Genuine Class

Alec Guinness, whose name is an anagram for the headline above it.

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When oneself is feeling a little”down in the dumps,” or as oneself might say to oneself, “depressed,” it might sometimes behoove oneself to get all classy and everything. One of the classiest and behooviest pieces of advice out there is contained in a corporate communique, forwarded to my personal self by Dave Barry, who, upon reading it, apparently damn near pissed his pants, which is a classy saying you might write down for later use.

Here is the advice, from a writer named Ashley Broadwater, on a site called “Yahoo! Life,” an apparent subsidiary of Parade Magazine, under the title: “Seven Phrases that Instantly Make You Sound Classy, According to Etiquette Experts.”

Ready to class up the joint? Here we go.

All the advice is wonderful, but the wonderfullest is Number Seven, attributed to Jo Hayes, identified as “a CEO, etiquette expert of 13 years and speech-language pathologist who completed her master’s thesis on manners and modern etiquette”:

When speaking in generalities, many of us are quick to use a pronoun like “I,” “you” or “they.” That’s okay! If you want to sound classier, though, Hayes recommends swapping that out for “one” or “oneself.”  Examples: “One establishes a good first impression when one speaks in a refined, but humble, manner” and “One does well to remember to always say thank you.”

One also does well to remember the value of vomit.

In short, welcome to the Weekend Gene Pool, in which we attempt to entertain you in return for your personal anecdotes, on a subject of our choosing. Today’s subject: What is the worst advice you have ever received, or given, to another person?

Number Seven is kind of in a class of one’s own, but I could add another. The worst advice I ever received was received by oneself, by one. By me, in particular, advising meself. Myself. Yours truly.

This is what I wrote back then. It was literally true:

A long time ago, I learned something important about myself; I learned that money management is not my strong suit. It is, in fact, a particularly weak and pathetic suit, a clown suit with duck feet and one of those bleating Harpo Marx horns. I am, for example, a financial benefactor of the Washington Post because I never get around to submitting expense forms for reimbursement. Also, every single parking ticket I get doubles in penalty because I wait too long to pay it. Sometimes, it triples.

Because I know this about myself, I long ago surrendered to my wife complete control of my financial affairs, much the way the courts protect the feeble-minded. Now, I am permitted to carry only one check at a time. I am like Barney Fife, the incompetent sheriff's deputy from the old "Andy Griffith Show," who was allowed to carry only one bullet, so as to minimize potential damage to life and limb.

During the last week of August, I awoke one day with a thought. This thought arose in the single financial brain cell I have, and it somehow struggled its way past the New York Yankees lobe, through the voluminous dirty-joke archive, past a few hundred thousand flapping red flags, and popped out, fully formed. It said: Bad days lie ahead.

Feeling heroically prescient, like John D. Rockefeller, who famously saw that his shoeshine boy was dispensing stock tips and decided to pull all his money out of Wall Street just before the 1929 crash -- I, too, decided it was time to get out. Just like that.

And so I did. Bypassing my wife entirely -- greatness requires daring -- I called up Joe, my finance guy, and gave the order. Joe is paid to do what he is told, but he did point out that, in terms of the potential for moneymaking, taking everything out of the market is essentially like putting everything in a coffee can and burying it in the back yard -- which, as it happens, is something that a nutty relative of mine once did. Most of it was eaten by gophers.

This knowledge might have stopped a man with two financial brain cells. But, as I said, I have just the one. So I did it.

Yesterday, Joe telephoned my wife -- for some reason, he bypassed me entirely -- to recommend that I undo my order. I wish she hadn't asked why, but she did.

"Because," Joe said, "we've just had the best September for the stock market in 71 years."

My wife didn't ask how much money -- real money -- this had cost me. She just relayed Joe's advice.

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So, Joe’s advice wasn’t bad. It was my advice to Joe, and to myself, that blew chunks.

So, send your stuff into here, and I will discuss it on Tuesday:

And finally, today’s Gene Pool Gene Poll: