When slighted or patronized, I flare up in fury and attack, right then, right there. I have no guilt about that. But then so often it turns out to have been a misunderstanding—the disrespect was not intended, or was mere clumsiness perceived as a slight. And even if it was intended, so what? As my great-aunt Betsy said of a woman who snubbed her, “I pity her poor taste.”
