DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a busy hairstylist, and I run a tight ship where clients are seldom kept waiting. However, I am frequently kept waiting by clients who feel that it is their God-given right to be on their cell phones during their whole appointment. They are too busy talking to even greet me.

I had one such client, who walked in on the phone, talked DURING her color application, the entire processing time, her shampoo (I had to signal for her to change ears so I could properly rinse the color out), the conditioning, the final rinse and her bang trim. When I turned my blow dryer on, she snapped her fingers at me and pointed in the most imperious manner possible.

I was so flummoxed by her rudeness that I meekly turned the dryer off. I am a person who is seldom at a loss for words, but this left me speechless.

I also decided that I would no longer put up with this kind of behavior, so I wrote to her and "fired" her. I sent her check back as well and kept a copy of the letter, just in case.

I want the message to get out: Clients, do not be rude to your stylists, we are people, too, and are highly sensitive, as most artistes are!! We love to visit with our clients, and become part of their lives, so please do not treat us as nonentities by spending the bulk of your appointment chatting on your cell phone. Please limit cell use for REAL emergencies ONLY.

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners was with you, even through the part about being a sensitive artiste, which she believes to be an oxymoron. Conducting business with you must take priority over whatever else the client is doing to pass the time. It is rude for her to fail to greet you, to be unable to comply with directions, to keep you waiting and, most certainly, to snap her fingers and point. If she were committing the common offense of talking too loudly, that, too, would be rude.

But when you declare that the opposite of being treated as a nonentity is to be part of your clients' lives, and you resent their visiting with others because you want them to visit with you, you and Miss Manners part company.

You perform a professional service. No matter how many people choose to confide in their hairdressers, you cannot consider that politeness demands that all clients do so. Miss Manners would imagine that others in your business would be relieved to be allowed to go about theirs.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Today my boss told me that while I was at lunch, my daughter called twice and wanted me to return her call on her cell phone. My boss often offers her unsolicited opinions and enjoys scolding people. She said that she almost asked my daughter if she was driving while talking on her cell phone.

While I also do not approve of driving while talking, I would never reprimand my adult daughter for doing so, and it is not illegal (yet) in our area. What assertive response could my daughter make if my boss scolds her in the future?

GENTLE READER: You mean such as "Mind your own business," which, in this case, would apply literally?

Miss Manners is afraid that polite people are never permitted to use this phrase. Instead, they pronounce "How very kind of you to take an interest" so coldly as to create the same effect.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am 23 and about to move in with my boyfriend, "Greg." My mother, with whom I am close, likes Greg very much. The problem? Greg smokes cigarettes -- as I have, but do not any longer. Mom is vehemently opposed to smoking, which is understandable and her right. She is now threatening to write Greg and inform him that if he doesn't quit immediately, she "can't approve" of our plans to cohabitate -- and my mother's disapproval, even the threat thereof, is a sharp and icy thing indeed.

I understand that she is worried about secondhand smoke (Greg does not smoke in the house) and about me taking up the habit again (I have no interest whatsoever in doing so). However, I maintain that it is presumptuous and rude for an unrelated individual to tell a grown man what he can and can't do in his own home (or on his own front porch, as is the case here). Mom says that "when it comes to deadly addictions, manners don't apply."

I do not object to Mom's opinions. I do object to her horning in and bullying my beloved. What does Miss Manners think?

GENTLE READER: Oh, Miss Manners is only thinking how little the world changes. The same scene could have taken place 50 years ago, except that your mother would not have dared criticize an adult's smoking, and would have instead poured that emotion into the issue of cohabitation.

Whatever upsets her, she should not be invoking that clause about suspending manners in an emergency, which only applies to immediate emergencies. For example, if Greg were to set the house on fire, she could override the rule against shouting orders and scream, "Get out!"

But Miss Manners notices that you are overlooking another clause that does apply, which is that a mother may voice her worries about a child of any age.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: It is your 19th birthday, and your boyfriend of one month is taking you out for dinner. When the check comes, he pays in cash. As you glance in the direction of the tray with the bill, you see that he has mistakenly put in too little money.

Do you point out the mistake, although you are not supposed to be peeking at the bill, or let the waiter do it?

I kept silent, but I can't help wondering if there was a way of subtly indicating the problem that would have saved him from the situation of the waiter returning and asking for the rest of his payment while preserving my facade of innocence.

GENTLE READER: If you are not paying the bill, Miss Manners is afraid that you will have to trust the young gentleman to do it. And you will have to trust the waiter to say, "Excuse me, sir, would you check that total again, please?"

Anyone can make a mistake. But not everyone wants to go around with someone who is looking over his shoulder to catch him at it.

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On today's menus, the choice is between being a pig or a monster.

In some kinds of restaurants, the menu offers you heaping platters of jumbo-sized items, juicy, aromatic and smothered or swimming in creamy or crispy or crunchy additions. In another sort, it invites you to devour the helpless, apparently plucked before its time, as everything is described as being baby, tiny, petit or miniature.

Naturally, it is these downsized versions that are considered upscale. But holding the adjectives does not seem to be a choice in any establishment.

Miss Manners realizes that commercial menus are intended as advertising, a literary form not generally characterized by restraint. Therefore, the question of taste in the etiquette sense, as opposed to taste in the sense of revving up the appetite (beyond what it must already be to have delivered itself to a restaurant), might not apply.

However, there are restaurants that do wish to appear tasteful in both senses, harking back to the time when their predecessors strived to approximate grand-scale private service. These are the ones that refer to themselves as "elegant," which is their first mistake. "Elegant," used in regard to just about anything except mathematical solutions, is a tip-off to persnickety people that something is the opposite of what it pretends to be.

"Entree" is another unfortunate menu word. Taken from the stupifyingly long list of courses put before our hardier predecessors, it is not the main course, but the course before the main course. The typical true entree is sweetbreads, or perhaps eels, which may not be what today's diners have in mind.

It would be a good idea to skip the temptation to gussy up menus with high-school French, other than terms that have passed into the international culinary vocabulary (such as hors d'oeuvre, unfortunately not always presented with its correct spelling). French restaurants would be granted an exception if American establishments abroad were accorded equal respect.

British-isms are also dangerous. Many a highfalutin establishment now offers "high tea," in ignorance of the fact that the term refers to nursery supper, while the afternoon event with dainty sandwiches and scones is merely called "tea."

There are even some perfectly good words from American English that are unsafe in the hands of menu writers. "Fresh," in regard to orange juice, no longer means that it comes directly from the orange; now it is "freshly squeezed," and even that is suspect. Besides, a menu on which some items are labeled "fresh" suggests that the others are not.

Miss Manners is concerned because, as the households that are needed in order to put on formal dinners have become rare, restaurant service has come to be considered the highest surviving standard. Oddly, even the compromises that restaurants must make because their clients, unlike guests, make their own choices from the menu -- and it is not seemly to leave hungry people to chew on their napkins while dinner is being cooked-- are thought to be correct. These include supplying bread and butter, although these are not part of a correct formal dinner, and serving the salad course before the main course.

However, she sees no necessity to bring kitchen jargon to the table.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Before baseball season starts, could you please answer a question for me. I was taught many years ago that one does not applaud the singing or playing of our national anthem, but instead treats it with reverence as one would a hymn. Am I correct?

GENTLE READER: Yes, but try and explain that to people who recognize no greater authority than entertainment, and therefore know of no higher show of reverence than applause.

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