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# All Due Respect
- URL: https://www.raincrossgazette.com/all-due-respect/
- Published: 2026-11-07T13:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-07T13:00:00.000Z
- Description: A prompt to encourage your practice of creativity this week from Riversider and local author Larry Burns.
- Author: Larry Burns
- Tags: Culture, Arts, #herald-3abef165-d2ee-81e2-8af4-fcddcbb0e9fc

Welcome back, you generous lenders! [Last week](https://www.raincrossgazette.com/wait-what-now/), we explored what we can make with something that doesn’t belong to us. Did you return that borrowed confidence in less-than-mint condition? Perhaps you began to question the fine print on that credit card offer by turning a form letter into a haiku. Whatever changed hands, I hope you kept something interesting to think about.

This week, our creative nudge is the practice of social niceties, the things we say and do to demonstrate we are “domesticated” or “civilized.” Those little words and gestures help us get along; getting them right can be hit and miss in a busy, distracted interaction. Have you ever held a door for someone too far away? Your act of kindness becomes their obligation to hustle. Now you’re both sorry, which is another important social custom everyone gets lots of chances to practice!

Consider “You shouldn’t have.” Is that gratitude for a thoughtful gift or a subtle nudge to keep the receipt? “No problem” means we’re happy to help, but someone might wonder why helping would have been a problem. These social interactions interest me creatively. Unexpected misreadings and minor conflict can lead us in a pleasant new direction.

Social niceties involve making an environment welcoming for somebody else, too. We want people to feel welcome, supported, or acknowledged. We pay them respect through our words, our actions, even what we wear. That’s a lot of creative material mostly there to make us feel better. And isn’t that a good thing?

Be my guest, give a few of these small nudges a little bit of space in your head for several minutes:

1. **MeMeMeMe:** Say “Excuse me” as a sincere apology, or as a request for help, or a retort to an outlandish accusation. Change up the pitch, pace, and emphasis. Now perform both sides of a disagreement using only those two words.
2. **Made for You:** Pair clothes intended for different occasions: a bathrobe and a tie, gardening gloves and a bike helmet. Invent an event where your combination would make a guest feel appropriately attired. Try it on or sketch it.
3. **Gesture Investor:** Invent a small gesture for a social custom befitting our age. Can you say “let’s just scroll our phones instead of chatting” with your eyebrows? What’s a universal hand gesture for “your Zoom camera is frozen?” Practice it in a mirror. Try it on a patient friend or unsuspecting stranger.
4. **Mixed Messages:** Make a comic strip that illustrates various ways to interpret, “Make yourself at home.” Who’s the butt of the joke, the hapless dupe or the ignorant sap? Use aspects like color and dialog to reveal your punchline.

There’s something encouraging about how much effort we put into making other people comfortable. We dress to impress for occasions we don’t even want to attend. We reread a text to decide whether another exclamation point will make us sound friendlier or increasingly unstable. Even an awkward greeting can contain a fair amount of helpful information about somebody else’s feelings. I find that a pretty good use of our creative abilities, particularly considering how much easier it would be to stay home in whatever I’m already wearing.

That effort gives us something to work with when our intentions and somebody else’s expectations don’t quite line up. We can adjust the delivery, ask a question, or enjoy the discovery that we’ve both been reading from different scripts. The person you’re hoping to put at ease may be equally relieved to discover you’re also wondering what to do with your hands.

*This column was written with help from ChatGPT, whose idea of making someone feel welcome is asking if they’d like the same information in a table.*