Don't Ask, Don't Tell?

Une femme grew up in an era when Manners still mattered, and having them was a baseline indicator that one wasn't raised by wolves. I'm not talking about your finger-bowl, lobster-fork, cotillion-dance-card manners, but the everyday kind: the please-and-thank-you, holding-the-door, not-staring-at-the-wooden-leg manners. And the kind of manners that advised against openly discussing topics like potentially embarrassing medical conditions, relatives in sanitariums and personal finances with people to whom you aren't closely related, and even with some you are. I learned at a young age that it was considered rude to ask how much money someone made or how much their dress cost.

So it still generally makes me quite uncomfortable when someone with whom I don't share a joint checking account asks me how much I paid for something. I've been asked how much my bags/shoes/clothes cost by a range of people from family and friends, to folks who work in my office that I don't know past saying hello in the elevator, to total strangers. (Though I don't mind in situations where the question about price relates to a shared interest or hobby, or in the context of this blog or some of the online communities I participate in, as there's some degree of anonymity.) I generally hem and haw and give a vague "oh, bigger than a breadbox" kind of answer, and end up feeling guilty like I'm the one who's being rude. I'm not above bragging about getting a good deal occasionally, but for the most part, I prefer to play my financial cards close to the vest.

Am I just a throwback in these Oprah-fied let-it-all-hang-out times? Or have people really become ruder and more inappropriate? How do you handle those invasive questions from Nosy Nanette's who feel seem to feel the need to keep a running appraisal of your closet?