DEAR MISS MANNERS: While searching for bargains at a local charity thrift shop, an older lady near me suddenly asked me why I was ignoring her.

I'd had no inkling that she had even addressed me. I apologized and asked what she wanted.

She immediately fired back, “It’s because of my skin color. You whites drive me crazy. Your s

* stinks just like the rest of us.”

I was floored. I just mumbled something like “I guess so,” and scampered away. She raised her voice to deliver more racist attacks.

The thing is, I am Latina, just as she was, but I do not necessarily look it.

How should I have reacted? Should I have identified my cultural background? Should I have verbally sparred with her instead of hurrying away to lurk in the glassware area until the all-clear sounded?

GENTLE READER: Insult collecting -- taking offense when none was intended -- seems to have become the national sport.

Tempting as it surely was to point out that this person had failed to notice your mutual heritage, Miss Manners admires you for refusing to play. People spoiling for a fight are not put off by facts, any more than by common decency.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I grocery shop multiple times a week and frequently use the express lane. The policy for this lane is 10 items or fewer. If I’m thinking of using it, I always, and I mean ALWAYS, count my items to make sure I have 10 at most.

I often see people in front of me with an item count above the posted limit. Is it bad manners to be one or two items above the limit? What about four or five above?

I’ve never said anything to the other customers for breaking the policy. Would it be poor manners to do so? Should I complain to the cashier?

GENTLE READER: Please don’t get into an altercation in the grocery line. Miss Manners has had so many reports of that being a staging area for sniping that it’s a wonder people can stock their larders without risk.

The cashier is well aware of the number of items each customer presents and has probably chosen not to make an issue of it. But go ahead and ask that employee, “Isn’t this the express lane?” if you think it will help.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have breakfast once a month with a friend I went to school with. For the most part, our time together is enjoyable.

However, I have noticed that she has a problem with people who are overweight. She will make nasty comments about them as they walk by our booth, sometimes loud enough for them to hear.

I remain silent. This friend was a bully in school and seems not to have grown out of that persona. What is a good comment I can say to her that does not bring me down to bully level?

GENTLE READER: Other than “Sorry, I’m not free for breakfast”?

Well, you could try saying, “Why are you making these people feel bad?”

If the response is anything like, “It’s for their own good,” Miss Manners resubmits her first suggestion.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I belong to a club that has an indoor and outdoor pool, so I enjoy swimming year-round. An older gentleman also swims there, always at the same time I do. Because of work and other responsibilities, I am limited to swimming at that time of day.

This gentleman either has some sort of medical issue or is taking a medication that makes him cough -- loudly and constantly. His laps are punctuated at each end of the pool by relentless, loud, dry coughing. It’s not the kind that doubles him over or stops him from swimming; it’s a regular, rapid, rhythmic, dry, barking cough that goes on for about 10 seconds, every minute or so, for about 45 minutes. It is incredibly annoying!

Is there any polite way to approach him and ask if he’s been seen by a doctor for this? I know my motives are pure.

GENTLE READER: Tell your second paragraph that.

Miss Manners understands that both the irritation and your concern for this gentleman can coexist. She recommends, however, that you hide the former better, by simply asking if he is all right. That he should do something about it has likely been considered -- and your saying so might betray the annoyance that you are trying so hard to conceal.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Last Sunday, a woman I’ve known for many years but haven’t seen for quite a while came to church. I waved her over to sit with me, thinking it was good to see her, and welcomed her warmly.

After the service, we talked for about 20 minutes, during most of which she told me her woes of divorce and her 30-year-old son who won’t get a job and move out. (He does deal with depression, anxiety and ADHD ... but the apple doesn’t fall far from the “it’s always something” tree.)

I do feel for her, and for her son, but her oversharing and her resistance to any of my attempts to ask questions that might lead to positive steps were so frustrating. As she went on and on, I just felt dumped-on.

I’m writing because her parting words were, “Let’s get together for lunch. Call me.”

First, isn’t it rude to order someone else to call you? Second, our interaction reminded me that she has always been a complainer who talks way more than she listens. I have no interest in going to lunch with her for a second helping of the stuff she always serves up.

May I just ignore her demand? If, to be polite, I have to do lunch, can I simply arrange to meet her for a meal after a church event? At least that way, I feel it doesn’t take up so much time. I dread it already.

GENTLE READER: The advantage to someone’s putting the burden of calling on you is that you do not have to accept the challenge. Miss Manners grants you license to ignore her demand.

If, however, your woeful friend follows up and you get cornered -- and claims of a harried schedule do not work -- an after-church meal is acceptable. Maybe you will get lucky that day and the Scripture will include the passage about being “quick to listen and slow to speak.”

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I need an objective opinion about a disagreement my boyfriend and I are having. For Christmas, he sent each of my kids (ages 14 and 11) a book as a gift. When we received them in the mail, I thanked him and praised him for his thoughtfulness.

Then, out of the blue, when he was visiting our home, he pulled me aside and said the kids needed to thank him for the books. Something bothered me about being put on the spot like that, but I knew it was true that they should thank him. So when he stepped out, I instructed my kids to tell him “thank you.”

Upon his return, my son obliged, but my daughter had gotten preoccupied with another activity and forgot.

A few days later, when we were on the phone, he said, “Your daughter still hasn’t thanked me,” which I found to be kind of obnoxious at that point, although I held my tongue.

He went on to say he was appalled at her rudeness and would no longer be giving her gifts, to which I replied, “Fine -- if you’re going to be this way about it, please don’t.” He is now not speaking to me.

Was I in the wrong here?

GENTLE READER: Yes. And your daughter was, too.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Like almost everyone in my boxing workout class, I’m a senior. One day, for the first time, the talented, friendly, very positive coach wore a body camera. When asked why, he said he was videoing himself.

Everyone threw their punches, he removed the bodycam, and class continued as usual. After class I mentioned to a classmate that I hoped he wasn’t filming us. She replied, "No, he would have to ask our permission first."

Asking him about it later over email, he admitted he was filming the class as we went through our routine of throwing punches at him. When asked, he said he deleted images of me.

What was done violated the trust that everyone had with the coach -- who is the director of a personalized fitness program and the director of an entire athletic facility in a small, caring community.

Should the coach tell the class members he filmed them and give them the opportunity to have the footage deleted? What, if anything, can be done to rebuild and maintain the trust that once was there?

What does it say about a professional athletics director who videos his class, telling them he’s only recording himself?

GENTLE READER: In these days of constant and ubiquitous media documentation, few of the perpetrators seem to feel any shame. Rather it is a shock that anyone would not want to live their lives on camera.

Therefore, Miss Manners is afraid you must resort to threats. Tell the coach that the class, like you, deserves the opportunity to know the truth -- and to have their images deleted from the video. If he will not confess, then he must promise to delete it all in front of you -- and absolutely from any social media accounts -- or you will tattle.

Yes, this is an ultimatum, but maybe it will teach him to think further before deceiving his classes -- and risking his livelihood and reputation.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)