The tabloids at the supermarket check-out counters must be turning timid. Customers who should be concentrating on how movie stars manage to get disillusioned after only two days of marriage are, instead, focusing their attention on one another.

Miss Manners knows how volatile a situation this is. With nothing to do but stand in line, they turn into etiquette vigilantes. They have no trouble finding outrageous offenses.

There is the trickster who gets into the express lane by counting two lemons as one item. And the criminal who secures an illicit advantage by leaving a half-filled basket in line and then darts off to collect more groceries. And the dummies who try several swipes before they figure out which way to insert their credit cards.

They are generally met with glares that can sizzle steak and sotto voce comments that can be heard as far away as the produce department. But lately, Miss Manners has been hearing more ominous analyses of scofflaw strategies and motives.

"I was at the supermarket waiting in line for one of those automatic teller machines," reported one Gentle Reader, "and I've been waiting for five minutes or more on my lunch break and I'm itching to get back. I was distracted for a moment when I was next in line and this woman and her kid cut in and started using the next available teller.

"Now part of me is thinking, did she just cut in line or what? Then I thought, who is worse, me telling a mother off because she did something so stupid like that and she hopes that people will keep their mouths shut because she has her kid with them, or her because she's doing stuff like that with her child in tow thinking that nobody will say anything?"

The next Gentle Reader was at the deli counter. "Ahead of me was a lady who arrived just before I did. She proceeded to request five different items, all of which had to be sliced to her exact specifications, and one or two of her selections required discussion beforehand. The lady behind the counter was not exactly moving at snappy speed, nor did she request help. It took about 10 minutes, and by the time it was done, three people had lined up behind me.

"But at last the lady moved away, and the counterperson had taken my order, when suddenly the first customer was back, wanting to know about a spot on her bologna -- a spot that was there because it had been cut off the end of the loaf. She asked for substitute slice, which the counter lady did, abandoning me in mid-order.

"I was silently seething at this last, pointless delay when the lady turned to me and said, 'Sorry.' I suppose she expected me to say, 'Oh, that's all right,' but, in fact, it wasn't. I was annoyed. So I said nothing, and did not look at her.

"When she got her bologna back she went away in a huff. Was I wrong in inflicting the silent treatment? I run into this situation often enough that I wonder if the people at the front of the line aren't stretching things out as a strange little power trip."

Miss Manners sympathizes with people who are kept waiting by miscreants or fussbudgets, and has no objection to polite protests, such as "Excuse me, but I believe I'm next" or "Could you finish my order first, please?"

But when she hears dark speculation about a power trip at the deli counter, or the use of a child as a human shield to cut ahead, she worries that there must be a national dearth of headline-worthy sex scandals.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was told that in a restaurant the man should sit on the outside so as to be closest to placing the order with the waiter or waitress. My boyfriend insists that he sit so that his back is not facing the room. Please advise.

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners must advise you that the gentleman either has serious enemies, or he is making some.

If he wants to keep his back to the wall so that no one can sneak up and attack him, you might want to know why. If he merely likes to sit there and considers it irrelevant that you or anyone else might also prefer that position, you might want to know that. Either way, he is in danger.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a teenage girl and I am about to send out invitations to my birthday slumber party. Within my group of friends, there are a couple of people I am not close with and who have not invited me to their parties. I see no reason why I should invite them, when they did not invite me, even though I am inviting a lot of people.

Should I just invite them anyways, considering they might find out about my party, or is it OK to not invite them? I am fairly baffled, please help!

GENTLE READER: You were doubtless brought up on the kindly principle of not letting anyone feel left out. "You wouldn't want to hurt anyone's feelings," you were told when you first learned to draw up a guest list and were relishing the idea of the enemies and losers you hoped to exclude.

Miss Manners is gratified that you have retained the desire to avoid hurting feelings, but she can offer you some relief. You don't have to spend the rest of your life entertaining everyone you know. The hurtful part is inviting almost an entire category of people -- for example, everyone in your first-grade class, or all the children on your block -- except for one or two. Within general circles of friends, and presuming you reciprocate the invitations you accept, you are free to pick and choose.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My boyfriend and I live in a two-bedroom apartment, and our master bedroom has a king-size bed. We have a guestroom with a full-size bed and its own bathroom. He believes that, when his parents visit, we should let them sleep in our bedroom and we should sleep in the guest room since our bed is larger and more comfortable.

I believe that the guest room is for guests, and we should stay in our own room. My boyfriend also insists that his parents sleep in a queen-size bed at home, so it would be rude for us to expect them to sleep in a full-size bed in our apartment. This has become a sore point between us.

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners trusts that each of you is motivated solely by the desire to make his parents as comfortable as possible during their stay. She surmises that he believes that they would be more comfortable in a larger bed, and you believe that they would be more comfortable knowing that they had not displaced you.

Isn't that right?

No matter. The point is that you each have a valid and respectable argument, even if you didn't realize until now that you did.

Therefore Miss Manners suggests putting the question to the parents. This is in your interest. Any halfway polite guests will protest that they would be happy anywhere, and wouldn't dream of allowing their hosts to be inconvenienced.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: Perhaps you saw an article about a couple who had a modest wedding, where the bride is quoted as saying, "My attitude was, take Miss Manners and throw her out the window."

(I believe she was referring to the proverbial Miss Manners, and not your august personage.)

What distressed me about this was not that the bride was presented as an anomaly, because she clearly is, but that the couple's decisions were portrayed as almost freakishly anti-etiquette. Imagine -- planning your wedding in only three months! Establishing a budget and sticking to it! Paying for the event yourselves! No monogrammed bar napkins! Buying your attendants' dresses secondhand! Accepting a donated cake from a relative! No cash bar! Decorating the hall yourselves! Assuring your guests that you already had everything and no gifts were necessary!

In the words of the groom, "We believe in spending what you can afford. It's not about impressing people. Our thing was to have a nice party and celebrate our marriage." The only impropriety I noted was the bride's directing people to give her cash toward some living-room furniture or donate it to a charity if they couldn't bring themselves to skip giving a gift.

In fact, her wedding struck me as deeply proper, if propriety is defined as staging a modest wedding that pleases you and your guests, and does not place your friends and family in some sort of indentured servitude. Indeed, the whole affair sounded curiously old-fashioned.

GENTLE READER: Thank you for saving Miss Manners' life.

She did see the article. Fearing that her life's work of fighting vulgarity, greed and pretentiousness had come to naught, and that the powerful propaganda of the wedding industry had succeeded in conveying the belief that etiquette condemns consideration, modesty and prudence, Miss Manners was going to save the bride the trouble of tossing her out the window. She was going to jump.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Upon learning that I had found a new job, a former boss sent me a congratulatory note that included the phrase, "We miss you here."

I would have welcomed this sentiment, except that she was the one who had terminated my prior employment. So far I've been a good sport about her power-play-disguised-as-layoffs. Must I continue to hold my tongue?

GENTLE READER: Have you considered the possibility that your former boss does miss you, regrets having let you go, and is paving the way for someday wooing you back?

Miss Manners can hardly think of a more satisfactory impression for a terminated employee to leave. "They'll miss me when I'm gone" is surely the fantasy of everyone who feels unfairly treated.

However, you can probably fix that, as well as any chance of your needing her recommendation or wanting to work there ever again. An unleashed stream of rudeness would be a comfortable reminder that she no longer has to deal with you.

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