As I sat on the subway today trying to figure out the Ken Ken puzzle (“The puzzle that makes you smarter!”) on the back of A.M. New York, I worried about a discussion I had with some friends about elevator etiquette. This discussion the previous night turned into a heated debate, one friend insisting on how long you hold the doors open, another on how many floors is socially acceptable to use the elevator and so on. An environmental argument was eventually added. Somebody finally suggested to look it up, a suggestion I scoffed at (like when someone google maps on their iphone after I give them the correct directions from my non-html brain). To my great chagrin there actually are etiquette ebooks on elevators (and I didn’t just write that for the alliteration).

In fact, there are etiquette books and online material on everything. A few subjects include: etiquette for men, women, girls, boys, Christian wives, golf, dogs, cats, bikers, graduation speeches, wedding cancellations, Serbians, name tags, “etiquette for emails in 2009,” outlaws and so on. I was seized with a sudden fear that my etiquette was grossly misinformed. I’m 20 years old and my etiquette is simultaneously naive and outdated!

-Nikki-Lee