DEAR MISS MANNERS: Every time my in-laws visit, they attempt to hijack my kitchen. As soon as they arrive, they run to the grocery store and buy groceries. It's not that my kitchen isn't stocked. I already have margarine and butter, for example, but I don't have the "right" brand of margarine or the kind of bread they prefer.

If I go to the grocery store, they accompany me and attempt to direct my shopping. My sister-in-law, for example, instructed me not to buy red meat -- I'd already served it too many nights in a row -- and inspected the lunchmeat I'd purchased because the one I'd bought before was "too greasy." My mother-in-law purchased some sour cream so as to modify a spinach dip I'd served, saying it was "too mayonnaise-y."

My mother-in-law attempts to usurp my menu by begging to prepare the meals, and sometimes, despite my firm objections, takes it upon herself to bake cookies or some other favorite dish in my kitchen.

Once she started a batch of cookies just a few hours before a dinner party, making it very difficult for me to prepare the meal.

I might add that, when we visit, my mother-in-law rebuffs any offers of help in the kitchen, even to assist with the cleanup.

I'm a decent cook, but she's convinced that she's an expert and therefore entitled to take over both at her house and mine. (Even though, I'm forced to point out, the meals she prepares usually consist of overcooked meat and a slightly rancid iceberg lettuce salad.) Also, she's utterly obsessed with her weight and has a morbid fear of consuming any calories not completely to her liking.

As I mentioned, I've been clear about my desire to manage the cooking and the kitchen, but, short of throwing an ugly fit, she's not going to get the message. Any suggestions for dealing with this boorish behavior?

GENTLE READER: In the same spirit your mother-in-law is exhibiting. But no, no, not boorishly. Tempting as it must be to tell them that it's your house, that your husband happens to prefer your cooking, and that they can clear out of the kitchen this instant, it would be not only rude but useless.

It would turn into a big daughter-in-law grievance -- that you can't cook and can't even behave yourself. From their point of view, all they are doing is making themselves at home in their own son's house and trying to help you out.

It is that spirit of bossiness disguised as politeness that Miss Manners wants you to adopt. You must announce that you are going to insist on pampering them -- they work so hard when you visit them that you simply won't hear of their lifting a finger. Then you can tell them to clear out of the kitchen this instant -- in an affectionate tone of concern for their welfare, as you forcibly steer them to comfortable chairs in the living room.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My siblings and I are planning a 30th-anniversary party for my parents. We'd like to include all of their friends and extended family, but none of us has much money.

Both parents have six siblings, so it'd be impossible to keep the guest list short without lots of hurt feelings. My sister suggested sending a letter to guests and asking for donations. I'm uneasy about this. Is there a good way to word such a request?

GENTLE READER: How about a nice family photograph, showing all of you, and saying "Please donate to the needy"?

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am interning this summer in a New York agency where, for lack of anything better to do, I read the paper and exchange e-mails with equally bored interns.

During my first weeks on the job, I started every morning by finding my bosses, apprising them of the work I'd done, and asking if they had anything else I should attend to. These appearances were met with blank stares, and then apologies: "Oh, I'm sorry, there's nothing ... we really can't think of anything for you to do right now."

Since these visits seemed more disruptive than helpful -- my bosses, after all, have "work" to do -- I no longer make special trips. Other than greeting them when they enter my office, or waving when I pass theirs, we don't have much contact. We go days without seeing each other, especially since I get to work before they do.

I've offered assistance to other interns, to their bosses, to our secretary; I feel rather fraudulent sitting here doing nothing on company time. Should I simply enjoy my freedom, having made it clear to all that I'm available by phone or e-mail whenever they need me? It's silly to complain about being paid to do nothing.

There was a rigorous application process for this position and my bosses know my qualifications and exactly how much they cost per diem. On the other hand, my bosses shouldn't have to track me down. Furthermore, the internship was taken to give me experience in the field, which I am not getting.

I'd like to be useful, but I certainly don't want to be annoying. Has my boredom driven me to over-think this? It's hardly the responsibility of my bosses to keep me busy -- or is it?

