Proper manners apply to bodily noises, gases

My mother taught me never to belch in pub­lic. Ladies must observe proper man­ners to reveal their refinement.

My child­hood fam­ily was rich in love and grace but poor by worldly stan­dards. My par­ents, brother and I lived in a first floor three room apart­ment with access to the base­ment and later, a remod­eled attic which became bed­rooms for the kids. Grandma lived on the sec­ond floor of the house.

Mom saved pen­nies, col­lected S&H green stamps and did sewing for the neigh­bors. Dad worked as a rough car­pen­ter, build­ing out­side forms and struc­tures. On week­ends he did remod­el­ing jobs for extra cash.

Recently I retold the story that when I was a young girl my mother would weekly save enough money for bus fare and a hot­dog. We would go down­town to the city on Sat­ur­days. This is equiv­a­lent to dri­ving to the mall today. We had no credit cards, only the change in her purse.

While down­town, we would go into book stores and nov­elty shops. Look­ing at every­thing but buy­ing lit­tle. Mom’s favorite thing to do was to go to the 5th floor of the depart­ment store with me.

She would tell me to stand up straight and not to unbut­ton my coat reveal­ing my hand-me-down dress. A woman in a black dress and heels would ask if she could help us. Mother would reply that we were just look­ing. We would eye and feel every for­mal dress on the padded hang­ers. The mate­r­ial would swish and rus­tle. The price tags were prohibitive.

A few times Mom would ask the sales­woman if she could try on one of those fancy frocks. In the dress­ing room she would trans­form into Cin­derella right before my eyes. She would twirl and sashay her hips to the music in her mind. With a far­away look in her eyes and a wink I knew that she was dream­ing of danc­ing with my father.

Bring­ing back those mem­o­ries mists my eyes. Once I broke her reverie by remind­ing her that she couldn’t afford a gown of aqua­ma­rine tulle and lace. I asked her why she tried it on. She responded that no one knows how much money she had in her purse; but if she were rich in man­ners, it didn’t mat­ter. She liked to dream of mov­ing to the music with her love.

One of Mother’s biggest pet peeves was belch­ing and pass­ing gas in pub­lic. Stand­ing up straight and walk­ing tall also was high on her deport­ment list. Table man­ners and proper gram­mar spoke vol­umes in her book.

Belch­ing is caused by swal­low­ing air from eat­ing or drink­ing too fast. Car­bon­ated bev­er­ages and chew­ing gum can also add unwanted air to the GI sys­tem. If a burp acci­den­tally escapes, a polite apol­ogy is necessary.

Flat­u­lence is gas cre­ated through bac­te­r­ial action in the bowel. It is nor­mal to have 10 to 20 pas­sages of gas daily, most are odor­less with­out sound. Obvi­ous gas is not to be held in but reserved for pri­vate places.

My mother taught me never to belch or pass gas in pub­lic. Ladies must observe the proper man­ners to reveal their refinement.

Bob­bie Ran­dall is a cer­ti­fied dia­betes edu­ca­tor and a reg­is­tered, licensed dietit­ian. She super­vises a dia­betes self-management train­ing pro­gram at Aultman-Orrville Hos­pi­tal. Con­tact her at bobbie.randall@aultmanorrville.org or 330–684-4776.

Posted by Bobbie Randall on Mar 15 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.