Where are your manners?

    As a requirement for my ECON 120 class I had to attend an Etiquette reception today.  I thought the event would talk about how to become better at socially interacting with people you first meet (especially employers) or something like that.  But this was about seriously about table manners.
    For an hour and a half (actually, only a little more than an hour because someone, who's name I won't mention, took a long time finding some khaki's and let us arrive fashionably late *cough*Paul S.*cough*.  No hard feelings if you read this, I actually wish we had arrived later so I wouldn't have to sit through that) this well aged woman (Dr.?) talked about etiquette at the dinner table.
    How to set a table.  What direction to pass food around.  Where to sit.  How to sit.  How to excuse yourself from sitting.  How to drop lemon into your glass instead of eating.  How to eat European style instead of American. Everything was covered.
    And it seemed that everyone there except for me enjoyed the presentation and got a lot out of it.  I sat there the whole time thinking everything that the woman was telling us was common sense to everyone.  I guess I was wrong.  Getting brought up in a home where I always set the table (especially for a lot of guests) I guess my mother taught me all this stuff back when I was still in elementary school. 
    Anyway, the session seemed to drag on forever with way too detail-concerned questions (how many 'pumps' should a handshake have? I don't know, do whatever feels natural!) but at least that's one more requirement out of the way.