DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am happily married and get along very well with my husband's family, even though our backgrounds are very different. My parents live in a mansion, while his parents live in a converted mobile home.

When I visit my in-laws, I'm happy to sleep on the living room floor with my husband, perhaps even sharing the room with one or two other family members. This Christmas, though, my in-laws will be hosting a family reunion, in which my husband and I are expected to share the living room with more than a dozen people, some of whom even my husband doesn't know.

Should I grit my teeth, or is there a way to ask my beloved in-laws if they would mind if we stayed at a hotel instead? The only acceptable excuse I have been able to think of is telling them we were trying to conceive a child and that was my fertile time, but as much as I dread camping out with strangers, I do not think that is a good reason to start a family.

GENTLE READER: Nor to startle the one you already have.

Miss Manners is flabbergasted that the only excuse you can think of would provide everyone with a vivid, if misleading, picture of how you and your husband plan to spend the night. Did it not occur to you to say, "I'm afraid I've been having trouble sleeping"?

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I work in the airline industry and live in a large condominium. Unfortunately, most of my neighbors know what I do for a living since they see me in my uniform coming and going to work, and everybody, invariably, will ask me questions pertaining to my line of work anytime they see me in the elevator, at the pool, etc.

I understand my work draws curiosity, but answering the same questions over and over to the same people for over five years now is really driving me nuts! They ask me if it's my day off or when am I going on a trip again?

Why would that matter to a stranger anyway? Why would I want to discuss my company business with strangers? Please tell me what would be a good answer to these irritating questions so they won't ask me again?

GENTLE READER: Airport security must be getting to you, if you cannot distinguish between an idle question and an interrogation.

The answer to your question of why your schedule would matter to strangers is that it doesn't. They are just trying to be pleasant, and since they travel less frequently and love to talk about where they go, plan to go and have been, they do not realize you do not.

Miss Manners does not mean to suggest that you therefore need to tell them. All you are required to do, since these are your neighbors with whom you presumably want to be on good terms, is to offer a return pleasantry. Almost anything vague would do if you offer it cheerfully: "Just glad to be home" or "Hither and yon," or "Depends on the scheduling," or "I'll know when I get there."

:

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a single man of 39, and I was seated on a bench, indoors at the local pharmacy, waiting the (seemingly interminable) 40 minutes for the pharmacist to fill my orders.

A darling little girl of about 3 years old, in a frilly pink dress, was seated to my right. I looked to the head of the line (about 15 feet away) at the pharmacist's checkout counter and saw a young woman whom I took to be the child's mother.

This little girl was anxious to show off her new shoes and backpack, and she initiated a conversation with me. I smiled indulgently and warmly feigned interest in what she was showing me.

The woman at the counter spun around to see what was going on. So, in order to allay her fears that I might be a kidnapper or pedophile or something equally awful and topical, I smiled reassuringly at the woman and doubled the volume of my voice so that she might hear the innocuous content of my conversation.

The little girl was thrilled with my attention to her -- so much so that she, unbidden, literally climbed over the padded gray armrest to my right and sat in my lap! She continued inventorying to me her new pink and silver school supplies, as I kindly cooed interest over them, trying to see what magic they obviously held for her. The innocent forwardness of the child didn't bother me in the least; I am a substitute teacher, adore children and am good with them.

But when the mother saw the child in my arms, her eyes widened, she flew over, snatched the bewildered child from my lap and delivered me the most hateful and accusatory facial expression imaginable.

If this weren't dismaying enough, the pharmacy checkout lady -- when she finally handed me my meds -- narrowed her eyes to slits, and icily dismissed me.

Miss Manners, just exactly what was I guilty of here? Has American society gotten this sick, distrustful and alienated? And we live in a small Texas town, no less! How could I have handled the situation better?

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners understands that she is expected to do a number about the outrageous implied insult of a mother's objecting to finding her daughter sitting on a stranger's lap, and then to bemoan the state of a society that produces such vile suspicions.

But the fact is that society is better off acknowledging the dangers to children that, unfortunately, have always existed. If you think that children ought to be kept charmingly innocent in their trust of strangers and that adult strangers ought to know that they can trust you to cuddle with their children, there is no difference in maturity between you and the little girl.

If, however, you are a teacher who has the interests of children at heart, you should have begun the lesson this child's mother should have taught her. You should have firmly placed her back in her chair, saying in a matter-of-fact tone, "Now you sit there, and I'll sit here. I can see your pretty things just as well, and this way, you can stay within sight of your mother, which I'm sure she told you to do."

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am writing to inquire about your feelings on adults feeding adults in public places, such as restaurants. I have seen this occur while dining out.

GENTLE READER: You cannot imagine how many feelings Miss Manners spares herself from entertaining by the simple device of not peering at other diners in public places.

Similarly, she is sparing herself from worry that you might be referring to the perfectly polite practice of helping someone who has physical difficulties, and not just complaining about the silly practice of adults thrusting forks at one another while saying, "Here, try this."

:

The friends who give those wonderful annual parties you never miss are not as happy to greet many of you as they are gracious enough to pretend.

Where have you been all year?

Are you sure you were invited this year?

Come to think of it, who are you, anyway?

Year 'round, Miss Manners provides a sympathetic shoulder for those who have come to be known as People Who Still Entertain. Many of their guests think of them as a subdivision of People Who Still Wear Spats -- eccentrics who are pleasant company, but whom no one in his right mind would think of imitating.

What is it that these genial folk do that is so strange?

They invite friends home instead of meeting them at restaurants. They mark special occasions, theirs and other people's, with parties. They give dinner parties for no reason other than to get people together whose company they enjoy and think would enjoy one another's, undertaking all the planning and work themselves.

What do they get in return?

Lots of happy times, pleasant memories, and the satisfaction of knowing that their hospitality has been a source of delight for others.

And that, along with the odd bottle of wine handed over at the door, ought to be enough, their guests believe. That hosts should also expect definitive replies to their invitations and honored commitments strikes the people from whom they expect this as excessive.

Indeed, anyone who has not quit entertaining altogether has already scaled down his or her expectations, forfeiting most traditional hostly privileges. Guests have long since ceased to allow their hosts to control such things as time of arrival or departure, guest list, menu or dress code, and instead routinely announce that they are arriving late, going on to another party, bringing someone extra, eating selectively and not dressing up.

But People Who Still Entertain do cherish the hope that some day they, too, will be invited to cross the thresholds of some of their guests. They do occasionally get reciprocal invitations, but these tend to be to meet people in restaurants, attend fund-raisers or otherwise tag along and entertain themselves at what their sort-of hosts are planning to do anyway.

Then there is what one Gentle Reader calls the half-invitation. "Our acquaintances don't seem to be able to actually fully invite us to do things. Instead we get e-mails or phone messages such as, 'We really enjoyed going to the emu races with you last Saturday. We should get together again sometime soon. Give us a call sometime. Thanks, Pat & Pat.' I believe they are sincere, just indecisive or wanting others to take charge. We don't mind being the instigators, it's just that sometimes we'd like to let others take charge and let us relax and enjoy the company."

Not that the guests necessarily demand this formality for themselves. For many, an invitation consists of them asking the hosts when the annual party will be, or just faithfully showing up and not bothering them in between.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have a sister who has told our other siblings that she plans on being artificially inseminated this year. I cannot think of anything polite to say about this, for a variety of reasons.

I think my sister will make a horrible parent. I do not want to give her the impression that I approve of her having a child, but she is my sister and I don't want to alienate her. What can I say without being rude when she tells me she is pregnant?

GENTLE READER: "Congratulations."

: