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Dear Miss Manners

September 14, 2005 at 11:12 am · Filed under Uncategorized

This morning while riding the bus to work, I noticed a young lady drop something from her purse while she was getting up to leave. I was about to stop her when I noticed, in quick succession: (a) that several other people nearby were also about to catch her attention, (b) that we all saw that she had dropped a brightly-colored [vivid blue] “exotic” condom in a sleeve, (c) that we all independently neglected to say anything at all.

What should we have done? Over the course of the fifteen-minute ride, at least seven other people walked past the condom on the floor, noticed it, and left it there.

Signed,
Somewhere between a “Wise Crowd” and a “Smart Mob”

yami said,

September 14, 2005 @ 1:12 pm

The proper thing to do, I believe, is to feign ignorance of the item’s nature and discreetly return it. Exotic condoms ain’t cheap, after all, and really not the sort of thing you want to reach for and not find.

But perhaps it would be best to have an old lady do the returning, with a wink.

Barbara said,

September 14, 2005 @ 10:15 pm

Maybe it was a grand psychology experiment?

verbalchameleon said,

September 16, 2005 @ 1:44 am

Great story!!! I think you _should_ ask Miss Manners. Or maybe Dan Savage (of the “Savage Love” column) would be more appropriate: http://www.citypages.com/authors/summary.asp?PPDID=1107

Branko Collin said,

September 16, 2005 @ 9:13 am

“The proper thing to do, I believe, is to feign ignorance of the item’s nature and discreetly return it.”

I watch way too much farcical comedy (currently: lots of ‘Allo ‘Allo) to stop my brain’s eye from seeing this unfold as it did.

Branko’s Weblog » Blog Archive » How to return a condom said,

September 16, 2005 @ 9:16 am

[...] What do you do when you see something accidentally drop from a young woman’s purse, and you want to alert her to that fact, except right then you notice that the thing is an exotic condom, Bill Tozier wonders. [...]

Branko's Weblog said,

September 16, 2005 @ 9:16 am

How to return a condom

What do you do when you see something accidentally drop from a young woman’s purse, and you want to alert her to that fact, except right then you notice that the thing is an exotic condom, Bill Tozier wonders.
…

Bolusz said,

October 5, 2005 @ 3:25 pm

Pick it up and return it, saying “We’ll be like so needing this later, won’t we?”

or

“Oh, I love these! You know, you might want to try their Maxi-Ribbed Pouilly-Fuisse Lubricated Nonmetallics with Wings. I like to wear those inside-out!”

Who knows? You might make a friend. :)

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