And just what do you want the restaurant manager to do?

• Joye
• The dreaded request: “May we talk to the manager, please?”

Robin Abrahams, who writes the “Miss Conduct” column for The Boston Globe, had an interesting dilemma to solve recently. In her September 16 column, she took on the following letter:

My husband and I recently ate at a well-known restaurant in Waltham. I brought my leftovers home and found a dead fly in the food. When I called the restaurant, the manager casually replied, “Sorry, these things happen.” After spending considerable money at the restaurant, I would think the manager would be more concerned. Is this the reaction most restaurants have when a patron calls with a complaint?

Abrahams, a Kansas City native, used to work with me at a midtown restaurant (she was the beautiful bartender who knew how to shake up a mean martini) so she knows quite a bit about the workings of a restaurant. Her response to the woman with the loused-up leftovers was reasonable: Decide, before you even talk to the manager, what you want.