Monday, November 27, 2000

No “Sir”

For just a few days around each of my recent birthdays, I'm just a bit touchy about the aging process. I'm not ordinarily at all hung up on my age, nor do I think myself particularly old or even mature. However, I still get itchy around birthdays. It is in this spirit, therefore, that I make the following request of all waiters, shop clerks, doormen, taxi drivers, interns, bartenders and other fetching young men whose path I may cross in the two weeks or so to come:

"I know you are simply attempting to do your job and conduct yourself professionally and with due deference to our respective status as customer and servant. But...please do not call me "Sir" unless and until we are engaged in an act of sexual congress and I have specifically asked you to do so. Thank you."