Missed Manners

She's teaching six sixth- and seventh-graders how to do proper introductions. You say the girl's name first, and you never introduce a younger person to an older person without saying the older person's name first. Unless you're introducing someone to a VIP, who always goes first.

"What's a VIP?" Horne asks a kid named Christopher, who is wearing a red basketball uniform. He stares blankly at her. She suggests the president. Isn't George W. Bush a VIP? Christopher continues to stare. "What's your favorite basketball star?" she asks. Immediately, he pops in with "Steve Nash!" Today, at the Boys and Girls Club of McKinney, Steve Nash is a VIP and Dubya is some dude.

When we get to the interesting-fact portion of the introduction lesson, in which the host shares cute tidbits about the introductees while they shake hands, I start taking better notes. This is good stuff to know. Most of the introductions I make happen something like this:

Me: "Lauren, this is Brian."

Lauren: "I am so drunk."

Me: "Sweet. Let's do shots."

Now, thanks to Marsha Horne, I can do better.

Me: "Lauren, this is Brian. Brian, this is Lauren."

Lauren: "I am so drunk."

Me: "Brian, Lauren likes to get hammered. So do you. That's something you have in common! Let's talk about it while we polish off this bottle of tequila."

That's manners, people. And I intend to continue to share these nuggets of information with my peers, who are, like me, simply larger versions of the judgmental munchkins people continue to insist upon bringing into this world. After all, someday we're all going to be crammed in an outer space colony together, and I'll be damned if I won't know how to shake a Japanese businessman's hand and eat a salad without offending our Martian hosts.