Dear Amy: Some longtime friends and I hadn’t seen each other for years and recently got together for a few days to reconnect.

While at a restaurant for lunch, one friend discreetly picked up the tab.

Upon finding out the bill was taken care of, “Alice” vocally refused this kind gesture and asked the waitress, “Can you reverse the payment?”

I quietly said, “Alice, just say thank you. It’s the graceful thing to do.”

Alice got upset and loudly questioned, “Did you just tell me what to do?” – drawing the attention of the rest of our table.

She made a face at me, gave me “the hand,” and turned to the waitress, saying, “Don’t you just hate it when other people tell you what to do?”

The waitress stood there awkwardly. I said nothing, but it rattled me.

Now that we are all back home, I wanted to follow up with Alice and sort this out, but my sister, my husband and another friend who was there have all advised me to just let it be.

Unfortunately, I’m still dwelling on it.

During this awkward moment, did I behave inappropriately?

Perhaps I should have just said nothing and let it play out between Alice, the friend who paid the bill, and the waitress?

How might I better handle this type of situation, should it happen again?

Lost My Lunch

Dear Lost: Given how this episode played out, I assume you wish you’d stayed quiet, and yet you did nothing wrong. You offered a friend your gentle feedback (I agree with you, by the way), and she aggressively and publicly shut you down.

I’m not sure why you would want to contact Alice to sort this out, other than to ask for an apology for her harshness, which you surely would not receive.

Dear Amy: I am 64 and retired. My husband is 62 and has his own home-based business.

He said he was going to retire, but now he’s saying he will work part-time so that we will have extra money “to play.”

We moved to an extremely small town, which has very few entertainment opportunities. It entails over two hours of driving to get all but the most basic of medical care.

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