Miss Manners: Decades Later, I’m Haunted By This Comment About My ‘middle-class’ Life

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.