DEAR MISS MANNERS: Summer seems to bring out the worst in some friends and neighbors. One neighbor wants me to walk her obnoxious, poorly trained dog -- for free, of course. Lots of kids would love a job like that and would do it well, but not me.

A friend (?) feels I should take over "clinic visits": surprise visitations to complete strangers -- her friends, not mine. I'm not being mean, but I'm a retired nurse and tired of medical problems. For some reason she thinks I'm available or interested. I retired to get away from this.

Would her friends want to see a stranger visiting? I don't think so.

Another neighbor constantly asks me when I'll get siding. I'm a fairly new widow and have done a lot inside, but outside bids are not written out, and in some cases the contractor's insurance is questionable. (One refused to give me the name of their insurance company. Does that sound honest or reliable?) She got taken on some home repairs and seems envious.

We've never been friends, but I stay out of her business and wish she'd stay out of mine. How do I deal with her politely?

GENTLE READER: Although she is happy to treat this as the standard query about fending off nosiness and impositions, Miss Manners stumbled on the part about your being a fairly new widow.

Could that be connected with the multiplicity of neighbors who are making admittedly bizarre requests? Could they be worrying about you and trying to think of activities that would keep you active?

If so, they are not very good at it, and you are in need of the standard method of refusing without possibility of discussion: "I'm terribly sorry, but I'm afraid I can't," offering no excuse with which they could argue. However, if you suspect concern rather than simple exploitation, Miss Manners wishes you would at the same time propose some small activity, perhaps just having coffee together, as a way of recognizing their good intentions.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was walking down the street, engaged in my own thoughts, when a man yelled at me as I walked by: "Hey you, smile! It's a beautiful day, and it's free!"

Needless to say, having a stranger yell at me did not make me feel like smiling. I ignored him completely.

But, as I continued away, my train of thought interrupted and feeling a bit irritated, I wondered if I ought to have said something. I realize that it is not polite to provide unsolicited etiquette advice to others. However, I also suspect that he accosts people in this manner because he doesn't realize that his behavior is offensive, and as long as no one explains that to him, he will continue to intrude upon others. Is it appropriate to explain to someone that his behavior is offensive and precisely why?

GENTLE READER: Didn't you just get through telling Miss Manners that you found it offensive for strangers to tell others how to behave?

Bad as it is to issue smiling orders to strangers, issuing them reprimands is worse. The way to indicate a rejection of any sort of improper approach is to sail by as if the person did not exist.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: Last year, one of my good friends got married, and, although my friends and I were all part of an intimate group, all of the men got invited but none of the women. My friend explained this by telling us that his fiancee did not want us there.

I admit I did not take this well, but I did not know her very well, and I see no reason to hold a grudge. Here is where the question arises: I saw my friend and his wife at my place of employment, and, after a few minutes of talking to him, I mistook her for someone else. How do I apologize for that? She was polite, but I am sure that I offended her.

GENTLE READER: Much as Miss Manners hates to be less angelic than her Gentle Readers, she very definitely does see a reason to hold a grudge against someone who so explicitly and rudely made clear her desire not to know you. That you, in fact, did not know her strikes Miss Manners as a reasonable consequence.

However, if you insist upon out-manners-ing Miss Manners, you could issue this lady an invitation, saying, "I'm sorry I mistook you. I really do want to get to know you better." If this does not gain you a friend, it will at least gain you a reason for holding a grudge.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband and I entertain a fair amount, particularly during the summer months (we have a pool), and we have hosted several pre-wedding occasions (showers and bachelor parties), which we also enjoy greatly. Our friends are very generous in often bringing food items to share at these occasions.

A minor irritant is that after these types of occasions, I often find several platters, plates or other crockery items which were left behind (usually because there was still food on them) and which are not labeled with the owners' names. As much as I can, I try to remember who brought the particular item and endeavor to return the platter to its rightful owner. However, if a particularly large party was held, it is usually impossible to remember exactly who brought what.

Is it my responsibility to track down the owners, or should I wait until they discover the item is missing and remember that it was brought to my house? I still have several plates on hand from our first barbecue/pool party that was held right after we moved into our house four years ago. I should mention that the matter of space is sometimes an issue, as I do not have unlimited storage space to keep these platters indefinitely.

