DEAR MISS MANNERS: When I was in my early 20s, I was returning from a trip to Europe with a friend and we stopped off to stay with her aunt and uncle for a few days. Shortly after we arrived, we were sitting around having what seemed to be a pleasant enough conversation, when suddenly her uncle said to me, “You’re a nice middle-class girl.”

I was stunned into silence, basically. I had no idea what to do or say, or why he had said that to me, but I was definitely feeling plenty on the inside.

Decades later, to this day, this memory regularly surfaces with its accompanying feelings of helplessness and anger, and I always wonder how Miss Manners would have reacted (or not) in my place.

GENTLE READER: “Why, thank you. You are definitely not.”

Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, [email protected]; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.