DEAR MISS MANNERS: We threw a small potluck birthday lunch in the break room for one of our co-workers.

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About four of us contributed; we all work directly with her and know her the best.

We put the leftovers in the fridge, and later in the day, a co-worker who hadn’t been at the party helped himself to them.

I’d mentioned that we were each planning to take our own leftovers home, but he said once something is shared in a public place, it becomes public property. Is this a real rule?

GENTLE READER: No.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have a moderate hearing loss on one side and pretty severe hearing loss on the other side.

A lot of folks don’t know I have a problem, because the hearing aids they make now are great — hard to see, and my hair covers them. However, my hearing is sometimes affected by things like seasonal allergies, and I’m often the last to realize.

I was talking with some friends, partly in Spanish (my second language) and partly in English, with some fellow teachers. I asked my friend a question in English, not realizing someone on my deafer side had started talking.

He had made a joke in Spanish and I didn’t quite catch what was going on. After he left, my friend really doubled down on how rude I had been.

Obviously I felt sorry as soon as I understood, which probably took a little extra time due to the language barrier. I told her I really didn’t hear him speak and I would never have interrupted him if I had. She continued to tell me she felt bad for him and that I was rude.

Of course, I told the other friend later that I hadn’t heard him and I was sorry for making an awkward moment. He was really sweet about it because he knows I am not rude by nature.

I know hearing loss can be hard to see and sometimes difficult to predict, depending on the nature of it. But I wonder if my friend, who insisted on calling me rude even after I explained that I couldn’t hear, knows how bad that sounds for folks with a disability.

I thought about telling her how it comes across, but that would feel like I was just trying to get sympathy. I just wouldn’t want her to show the same lack of understanding to someone else with a disability — for her sake, too. Am I wrong?

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GENTLE READER: Demonizing someone with a disability is, of course, unspeakably rude. (So is demonizing someone without a disability.)

But this can be settled without resorting to such heavy artillery. Even if your hearing were perfect and you merely failed to hear the joke because of a momentary lapse of attention, what you did was not The Rudest Thing That Ever Happened. It was a minor, unintentional infraction, erased by your subsequent apology.

It was far ruder of your friend to dwell on it. Forget about it and, if this person raises it again, thank her and tell her you dealt with it.

Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, [email protected]; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.