THE UNKINDEST CUT

I get many questions from readers that fall more into the category of etiquette than into ethics.

Lynn LaBranche of Ontario, Canada, for example, wants to know if you should base a tip on the cost of a meal before taxes or including taxes. Traditionally it's calculated before taxes -- but that's a question that's more about etiquette than about my column's world of navigating between right and wrong.

Sometimes, however, the two overlap.

When C.C. of Montpelier, Vt., wrote to me about her experience waiting in line at a grocery store, at first I dismissed it as falling outside my purview. Upon further thought, however, I decided that the incident raises issues that get at how we deal fairly with others, regardless of who they are. How we choose to behave when we're together has "ethics" written all over it.

C.C., a woman in her 50s, was waiting in the express line at her grocery store behind two men about her age. Behind C.C. was an elderly woman.

"Along comes a pretty young girl with a loaf of bread," writes C.C. "Immediately the first man in line offers to let her go ahead of him."

This upset C.C., because there were three other people behind "Mr. Chivalrous," as C.C. calls him.

"Before showing his gallantry," she writes, "he should have asked us if it was OK."

It also bothered C.C. because the elderly woman behind her was also buying only one item, and nobody had offered to let her go ahead.

"Was I wrong," she asks, "to think that he should have checked with the rest of the line first?"

No. If Mr. Chivalrous had been sitting on a bus and wanted to give up his seat to someone who had come on after him, that might have been acceptable. I'd like to think that he would give it up to someone who needed it more than he did, but that's his choice.

Bus riders don't generally queue up waiting for the next available seat, however. Supermarket shoppers do wait for the next available cashier.

Mr. Chivalrous did not have the right to allow someone, no matter how young or pretty, to cut in front of him, unless he was the only one in line. C.C. is absolutely correct that the right thing for him to have done was to check with the others in line to see if they minded. For her part, Ms. Pretty Young Thing should have had the good sense simply to move to the end of the four-person line in the first place.

But in suggesting that it would have been fairer if Mr. Chivalrous had also yielded to the elderly woman who also had only one item to buy, C.C. goes off the rails. The issue is not whom Mr. Chivalrous allows to cut in or how young, old, attractive or unattractive they may be, but rather that he is giving away not only his own time but also that of the people in line behind him.

That's where ethics comes into play. Because he can't give away something that isn't his, Mr. Chivalrous should check with those in line before letting anyone cut in. The age of the person doesn't matter -- Mr. Chivalrous still has a responsibility to be fair to his fellow customers.

When I first read C.C.'s e-mail, it struck me that everyone knows the right choices to make in forming queues. But, judging by similar reader e-mails and my own experience, I'm not so sure.

So here's my advice: Be fair and considerate. And shop nice.