Dear Urban Diplomat: please provide some winter wear etiquette for those enormous puffy coats that take up half the streetcar

Dear Urban Diplomat,
It seems like puffy coats with oversized fur-fringed hoods are all the rage again this season. I understand they’re warm and stylish, but, man, they take up a lot of room. I’m sick of getting a face full of fur on the streetcar, not to mention attempting to squeeze between two gargantuan parkas at the urinal. Can you provide some winter wear guidelines?
—Infringed upon,
MIDTOWN

The rules of puffy coat engagement:

1) Use the coat check. I know it’s a pain to line up at the AGO, or empty your pockets of valuables before handing your coat over at a restaurant, but just do it. If an establishment doesn’t have a coat check, write the management a letter. Remind them they are located in Canada, where winter requires body- and soul-suffocating layers.

2) If you choose to keep your puffy coat on while on public transit or in a crowded elevator, don’t expect sympathy when you faint from heatstroke. Also, if possible, please turn your back to a wall or window so as not to graze the eyes of fellow passengers with your fulsome fringe.

3) In narrow grocery store aisles, the coat should be placed in the shopping cart (needless to say, the shopping cart can be a more serious menace than the coat; please drive it responsibly).

4) Absolutely no hooded coats should be worn during movie screenings. Moviegoers seated behind view-obscuring hoods have every right to deposit their half-empty popcorn bag into them.

5) In the washroom: any man who has ever peed while wearing a coat knows that being heavily clothed on top and exposed down below is awkward and humbling. It is discouraged for this reason alone, never mind the fact that simultaneous parka and penis management is difficult, and down-filled fabric is expensive to dry clean.

Send your questions to the Urban Diplomat at urbandiplomat@torontolife.com