GENTLE READER: Considering the number of full-time employees who spend their office hours exchanging personal e-mails and playing computer games, Miss Manners is amazed that your agency was not grateful to grab you to do the actual work. Or perhaps they are preparing you for the "work" that they really do.

As a matter of conscience, she believes you are in the clear. You have repeatedly made yourself available to earn your salary, and it is the agency that has let you down by lack of planning.

But you wanted to spend the summer advancing your career. You can do this by noticing what humble tasks need to be done around the office -- not poaching others' jobs but devising your own -- and doing them without asking. Miss Manners would not recommend this to a permanent employee, who would then get a reputation for "liking" to do humble jobs. But this will keep you alert to how the office functions, and make everyone miss you when you leave. Just be sure to bargain for a better-defined job if you decide to come back.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: How should one respond to friends or acquaintances boasting about actions that are rude (ostentatiously reading a book throughout a wedding reception because it was "boring") or wrong (lying on a tax return)?

I do not make a habit of criticizing others; however, I do not wish my silence to be taken as approval, as I'm sure it will be since such statements are generally accompanied by an unmistakable tone of self-righteousness.

GENTLE READER: If you want to make that tone of self-righteousness disappear, Miss Manners recommends saying, "Of course, you're joking. I'm sure that's what you wanted to do -- and who could blame you? -- but you didn't, because it would have been unspeakably rude (or dishonest)."

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It turns out that people do not like to be annoyed. Furthermore, they consider it annoying to be interrupted by sales pitches when they are at home minding their own business.

Who knew?

Well, the Federal Trade Commission knew some people felt that way when it offered its Do Not Call Registry, but not that millions of citizens would rush to get their telephone numbers declared legally off limits to telemarketers. "We all believed that we were totally on top of things and volume couldn't possibly exceed what we were planning for," an FTC spokeswoman was quoted as saying.

The American Teleservices Association must not have known, because it has made countless passionate declarations about the convenience it offers the public by initiating such calls. Detractors had it backward, they would argue: Telemarketers save people from the tedium of minding their own business by offering commercial alternatives. Now that it appears otherwise, the association hopes to invoke its constitutional right to annoy people, filing suit to block the registry as an infringement of free speech.

The pioneers of cyberspace didn't know, because they spent years extolling the joys of totally accessible communication -- right up until the time they couldn't find their own messages to that effect in the swamps of their own in-boxes. Internet providers and the United States Congress now know, because they are grappling with restraints against the annoyance of spam, not including their own mailings.

Miss Manners has always known, because dealing with telemarketers is a longstanding etiquette issue. Polite people fret that they would feel rude to hang up, and rude people entertain themselves by thinking of crushing things to say.

Telemarketers complain of that rudeness, either shamelessly ignoring the provocation they offer or shamefacedly pleading that they know they are annoying people, but they have to do so to make a living.

The conflict between annoyance and freedom, including economic freedom, is normally solved within the domain of etiquette, and it rarely lends itself to easy judgments. We want both, of course -- the right to be annoying, especially in the struggle to make a living, and the right to be free from annoyance.

Having rejected Old-World snobbery against doing business, Americans have been willing to put up with a lot in the way of commercial annoyance. We accept huge quantities of advertising in ever-expanding realms -- first television, then movies; first stadiums, then schools.

We're no longer shocked when friends, neighbors and their children use their personal connections to importune us to buy something. Indeed, reaching the status where you are paid to sell something that has little to do with your real accomplishments -- the celebrity endorsement -- is considered not just easy work for huge pay, but an honor.

And when we hear that millions of jobs will be lost, our instinct is to be sympathetic -- even when the job in question is to annoy us.

But apparently there is a limit. Don't clog up our telephones or our computers. We need to keep them free so that we can call and e-mail others whenever and however much we feel like it.

So don't ask, don't sell.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have read that it is not proper to address a woman in a letter as "Dear Ms. (second name)." A lady should always be addressed in a letter by her first name.

Now I understand that the latest trend is to address a woman exactly as a man, i.e. by her second name. Could you please settle this matter for me?

GENTLE READER: Only if you don't force Miss Manners to think about the reasoning behind your adviser's notion that ladies need not receive the respect that gentlemen do -- and your failure to realize immediately that there was something wrong with it.

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