next time Miss Mild Manners takes a lengthy European rail vacation, she will make sure her errant younger sister, Miss Wild Manners, has no way of rifling through her affairs and finding her account logins.

While happily travelling abroad, Miss Mild Manners happened upon a newspaper article claiming that Tom Cruise is rather upset with his wife, Katie Holmes {dear sweet thing}, for taking up smoking again. Truthfully, Miss Mild Manners was shocked to the very core to imagine that winsome, charming young lady risking her good looks and health by succumbing to that most scurrilous of habits. Not that Miss Mild Manners did not once flirt with the devil's weed in a brief experimental phase during her adolescent years, but near discovery in the Young Ladies' Rooms at the local Lacrosse courts during one's youth had visions of Miss Mild Manners' carefully groomed reputation and perpetual position as Teacher's Pet flashing before her terrified eyes and indeed, was the epiphany that caused Miss Mild Manners to turn resolutely onto the path of all that is well-behaved and becoming in a lady.

But we digress.

Upon her recent arrival home and tending to affairs, Miss Mild Manners was mortified to discover that certain correspondence intended for herself had been intercepted in her absence and responded to by naughty Miss Wild Manners. Read on and you will begin to understand the horrifying nature of this transgression. Miss Mild Manners sends her abject apologies to the recipient of this ill-conceived advice {while secretly hoping it works}.


Dear Miss Mild Manners

Please help me. My husband seemed like the catch of the century when I first met him but more and more each day, I'm feeling like he's on the last train to Kooksville and I don't want to meet him at the station. I'm tired of being told what to do. My friend from Cali suggested I contact you. Would you have any advice as to how I can get my life back?

Yours in hope and desperation ~ KH


Dear KH

This is your lucky day! Boring old Mild Manners is dressed in her best gloves and stockings on some moth-eaten Magical Mystery Tour overseas but you really need my help, not her prissy preachings, so it's all good.

The best way out from under Tom's Thumb is to make him want to leave you. This disfunctional way of dealing with relationships has provided many an unhappy spouse with the perfect way to bail out while retaining a huge chunk of community property; all this with the blessings of the spouse who mistakenly thinks he or she has instigated the break up, thanks to overwhelming guilt for being the breaker-upper instead of the breaker-uppee.

The answer to your question is simple.

Start pretending to smoke. He'll think it's a filthy, disgusting habit. You will become tainted and impure in his eyes and no amount of Scientology Sparkles will remove his nicotine-stained judgment of you. Whatever you do, don't really smoke. You don't want to replace one unhealthy addiction with another. Just light up any time you expect him to enter the room, then act as guilty as hell and watch his attraction to you decrease in direct proportion to your perceived cigarette-fumed transgressions. Do not under any circumstances give in. If you should start to weaken, if you should start to falter in your resolve, remember the immortal words of Winston Churchill:

We shall fight on the Longbeaches...

We shall fight in the Chesterfields and in the Bond Streets;

We shall fight in the Dunhills;

We shall never surrender ...


Go get 'em, Tiger!
Miss Wild Manners

16 comments

  1. Miss Wild Manners,

    While I am a tad upset that you intercepted the cry for help from my dear, dear friend I must say I agree with you about making the man want to leave you. I have practiced this strategy most successfully (did I mention I am currently single?)throughout my rather longer than I expected to survive life! Kudos for sound, sane advice. I hope you will be available if I ever have need to call upon your sage wisdom!

    P.S. Shell: you crack me up! Too many lines to quote here, but I had a good, much needed laugh!

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  2. Miss Wild MannersMay 1, 2009 at 4:01 PM

    Yo, from cali ~ I appreciate your forgiveness. After all, your girl was in Dire Straits but we sisters-in-arms have to stick together. You and I should meet up and have a few Gin and Tonics. It sounds like we have a lot in common.

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  3. {Thanks, from cali ~ always happy to lighten someone's day!}

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  4. MWM: would that G&T include some boyz to go? I do like take out. ;)

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  5. I'm sure that can be arranged, from cali! Wear your highest pumps and biggest jewels...

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  6. Miss Mild Manners,

    It is so difficult when one's sister takes over, but, in this case, perhaps it is for the best. I know that is difficult to hear, sibling rivalry being what it is, but this isn't about you, is it? It is about poor KH. That being the case, might I suggest that KH not stop with smoking when there are so many other suspect habits she could acquire. Perhaps going without make up? Perhaps air drying her hair? Perhaps refusing to wear flats any more so that she simply towers over Tom Thumb. Perhaps the real KH might be enough to drive him away. Let's hope so.

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  7. Dear Miss Wild Manners,

    I've known a few people who have taken that train to Kooksville and how I wish I'd offered them cab fare instead of meeting them at the station. I hope your sister goes easy on you since your advice isn't without merit. Besides, you can't be all bad if you're a fellow Dire Straits fan.

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  8. Miss Mild MannersMay 2, 2009 at 10:57 AM

    Dear Margaret

    You sound like a very sensible young lady to me, judging by the far more ladylike suggestions you have offered compared to that of Miss Wild Manners. I take the point of you and other gentlewomen and I have been rather gentle in my chastisement of my younger sibling. After all, we share a common goal.

    Sincerely yours,
    Miss Mild Manners

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  9. Miss Wild MannersMay 2, 2009 at 11:06 AM

    Yo, popculturenerd ~ yeah, sis has been pretty cool about the whole rifling-through-her-undies-drawer incident. I think she's starting to accept that my street smarts learned on the Walk of Life can be used for a higher purpose.

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  10. Funny Shell!

    Bad habits never worked for me. I just attracted creepier men.

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  11. Petrea, clearly you've only had good habits for some time then... like going to stand-up comedy clubs, perhaps? :)

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  12. Are you kidding? I used to work in an improv club. I acquired good habits late in life, after wearing out all of my bad ones.

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  13. I was drawing back on the "devil's weed" while chortling over this Shell. I think you've been taking a peek into my marriage, not just Tom and what's 'er name. Hee, hee!!

    And I can't believe that the word verification is "calita"!!

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  14. My hubby smokes cigars, MmeBenaut. He likes to think that it's a more natural way of smoking ;) . Maybe we should have a morning tea for smoker/non-smoker couples and exchange stories. It would have to be an outdoors morning tea, bien sur! {That's so funny about your WV. I love it when that kind of thing happens! Mind you, I had 'insane' once. Not my most reassuring moment.}

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  15. I love the smell of cigars and that's how I started smoking in the first place. I smoked Wee Willems until my boyfriend complained that it was terribly antisocial of me and I should change to cigs. I think I should have stuck to cigars because the cigs are still with me some thirty five years after the boyfriend left! LOL

    Happy Mother's Day dear Shell.

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  16. MmeBenaut, when hubby and I first met, I was rather taken with the smell of his cigars {and usually love perfumes with tobacco notes}, but they do make me cough. If you love the smell too, maybe it would be enjoyable for you to switch back to them... a change is as good as the proverbial. ;)

    The kitties gave me extra cuddles for Mother's Day, little sweethearts!

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Merci, grazie, thank you for joining our conversation lounge. Your smile lights up the room. Even more beautifully than our crystal chandelier. x

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