DEAR MISS MANNERS: How does one handle lunch or dinner guests, or anyone who comes into one's home, who ask for a "tour" of the house? This has happened almost every time we have had someone over, whether they were already friends, casual acquaintances or people we were just trying to get to know better in hope of becoming friends.

When I grew up, one did not go into any room that one was not invited into by the host or hostess. (The only exception was to politely and discreetly inquire where the powder room was.) To ask to be given a tour was considered rude and in bad taste.

My husband, however, grew up with this being a perfectly acceptable practice. Not only was it expected for guests to be given a tour, it was also acceptable for one to ask for a tour if it was not offered.

I have tried to be accommodating; but what, if any, are the rules here? I have always considered a home to be a private residence and not an historic house museum. For me, it is a place where entertaining and/or visiting is only conducted in the living or family room, breakfast or dining room. It is not that I am embarrassed of our home, or keep an unkempt one; I am just a private person.

Once, at the end of an evening where we entertained approximately 25 guests, we were asked by the six remaining guests to be shown the rest of the house. We obliged (I reluctantly), and everyone headed upstairs. While I stood in our bedroom talking with one female guest, my husband took the other five down the hall. After all of them had gone home, I went back through the upstairs rooms to turn off the lights. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that closet doors had been opened and left so.

There have been instances where we have had guests over who have, thankfully, not asked for a "tour," but who have rather decided to wander all through the downstairs on their own looking at every piece of furniture, book, painting, photo and piece of porcelain. Once, I even had my pantry examined. Those with children have also allowed their children to wander all over the house, despite my polite request to the children to stay downstairs with everyone else.

While I would expect to show more of our home to especially close friends, I have been rather surprised that this expectation has extended to anyone who comes through our door. I realize that our homes reflect our personal decorating tastes and how we choose to organize our lives (or not), but are we obligated to show any, and everyone who enters our home every corner and cubbyhole? I do not want to stop having guests over, but I am weary of this invasive ritual.

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners shares your distaste, but not your shock. Whatever argument about the host's pride or the guests' curiosity that can be made for inviting or permitting guests to inspect your property can be applied equally well to your closets. Or your tax returns.

However much they notice and judge your possessions, your guests are supposed to be pretending that these are merely a charming background to your even more charming company. And however much pride you take in your possessions, you are supposed to assume these will be enjoyed as an incidental. House touring should be limited to showing people around a newly acquired house, one of special historic significance, or to illustrate a particular point under discussion.

Now all you have to do is to convince your husband of this. It is his house, too, and you would need his support in replying to tour requests, "Oh, some other time, perhaps," or "No, let's stay here and talk." As for snoops, the best you can do is to fetch them, saying, "Let's go back into the living room and talk" and resolve not to let them get back onto your guest list.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: A large fruit salad, served in a tall stemmed bowl on a plate, was the first course at an annual dinner we attended at a nice restaurant. It was firmly and highly packed, with bite-sized pieces of fruit and juice at the bottom of the bowl.

There was obvious confusion as to which utensil to use. I used my teaspoon, as two were provided, rather than the salad fork, because that is how I was taught, and because I wanted to take up the juice, which I enjoy. Both fork and spoon users found eating the presentation awkward because of the height and packed nature.

Upon removal, the waiter returned my spoon but took away my fork. I felt embarrassed. Which utensil should I have used?

GENTLE READER: Probably your napkin. Juicy fruit in a tall glass is a set-up. If it is served at all, it ought to be for dessert, and dessert may be properly eaten with both a spoon and a fork. Neither would have done a complete job alone, so under the circumstances, your guess was as good as anyone else's.

You are kind to be embarrassed on behalf of a waiter who doesn't even know that a used utensil should be replaced and not returned, but he may have been acting on orders from the management to save dishwater. Miss Manners wouldn't put it past an establishment that serves food that cannot be eaten gracefully.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have been appalled by the behavior of the audiences at high-school and junior-high graduation ceremonies I have attended over the last few years.

Instead of holding their applause until the names of all the graduates have been called, as I thought was proper, various levels of applause and cheering are given to each graduate. Nongraduating students stand in small groups to cheer as their friends' names are called, with parents and other adults also taking part in the revelry. In addition to clapping and cheering, people actually bring in plastic horns and cow bells to make noise.

A small minority of graduates receive no applause at all. Although this might mean that their friends and family know how to behave at a graduation, it gives the impression that they are friendless.

I have a child graduating from each of these schools, and I would like to know how I should respond as my children's names are called. In an atmosphere that is certain to resemble that of a basketball game more than a graduation, I am thinking polite applause may be acceptable and will seem positively subdued.

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners is not opposed to genuine graduation-day exuberance. She is sadly aware that all graduates are doomed thereafter to a lifetime of nightmares about being confronted with taking examinations in courses that they forgot to attend all semester.

But what you and Miss Manners have observed is not exactly exuberance. It is something similar to the old school Valentine's Day, where the names of those receiving Valentines were called out as each card was taken from a box, thus focusing every one's attention on who was popular and who was not. The meaner (and, sadly, therefore often more popular) ones were given to going around the room afterward, asking the outcasts "How many Valentines did you get?"

Eventually, schools abolished this custom on the grounds of emotional cruelty against tender sprouts.

So the sprouts have brought it back. They chose a day when they know that school authorities have relinquished their power over them and, anyway, wouldn't want to dampen the occasion with disapproval. As a result, graduations have, as you have observed, turned into staged popularity contests.

Mannerly parents should warn their children that they do not plan to participate: If there is a request to withhold applause until the end, they will do so; if there is applause after each name, they will applaud each graduate. If a number of parents agree about this, they can warn the entire class, who will not be so eager to hold this contest if their own strongest supporters refuse to play.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I recently remodeled my home and plan on entertaining more extensively. However, I have a septic system rather than city sewage, and I'm worried about guests flushing something down the toilet and ruining my septic system. Almost anything could cause big repair bills.

How can I delicately inform guests that nothing but white, single-ply toilet paper can be put in the toilet? I'm particularly concerned about tampons and tissue.

GENTLE READER: Delicately? It strikes Miss Manners that what we have here is a choice of indelicacies, of which the most delicate would be the most disastrous. That would be saying nothing and letting them (and you) take the consequences.

It is indelicate to have to give guests instructions, and it is indelicate to post signs in one's home. But faced with a possible emergency, Miss Manners would concede that you should quietly do both -- not as a command, but as an apology that your system is on the primitive side.

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