Post-it notes

Not everyone knows how to act. You know it. I know it. Emily Post knew it, which is why, beginning in the 1920s, she wrote a series of books dedicated almost solely to the art of etiquette. It was an era in which men occasionally blew their noses into their hands and spit tobacco onto women’s backs, so clearly something had to be done. Rather than write a book on manners, I might have found a few of these unsanitary lugs and given’ em a swift kick in the ribcage, but Post probably would’ve found that behavior uncouth in itself, and made me the subject of a musing on tact. (Chapter 4: Why Would-Be Prince Valiants May Need Anger Management Classes.)

 

Her work lent guidance to legions of uncouth slobs, many of whom chewed with their mouths open because they were no longer sure how to blow their honkers. In the early bits of the 21st Century, we’re in desperate need of another Emily Post, someone who came of age amidst our current technological revolution. With all these new-fangled gadgets dominating modern life, it would be nice to establish some guidelines – such as “Don’t play Candy Crush when someone’s talking to you,” or “Don’t sext someone if you’re wearing Ninja Turtle underwear.”

 

It’s problematic when nobody can agree on what’s rude. With smartphones especially, society is getting by on a patchwork of half-hearted conventions that dictate appropriate behavior. We all sort of agree, for example, that it’s rude to check messages while out to dinner with someone. But in other areas of life, the etiquette is less clear. Can you read texts during a lull in a business meeting? Can you peruse stock quotes while riding a unicycle through an aquarium? The lines get fuzzy.

 

So let’s attempt a little de-fuzzing.

 

To make things easier, let’s start with texting while driving, which in recent years has been placed on a par with operating under the influence in terms of frowned-upon road behavior. If defining etiquette comes down to establishing a “do” and “don’t” list, then texting in the car is a pretty obvious don’t. Every year, the Old Orchard Beach Police Department visits the nearby high school with two golf carts and a bunch of yellow road cones to demonstrate why this special breed of multitasking is Donald Trump-level stupid. One of the carts is designated as the “drunk” cart, in which students wear goggles that make their vision fuzzy; the other is the texting cart. Watching high schoolers try to navigate their way through the cones with a phone in their face is like watching a clumsy cat inching his way along a narrow windowsill. They all think they can do it at first, but it’s only a matter of time before someone looks like an ass.

 

So let it be written, so let it be done: No texting while driving.

 

Other areas aren’t quite as clear-cut – casual social interaction, for one. This has happened to me a few times, and maybe you recognize the scenario: You’re at a social gathering, scooping cheese dip with a handful of Ritz crackers, and your friend Lenny walks up to you and starts gabbing about the time his pants fell down while skiing at a resort in Aspen. He finishes his anecdote, and you launch into a story about the time you saw a chimpanzee buying scratch tickets at a gas station during an acid trip in Pittsburgh. Halfway through your story, Lenny’s eyes start to migrate southward to the phone in his hand. You’re just getting to the good part, where the chimp tries to pay for the tickets with a stolen debit card, and Lenny’s attention span has already died a silent death, hijacked by a phone app that teaches basic vocabulary in Mandarin Chinese. The phone, a metal-and-plastic contraption, has trumped a human being, a flesh-and-blood creature who grows toenails and thinks thoughts.

 

Hello, etiquette police? I’d like to report a transgression.

 

Lenny’s faux pas should be obvious. When confronted with an actual breathing person, it’s simply rude to divide one’s attention between said human and a glowing screen. Organic being always trumps no organic being. And so it shall be decreed: Don’t be an incessant phone-checking dip. With the exception of taking calls from a pregnant wife who’s about to burst, it’s not acceptable behavior, and is punishable by one harsh noogie and two medium-strength purple nurples. I believe there is international precedent for this.

 

My last little bit of advice is designed to benefit those of us who are fond of watching streaming videos online. Increasingly, you see videos that people have uploaded with their cell phones in which the only active part of the picture is a narrow, vertical band running down the center of the frame. It’s like the action is taking place on the other side of the world’s most boringly-shaped keyhole. It’s easy enough to figure out the reason – the people taking these videos are holding their phones at a vertical angle. This is obnoxious. It results in a picture that’s weird and uncomfortable to look at; you don’t go to the theater and see the projection screen turned on its side for the world’s most disorienting showing of “Citizen Kane.” It takes minimal effort to bend one’s wrist – it’s easier, even, than blowing your nose in your hand – and so wannabe Spielbergs would be well-advised to do so. It’s unclear whether that falls under “etiquette,” but it sure would make it easier to stomach all that shaky footage of nephew Zeke’s tapdancing performance at the school talent show. His choreography to “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” by Bananarama is especially impressive. Too bad it feels like we’re watching him through the window of a submarine.

 

These tips (read: gripes) only scratch the surface. Is this the beginning of a Post-like career helping out the behaviorally inept? That depends on how our gadgets – and gadget obsessions – evolve. Note to phone app developers: Whip up a piece of software that warns people when they’re violating these etiquette guidelines, would you? It’d sure save me a lot of work.