DEAR MISS MANNERS: Several of my friends and I attended an art and garden show and were enjoying it very much until the handicapped group arrived in their motorized wheelchairs and those maneuvered by caregivers. It is great that these folk are now able to attend so many more functions and be part of society.

One problem. They lack good manners.

My friends and I (all in their late 70s and early 80s) were just getting to the front of the area where we could view the displays when the handicapped group rammed into us. This is not the first instance that this has happened.

It is wonderful that so much has been gained for their participation, but must they be rude and endanger the others who also attend? While some of us do have hearing problems, not everyone in the area is deaf. Could they not speak up and request access to the viewing areas?

The problem is they run their wheelchairs into our legs and backsides and force us to move, even if we were just approaching the viewing area. If they are that demanding, perhaps they should have a special day/time reserved just for them so that they would not have to compete with those of us still on our feet. Being physically handicapped is bad enough, but must they also be handicapped by bad manners?

GENTLE READER: Really? They rammed into your legs with their wheelchairs?

In that case, Miss Manners would have thought that you would be arguing how the standees get in everyone's way, as you would be likely to attend next year's show in a wheelchair.

She does not countenance rudeness, whoever practices it, and those who use wheelchairs are responsible for keeping them from disabling anyone else. Although people who are sitting down cannot see if others are standing in front of them, they are not exempt from the rule about excusing themselves for passing in front.

However, it is not only the possibility that you exaggerated the physical damage that worries Miss Manners. In her experience, people often state the obvious -- in this case, that those in wheelchairs should get around in public -- but those who do so repeatedly often intend to imply the opposite.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Every year since my daughter was in first grade, we have had a birthday party and invited every child in her homeroom class (which is the school rule, and we feel it is fair).

One of the children has a sibling in the same grade (one was held back), and they are always in separate homerooms. My daughter has always ended up with one of them in her homeroom. Their mother will call to RSVP for my daughter's birthday party and say that the invited child can attend only if the other child (in a different homeroom) is invited as well.

I've never quite known what to say, so I say "Oh, OK, that won't be a problem." (I guess one more child isn't going to break the party budget, right?)

I don't like being put on the spot. I feel that I am being taken advantage of, and I don't want to see one of her friends that she is with all day in class miss her party. How do I handle this situation?

GENTLE READER: If one more child is not going to break the budget, Miss Manners wonders why you are suggesting that a classmate would be displaced if you accepted the sibling.

Surely the reason for the homeroom rule is to avoid making a child feel left out; for the same reason, young siblings of roughly the same age are generally invited together. No hostess has to accept proposed guests, but it seems unnecessarily harsh to stand on the legalistic point that a child who is often invited and whose sister is invited must be excluded on technical grounds.

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Relax!

Don't go to so much trouble!

Why don't you use plastic glasses?

Take off your jacket!

Why don't you use paper napkins?

Don't be so formal!

Sit down!

Why don't you use paper plates?

You don't have to impress us!

Guests who make such remarks to their hosts must fondly imagine the effect they produce:

"Whew," the host must think. "I don't have to strain myself pretending to be something I'm not. These people love me just as I am, without all this fancy stuff."

Or maybe not. Miss Manners is afraid that the effect might be more like this:

"Try and do something nice for people, and look what you get. They come into my house, call me pretentious to my face, criticize my stuff, complain about the way I do things, bark orders at me and try to foist their own slobby standards on me. How would they like it if I came to their houses and suggested they try a little harder?"

Yet the Etiquette-Busters are out in full force. If they attack their own friends who are in the very act of showing them hospitality, you can imagine that no one is safe. Not even little children, whom they taunt for politeness and tempt to rudeness:

Did your mother make you wear that?

Don't call me Mr., that's my father.

You don't have to thank me.

You must be bored having to listen to the adults.

"Ma'am"? Do I look that old?

I bet you'd rather be watching television.

What is the problem here? Could it be, Miss Manners wonders, that they fear that the world is not rude and crude enough as it is? And believe that it is their mission in life to stamp out the niceties wherever they find them?

