DEAR MISS MANNERS: Monday night I treated my son to his 30th birthday dinner. The tab was $300, and I had also brought along a $250 Cabernet Sauvignon.

During dinner, there was incessant squalling and crying from an infant parked in a baby carriage two booths away.

Granted, I am old-fashioned enough to think that if the little one cannot read the wine list, he should be left at home with a baby-sitter. Admittedly, I am also tired of parents in undershirts carrying in their precious newborns (with umbilical cords still attached) in little baskets while I am eating dinner.

The only things to be carried in a basket in restaurants are rolls.

My wife and son thought my response to this situation was inappropriate and could have been handled differently: As the screaming infant and his daddy passed our booth on the way out, I yelled that the little snot had ruined my dinner.

My only concession to good taste is that I should have screamed at the father, rather than the infant. Your opinion please.

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners' opinion is the same as yours: that people who yell, scream and squall should be removed from restaurants (even reasonably priced ones). Evidently, your wife and son feel the same way about you.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: In March, two friends of mine will be getting married. They have been my friends since high school and I wish to be respectful, but I have never had to respond to the niceties of a same-sex marriage before this and I find myself rather confused.

I had sent them individual greeting cards for the holiday season, one to "Mr. Smith" and one to "Mr. Jones." Should I continue to send cards individually? Or should I send one card to Mr. & Mr. Smith-Jones? Or is there some other option that just isn't coming to mind?

GENTLE READER: Yes. Miss Manners cautions that one should never get so interested in the private aspect of people's lives as to overlook the obvious: One card and two names on two lines -- "Mr. Smith/Mr. Jones" -- make one solution for all couples who have different surnames but live at the same address.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have noticed an increasing trend among chain retailers to interrogate their customers upon checkout or exiting the store, asking for receipts, photo ID, addresses and phone numbers.

When pressed for the reason this information is needed, store employees assure me that it is for my own protection or that I am not under any suspicion of shoplifting. Since I have no lack of advertisements sent to my home right now or marketing data collected on me, and since the stores have no legal right to demand much of this documentation, I would rather not oblige them.

Is there a polite way to say no to these requests? I know the employees are only doing the job they are ordered to do, and I hate to be rude, but they can become rather defensive and persistent.

GENTLE READER: Presuming that you are complying with reasonable, if ever-increasing, security measures in regard to checks, credit cards and unexplained bundles, Miss Manners assures you that there is nothing rude about declining to be interrogated.

You may say, "I'm sorry, I never give that information out," but soften it, if you wish, by adding, "It would be a waste of your money as you would only reach a telephone recording and I don't open advertising mail."

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Newly elected legislators like to let slip that they expect to encounter peculiar forms of etiquette in Washington.

How they word this confession so as to fashion it into a moral position depends, Miss Manners has observed, on the method they used for getting themselves sent to Washington:

If they got there by proclaiming the capital to be a haven for crooks, they take the populist stance, declaring that they will never succumb to the fancy social life such people will attempt to lure them into. If they used the alternative method of declaring that the place is a haven for bunglers, they take the sophisticated approach of saying that such luxury will be just another version of behavior they mastered long ago.

Miss Manners is afraid that they are all sadly mistaken. ("Sadly mistaken" is a phrase they should know; it is Washington's polite term for ignorance or lies.) Formal etiquette in Washington is not the same as elsewhere, and they will succumb.

But they needn't worry about black-tie dinners and White House parties. The rules are not that hard, and a cadre of social cadets stands ready to help them.

At parties elsewhere, people dress to look prosperous and fashionable, and try to behave as if they are having a fabulous time. In Washington, the goal is to appear as if you are just managing to stay decent on an inadequate salary, and to behave as if you are putting in an appearance before going back to work.

The real etiquette traps in Washington, the kind where one mistake can destroy a career overnight, are another matter entirely. And these are so treacherous that powerful and experienced people keep falling into them.

The first is that people listen to what elected officials are saying. Not the rhetoric they have been practicing, of course, but the casual comments and jokes made under the assumption that everyone shares the same prejudices.

It is several decades now that the society has refused to tolerate any expression of bigotry, and Miss Manners would have thought that people who depend on public approval would have learned not to utter any. Yet the parade of experienced politicians whose careers self-destruct while they plead mercy for what they call "a poor choice of words" never stops.

The second is that the attack mode is not the best way to get business accomplished in a form of government that requires cooperation and compromise. Rudeness angers one's colleagues and annoys the public.

People who have just won elections by out-snarling and out-insulting their opponents naturally have a hard time understanding this. Miss Manners suggests that they reflect on the difference between a defeated opponent who gets left behind and other successful candidates who work in the same place they do. And while the public enjoys a good fight with a decisive finish, it no longer finds pugnacity in daily life novel or amusing.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I wanted to know what the etiquette is for saying something delicate in e-mail. I don't want to get too personal, but I want to let people know how I feel. Is it OK to be blunt in e-mail?

GENTLE READER: If by "delicate" you mean offensive, and if by "blunt" you mean harsh, it will not be OK for the recipient. E-mail offers the temptation of being ruder than one would dream of being to people when looking them in the eye, and this should be resisted.

Miss Manners also wishes to point out that the result might not be OK for you, either. People who are insulted through e-mail don't just get angry -- they get busy clicking the "Forward" button to circulate your rudeness, adding a few pithy comments of their own.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: My younger brother recently announced his engagement to a girl he met two months ago (she's 19, he's 22). He's never met her family, and she's never met ours.

The thing that worries me (and everyone I've talked to, including my parents) is that when he called to ask her father for permission to marry her, Mr. Future-Father-in-Law said he required three or more letters of reference before he'd consent.

My brother says that her father is joking but serious at the same time, and that he really does want the recommendations. Her mother even said the letters would be on display at the reception so guests could read them.

My side of the family agrees that this is completely tacky, but my brother refuses to listen. Is it customary (or even polite) to ask a future son-in-law for letters of reference? If not, what's the best course of action?

GENTLE READER: First is for your family to stop sneering at a parent for wanting to know something about the stranger his teen-age daughter has agreed to marry although she hardly knows him herself. The business term "letter of reference" and the threat to display proof of respectability may be jokes, but the need to know something about him is serious and responsible.

Next is to initiate an acquaintance with the bride's parents. This is the duty of the prospective bridegroom's parents when an engagement occurs, and Miss Manners is sure that you would not want them to think you are so tacky as to be ignorant of that rule.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have lost 50 pounds, so it is obvious to people that I am watching what I eat. The personal questions that I get asked are a whole other subject!

I know that when people have food to share, it is polite to offer it to you. I feel that it is rude when I have to say "no" more than two times (I really do not like to say it more than once, but I have to be patient), and I have heard from others that people will act insulted if you refuse their dish, like when people bring cakes and cookies into work.

What is the proper response to a food pusher to let them know that I am strong about my response? What is the proper number of times to offer treats to someone? I speak for many dieters who do not feel they have to tell someone that they are watching what they eat.

GENTLE READER: The proper response is "No, thank you," and you keep saying it until people take no (thank you) for an answer. Miss Manners urges you to repeat it in full confidence that the rudeness here is neither in offering food nor in refusing it, but in pushing it.

That this is a problem in your office astonishes Miss Manners. Every other office in America issues complaints about someone who gobbles more than their fair share of the communal snacks.

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