DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a cleaning lady, and I also clean my church. My problem is that when I go to someone's home for a social occasion where I'm invited as a guest, I'm expected to help serve and clean up.

I had one lady hand me a dish towel when I came in, and I was told to wipe off glasses and fix the drinks while she visited with her guests. I don't mind helping, but I think if you are an invited guest, you shouldn't be expected to serve. How can I tell them nicely that I would like to be treated like the others?

GENTLE READER: It is true that Miss Manners is in the business of putting sticky statements nicely, but suddenly she doesn't feel so nice.

What these people are doing is outrageous. This is not helping a friend, as a guest may volunteer -- but not be conscripted -- to do. This is using a social pretext to get your professional services free.

Miss Manners has three suggestions for you, all of them polite but firm statements to deliver in a pleasant manner. Frankly, she is hoping you will choose the third.

1. "Oh, my goodness, I misunderstood; I didn't realize you wanted to hire me for the evening. Let me tell you what I charge."

2. "I'm afraid you had better ask one of the other guests to help. I do this for a living, as you know, and so when I accept an invitation to go out, it's only to relax."

3. "You know, I've been doing this sort of thing all week, and suddenly I find that I'm tired. You will excuse me, but I think I will go home now to rest. Here's your dishtowel. Have a pleasant evening."

DEAR MISS MANNERS: When a friend of mine I've known since grade school phones me and I say hello, she will quite often say, "Are you all right? You don't sound so good." And then she laughs.

I do not call her anymore because I think she gets a kick from asking me that, then the laugh. I'm always taken aback, because I do not know what to say other than to explain that I feel fine and there's nothing wrong, and I've grown tired of explaining myself. (I did have cancer three years ago, but it's in remission.)

What can I say as a comeback? I thought she would get the message when I quit calling her, but she continues to call me.

GENTLE READER: Could we please assume that the laugh is a nervous laugh? Miss Manners doesn't feel up to dealing with the possibility of its being a shriek of pleasure at presuming to find you ill.

It is still rude to announce to people how they feel, rather than to ask them and wait for the answer, but at least it is not malicious. The cure is to say, "Oh, I'm fine, except that I'm worried about you. Are you all right?" This is not intended as a comeback so much as an opportunity for you to illustrate the point that not all shows of concern are comforting, and to set an example by accepting her answer at face value.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: My daughter and I always seem to be attending a funeral service. Sometimes this takes time and effort to do. This is a large city, and we sometimes drive 10 miles to the mortuary.

We do not expect a thank you note for our efforts, but my sister-in-law doesn't want to bother, so she picks up the phone and orders flowers, and she gets the thank you note. In other words, thoughtfulness and effort doesn't count.

GENTLE READER: Of course they do. It just so happens that your thoughtfulness and efforts are directed at the only people who are automatically excused -- even by Miss Manners -- from writing thank you letters. Your sister-in-law has directed hers at people who, like the rest of us, are not excused, even though it is a difficult time for them.

To attend a funeral is to pay your respects to the person who died. This may also be a comfort to the bereaved, but that is an extra benefit. You also owe a duty toward them, which can take the form of writing a letter of sympathy or paying a condolence visit, sending flowers or bringing food, and offering whatever practical help you can. Miss Manners is glad to hear that as a family, you are both paying respect and offering comfort, but she would prefer to hear that each of you is doing both.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Say there is a man in our town who wants to be friendly with us. Say we have long ago decided he is someone to run from. If he calls and invites us to dinner on a Saturday, it is, of course, simple to declare that we are otherwise occupied. When he then says, "Anytime next weekend, " we can claim a trip out of town, or visitors, or whatever. But then, being told we can't make it, he says, "Then you choose a night to come."

I think two rules apply here; from the postmark you will know I am southern, and with that territory comes the wish to never be rude to anyone. That's one; but the second is that I also don't allow myself to be tyrannized into going somewhere I don't want to go. My husband is in complete agreement but says he must leave to me the details. What, then, can I say?

GENTLE READER: It is the wish of all decent people everywhere never to be rude, or so Miss Manners dearly wants to believe. That it is the wish of all people everywhere to get rid of pests is something she does believe.

The direct method is rude, so that is out. Nice people don't go around saying, "Go away, we'll never be so desperate as to find free time to spend time with you, not even if you were the last person on earth."

So we have the indirect method you have described. When that fails, as it has in this case, we do not revert to the direct method -- "What's the matter, don't you get it?" -- but get even more indirect.

You need a pass that is good for the year, not just for a day or a weekend, and that is, "Oh, dear, I'm afraid we really are much too busy, and I just can't schedule anything more. You are very kind to ask us. Why don't we call you if we find we're free, after all?"

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: Our living room has two large, built-in bookcases, filled with some of our favorite books. (Still others fill up our study.) The first guests to arrive at our parties will occasionally stand near the bookcases and scan the book titles without taking any book from the shelf.

My wife regards such behavior as rude and insists that such persons are probing too deeply into our personal interests. I, on the other hand, figure that the books are visible in the room; we aren't hiding them. For a guest to casually look at the spines of the books is a far cry from probing into someone's bathroom cabinet to see what cosmetics or medications are there.

GENTLE READER: Accustomed as Miss Manners is to denouncing snoops, she is much too atwitter with curiosity to manage doing it here. What on earth are you people reading?

"Swinging with Dick and Jane"?

"Recognizing the Rodents in Your Kitchen"?

And, if so, why don't you tuck them behind Stephen Hawking's "Quest for a Theory of Everything" where no one will ever find them?

People are supposed to talk about books. This is respectable conversation. It is actually fun. Miss Manners knows people who chase around their hapless friends, desperate to make them read their own favorites, and are chased by them in turn. (All right, she is referring to herself.) The loathsome term "conversation piece" is applied to books that are left around expressly for the purpose of getting a good conversation going.

(Free anecdote: Once, when Miss Manners' Aunt Helen was trying to be hospitable to a neighbor, conversation was lagging for lack of an interest in common. Valiantly, the neighbor looked about for a possible topic, and her eye landed on Aunt Helen's poetry collection. "Oh," she said, "I notice you are interested in anthology.")

No, examining books on your hosts' shelf is not like looking into their medicine cabinet. It is like looking at the pictures on their walls. Miss Manners notices that you are interested in sunflowers, if your wife doesn't find that too personal an insight.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: In one of those places where they bring you a little pot of hot water and a selection of tea bags so you can brew your own tea, I put the teabag in the cup and pour the hot water over it and let it steep for a minute or two. Then I dunk the bag up and down a few times, put the tea bag in the bowl of my spoon, put the little paper thingy on the end of the string over the teabag, and smush out the last few drops with my thumb.

This is a kind of messy operation, and sometimes some tea drizzles down my arm to the elbow. Should I use a second spoon for this or what? Nothing seems to work quite right for me. Maybe it would be better if I just ordered what I want and let someone back in the kitchen deal with the details. But that would lose a lot of the charm, wouldn't it?

GENTLE READER: Maybe it would be better if you found a place where they let you brew your own tea with tea leaves you could see and strain in a proper strainer. Miss Manners' idea of charm doesn't have strings and tags attached.

Her distaste for anything that brings paper to the table (except the news at breakfast) makes her reluctant to reveal a maneuver that may encourage teabags. However, for the sake of saving your shirts, she will confide that it is possible to get most last drops by using the string to bind (technical term: smush) the bag against the spoon.

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