We learn many useful things in school such as how to add fractions, the names of the state capitals, and when to use a semi-colon. Yet, there are many things we really need to know in order to avoid abject humiliation if nothing else. When do you clap during a concert? What do you do with the cork at a restaurant? A student told me that he had taken his best girl to a swanky restaurant and had ordered wine. When the waiter brought him the cork he did not know what to do, so he licked it off.

I have my own restaurant faux pas to share with you today. I was working as a bookkeeper at the University of Michigan. The chairman had interviewed a prospective faculty member one morning and at lunch time invited the accounting staff out to lunch. I never turn down a free lunch.

Well, we went to this Japanese restaurant a few blocks away. You know you are in trouble when there is a large aquarium and that is the menu. First, though, we all had to take off our shoes and place them by the door. Did your mother ever fuss with you about not wearing socks with holes in them because, "What if you are in an accident?" Add to that, "What if you go to a Japanese place?" We all sat around this short table. At 5'10" I was the shortest one in the group.

Now I knew nothing about Japanese cuisine. But, having some couth I just waited and ordered the same thing as the boss. I didn't know what sushi was. I remember thinking, "Dr. Sands, this fish ain't even cooked." Then there was the problem of chop sticks. Nothing else. How do you eat with these things? Stab it? Oh yes, I also, unwittingly, had ordered warm rice wine. It may be rice wine to you, but it was saki to me. After three of those I felt pretty warm for winter in Michigan. It is a good thing I was not doing payroll that day.

Although I had survived the day, I started having recurring nightmares. I would have a job interview somewhere and at lunch time we would go out to a Japanese restaurant and I would make an abject fool out of myself and not get the job. We went back and I learned that anything marked "tempura" is cooked. Coca-cola is a universal beverage. And I learned how to hold chopsticks.

A wise man once said, "Dig your well before you are thirsty."

Practice these things before you need to know them. Go to concerts and learn when to applaud. Eat out and learn which silverware to use, just sniff the cork and hand it back, and come to terms with chopsticks.

The humiliation you save may be your own.