Miss Manners has heard motives that are more altruistic, if no more attractive.

The face-value one is, indeed, that they are saving their friends trouble and rescuing them from false values. The presumption that nobody really likes doing things "nicely" is paired with the revelation that nobody -- or at least not they -- even likes to have things done this way for them by others.

In countermanding the courtesies that children exhibit, the idea is to form a sympathetic alliance with the children against their parents' strictures. Whether this stems from a belief in preserving the natural soul from civilization or merely a grab for popularity with the young, the effect is to undermine the parents and confuse the children.

A wider argument is sometimes made on behalf of an element of society other than the parties directly involved. "It intimidates people," the critics will say of those benighted folks who, unlike themselves and the criticized, are too primitive to be exposed to any but the crudest way of doing things. These people are not up to being treated with any luxuries, so it is considered a kindness to hold back on them.

But sometimes one hears an Etiquette-Buster's confession that rings true: "You make me feel guilty." I'm not going to bother, this argument goes, so we need to lower the standard so I don't look bad.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a senior in college, and my roommate of two years will be getting married after graduation. What is an appropriate wedding gift? She has already hinted that she hopes her friends give her cash gifts, because she will be getting furniture and china/silverware hand-me-downs from relatives and could use the money. I'm still in school and don't earn a lot from my part-time job, and I'm worried that if I do give her a cash gift I will look cheap.

GENTLE READER: It is better than looking greedy, Miss Manners assures you. Marriage is no excuse for hinting that one's friends should fork over money or anything else.

Looking cheap is more like reverse greed, in that it means stifling generosity because one begrudges giving to others what one wants to keep for oneself. It is unrelated to spending according to one's means, which any sensible person should always do.

The chief ingredient of a present is not supposed to be the amount spent, but the thought and care put into selecting something one hopes will delight the recipient. As your roommate has made it clear that thought and care would not delight her, she will have to settle for whatever bare cash you would have added.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I would like to know the protocol for dating a widower.

The circumstance is that I knew his wife, who passed on, and I am about 14 years younger than he is. It has been nearly a year since she died, but I believe that he and I could enjoy each others' company. He is a wonderful man, and I don't want to miss the boat in case others are looking his way.

GENTLE READER: You must also be aware, then, that such vessels are sometimes seriously overbooked, which has a tendency to buffet them about.

Miss Manners does not want to discourage you from checking to see whether there is room for you to board. She is only suggesting that you should know the drill in case you find it necessary to make a dignified departure.

And she will now disembark from this metaphor.

The protocol is that you can never be sure when, if ever, someone who has been widowed is susceptible to romance. Therefore, you should never make clear that you are embarking (whoops, sorry) on a courtship. What you can do at any stage of his bereavement is to commence a friendship in the hope that it will get warmer and warmer. And that, by the way, is the proper protocol for approaching any courtship.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: In our city, many of the jobs commonly described as "menial" are performed by Mexican and Latin American immigrants. When we dine out, the restaurant bus-people are invariably Latino. My husband has a habit of speaking to these workers in Spanish, although they always address him in English. For example, when the bus-person asks, "Are you finished with your plate?" my husband will respond, "Si, listo."

I believe that this is rude and condescending to the bus-people, because it appears he's assuming that they don't speak English. He believes he is being respectful, because many recent immigrants struggle with the language. I say that even the most recent immigrant has surely learned to understand "yes" and "no," and that the only reason to respond in another language to a question posed in English is when it's clear that the person doesn't understand an English response.

I guess it might be different if my husband were a native Spanish speaker himself, but while he does speak the language well, he learned it in high school.

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners has no objection to your husband's practicing his Spanish. What makes her uneasy is the way you both avoid admitting that this is what he is doing.

If anything is condescending, it is the notion that his choice of language is of emotional importance to someone who is obviously bilingual enough to handle the situation either way.

Rather than conferring a compliment or an insult, Miss Manners imagines that by speaking high school Spanish, your husband is providing the workers with a moment of innocent amusement.

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