I can be a total freak when it comes to dining etiquette. What fork to use, where to sit [women are supposed to face the room, thanks], where the napkin goes when you have to go powder your nose… I prefer to know it all. I prefer it when dining companions are in tune with all the rules of etiquette, too.
Which makes me a miserable snob to eat with. And makes dining out incredibly stressful endeavors for yours truly.
But there’s comfort in rules. Sure, that leaves a lot of room for totally fucking things up, but there’s a right way to do things. A little research and practice can make anyone dining-companion worthy, and might even go so far as to impress people. As long as, you know, you don’t fuck up.
Yet, despite my love of rules [The Internal Revenue Code? Check! The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure? Double check!], I somehow spend time in places where etiquette gets thrown out the door and rules, other than those of common sense and civility, just don’t exist. Watching a friend juggle three customers in a bike shop, I mentioned how deftly she could switch hats, despite the slight awkwardness that invariably emanates from bike shop newbies.
“Aren’t they adorable? But I don’t think I’ve ever gone into a shop like any normal person. Or maybe there is no such etiquette,” she said.
And if you think about it, she’s totally right. I’ve done the awkward bike newbie thing, the slightly less awkward bike hypochondriac thing, and the awkward-only-to-shop-employees-who-want-to-kick-me-out-because-they’re-too-busy-to-deal-with-me thing, too. All those forms and permutations of bike shop patronage/hanging out are actually acceptable, though, which would throw those looking for a particular etiquette into a confusing loop. There just aren’t clear lines drawn between what is acceptable and what isn’t.
That blatant lack of established etiquette is probably the reason otherwise normal customers sometimes manage to drop civility at the door, as well. The sheer imprudence of pissing off your local bike shop, or [possibly worse] your local bike shop’s mechanic, aside, the black hole of rules of patronage that permeates bike shops doesn’t mean you get to be an asshole. It only means that you need to be a little more comfortable operating in a void, while retaining politeness.
For me, that also means getting fully comfortable with my discomfort at not having a handbook of rules to go by. It’s still unnerving, to be honest. So unnerving, in fact, that I came up with a strategy and plan of attack when I first stepped into NYC Velo [a shop at which I have, since then, established my own personal spot on their couch]. Needless to say, that plan disintegrated as soon as I opened the door.
I managed, though, to linger for a little less than an hour on that first visit. It was absurdly fun, too. More fun, in fact, than sitting down in a Michelin-starred restaurant, etiquette rules and all.