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners is inspired to invent a new social form: The platter party. This is where you invite all your friends who have kindly contributed food to your parties, insist that this time you will provide all the food, and then make them pick out their platters to take home.

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A newly identified social affliction: Acquired Situational Narcissism.

As Miss Manners recalls, this is what we used to call being full of yourself. As in, "Who do you think you are?" and "Just because you happened to be lucky, what makes you think you're better than anyone else?" and "You still put on your pants one leg at a time."

The phenomenon, as described by its discoverer, is a sense of power and entitlement based on an inflated idea of one's self that is fed by the adulatory way one is treated by others. The subject thinks he is something extra special, and everybody else seems to confirm this.

So far, it resembles what educators were hoping to achieve with programs to develop self-esteem in children regardless of their actual achievements.

But the new version comes only after success, and to select clientele -- the famous. Apparently, when strangers scream with pleasure at the mere sight of you and vie to buy your nail clippings on the Internet, you get a funny view of reality.

This is thought to be a phenomenon of our celebrity-crazed society. Even so, Miss Manners' favorite delineation of it appears in "Royal Highness," Thomas Mann's novel about the personable and eligible heir-presumptive to a small principality whose job it is to perform its ceremonial functions. He has never in his life entered a train station that wasn't festooned with bunting, or looked into a face that did not have a foolish expression on it:

"There was nothing really every day, nor was there anything really actual, about his life; it consisted of a succession of moments of enthusiasm. Wherever he went, there was holiday, there the people were transfigured and glorified, there the grey work-a-day world cleaned up and became poetry. The starveling became a sleek man, the hovel and homely cottage, dirty gutter-children changed into chaste little maidens and boys in Sunday clothes, their hair plastered with water, a poem on their lips, and the perspiring citizen in frock-coat and top-hat was moved to emotion by the consciousness of his own worth.

"But not only he, Klaus Heinrich, saw the world in this light, but it saw itself, too, as long as his presence lasted. A strange unreality and speciousness prevailed in places where he exercised his calling; a symmetrical transitory window-dressing, an artificial and inspiring disguising of the reality by pasteboard and gilded wood, by garlands, lamps, draperies and bunting, was conjured up for one fair hour, and he himself stood in the center of the show on a carpet, which covered the bare ground, between masts painted in two colors, round which garlands twined -- stood with heels together in the odour of varnish and fir-branches, and smiled with his left hand planted on his hip."

This is not a novel about Acquired Situational Narcissism. The prince finds his job strenuous but undertakes it when his brother, the reigning Grand Duke, pleads that he has too much shame to undertake it: "You must allow that I do not despise the 'Hi's' of the crowd from arrogance, but from a propensity to humanity and goodness. Human Highness is a pitiable thing, and I'm convinced that mankind ought to see that everyone behaves like a man, and a good man, to his neighbour and does not humiliate him or cause him shame. A man must have a thick skin to be able to carry off all the flummery of Highness without any feeling of shame."

As our celebrities are not born into the calling but achieve it through some combination of work and chance, Miss Manners would think it worth their while to learn the royal cure for this affliction, which is the cause of painful disillusionment for them as well as rudeness by them. It is the knowledge that however enthusiastically others play the crowd scenes, they recognize it as flummery, so however enthusiastically the celebrity plays the part, it is unwise to be the only person who believes it is real.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: For whatever the reason, I have been invited to the afternoon wedding of a former rival from college. I suspect that she wants to get a look at what sort of shape I am in, which I am happy to report is on the presentable side.

Will I still be presentable in a rather becoming suit of dark gray wool, trimmed with black velvet? It really shows my figure to good advantage and perfectly matches some jet jewelry that the groom once gave me. Since I'm sure that many of the male guests will be wearing dark gray wool suits, this is really a question of sexual equality.

GENTLE READER: Oh, not it's not. This is a question of old-fashioned cattiness. If you didn't believe in the power of symbolism, you wouldn't be eager to wear the jewelry given you by the bridegroom.

But don't worry about the suit. Technically, gray is not considered strict mourning -- and anyone who mistakes it for black will only assume that you feel bereaved by having lost the bridegroom to your rival.

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