DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am an attorney. From time to time, I have lunch with my colleagues, both male and female, either for business, or pleasure, or both.

When I need to excuse myself to the ladies' room, I am never sure whether to take my purse and/or coat with me or leave it at the table, especially if it is at the end of the meal. I do not want my colleagues to feel obligated to watch my personal items, but I also don't want my colleagues to feel as though I don't trust them enough to leave these things behind.

When I'm with my friends, I just leave the items at the table, but I don't know if the business setting or the gender of my colleagues alters the protocol. What is the proper thing to do?

GENTLE READER: You may be worried about your possessions, but Miss Manners is worried about your colleagues. Why do you suspect them, unlike your friends? And what, exactly, do you suspect they'll do? Rifle your purse? Sit idly by while a stranger dons your coat and marches out? Or perhaps that they'll commit the etiquette crime of leaving without warning while you are in the ladies' room?

If so, you can take your things with you without fear of giving offense. The presumption will be that you took your purse because it contains lipstick that you will reapply in the ladies' room, and your coat because you plan to put it on there. Or -- if they are as suspicious of you as you are of them -- because you plan to slip out the back door and stick them with the bill.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: We live in one state, my son is marrying in a small wedding in a second state, and they will live across the country in a third state, where he is employed by a branch of our federal justice department.

The agents in this branch take great pains to protect information about their home addresses and telephone numbers, and all mail for them is sent to an agency box number. Packages that cannot be mailed to a box are shipped to the office address.

We are helping them by arranging for engraved announcements to be mailed on the day of the wedding, in the proper traditional form with the bride's parents announcing the wedding. How could we do "at home" cards? His and our friends, in town and out, do not know where they live.

GENTLE READER: And they don't want anyone to find out. This suggests that they should not be sending out "at home" cards, as the purpose of "at home" cards is to let interested people know where a newly married couple will be living. There is no formal way of saying, "We've moved, but we're not going to tell you where."

Miss Manners supposes that you merely want to assist polite people who will want to send congratulations (or even presents, although they should not be expected from announcements). She suggests putting whatever mailing address the couple uses as a return address on the envelope.

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Just when everything looked black, the emergency etiquette system kicked in. Miss Manners never ceases to be amazed at its power.

Campfire stories of the massive electric failure last month sparkled with illuminating examples. Consideration and camaraderie were being shown by people who would certainly not be chummy if they had anything better to do.

Those whose normal means of perambulation is to elbow one another off the sidewalk were stopping to lend a hand instead. Drivers who might have been running down pedestrians were offering them lifts. Neighbors whose only previous form of communication had been the complaint sat around chatting in the dark.

Some of the businesspeople who could have profited from the situation chose not to. There were more than a few vendors who lowered prices they might have raised and opportunists who decided not to go looting.

Miss Manners has noticed such outbursts of courtesy under stress occurring under many tragic circumstances. For the New Yorkers who were hit by the power outage, it was a small reprise of the spirit shown following the Sept. 11, 2001, attack; elsewhere, many found it reminiscent of the atmosphere during floods, tornadoes or other natural disasters.

As Miss Manners understands it, the formula is: The worse conditions get, the better people behave. Good times, bad behavior; bad times, good behavior.

This ensures that we always have troubles, if not from without, then from within.

After the 2001 tragedy, people were saying that life had changed forever, and now they were going to count their blessings and concentrate on what was important and never again grumble and fret over petty daily grievances.

"This is a wakeup call," is what people always declare each time things go wrong. That is when they promise to beef up security, lay in supplies, crack down on crime, fix the equipment or whatever else might offer retroactive reassurance.

Then comes the all-clear sign, signaling that the immediate threat is past and everyone can go back to being careless and snippy. It's impressive how resilient we are when it comes to reconstructing our shattered sense that life is irritatingly bad but not dangerous.

Miss Manners finds this understandable. How do you ordinarily react to a wakeup call, even one that you set yourself the night before? Don't you roll over and try to get back to sleep, trusting that the annoyance will go away if you ignore it?

However, the etiquette alert is different. The standard of behavior we exhibit during emergencies is not scary; on the contrary. It is a demonstration of how pleasant life can be when people treat one another courteously.

Furthermore, it is easily attainable. We may not be able to prevent natural disasters or eradicate crime, but we can create an amiable living environment by behaving ourselves. One might be forgiven for thinking "No, we can't" after observing people in their undisturbed habitat, but the examples when things go wrong prove otherwise. They also give the lie to the usual modern excuse of rudeness being the inevitable result of stress.

We needn't maintain the full heroic stance. Just the resolve to refrain from being annoying and aggressive would help. No need to go around handing strangers free bottles of water.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Like many office buildings, the one in which I work uses an access-card entry system. I keep my card in my wallet. Often, instead of taking out the wallet to run it by the sensor, I merely swivel my hip slightly to allow the card to be "read."

Is this hop move considered rude if (1) no one is in the vicinity? (2) I believe no one is seeing this? and (3) I'm only with close colleagues?

GENTLE READER: Rude? Actually, it sounds exciting. Miss Manners lives in a city with hardly a building standing that doesn't require an access pass or at least a show of identification, and none of them features a folk dance. Would you care to come to Washington, D.C., and teach it to us?

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: My son's public elementary school PTA is divided over whether or not to donate to a charitable cause. I'm curious which side you would support.

Here is the dilemma: The public school is desperately in need of repairs, new school supplies, an updated facility and various other real needs right at our school. For the last two years, the school has received a large donation from an anonymous source with the only stipulation that it be used toward arts education.

The school's PTA is very good at raising funds and has a surplus of money that must be used or will be lost. The school PTA decided to donate money to a charitable cause (a crisis nursery) in light of the 9/11 events. The idea was to donate the money to this cause in honor of the anonymous donor who has given the school funds in the past.

This does not make any sense to me. If you require money for your own needs and someone even gives you money to help with your needs, doesn't it seem irrational to then give some of your own money away in honor of that donor? I would think the anonymous donor would be scratching his head in disbelief. I guess the question is this: Should our public school donate to a charitable cause even if it has true needs of its own?

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners wouldn't do well in your school. She doesn't understand what is going on any more than you do.

There is the arithmetic problem: If the school has financial needs, how come it has a surplus of money?

Then there is the problem that has to do with logic, psychology and simple social skills: If someone has made a point of being anonymous, why would you want to single that person out publicly (knowing that even if the person's name is not used, this would excite curiosity)? And why would that person or anyone else donate money to an organization that has money to spare?

The lesson that your PTA needs is: If you can't afford it, you can't do it, even if what you want to do is a good deed. For extra credit, they should learn that even those who are strapped themselves can contribute to good causes by donating their time and effort.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: In addressing my wedding invitations, I am confronted with a dilemma. I understand that it is incorrect to address a widowed lady as "Mrs. Mary Jones," but that she remains "Mrs. Herbert Jones," as she has always been.

However, among my elderly relatives there are quite a few ladies who have been referring to themselves for decades in this "incorrect" way. Should I address them as they have chosen, or write to them by their "correct" title? In some cases, I would have to do some serious genealogical research to find out what their deceased husband's name had been, as they have been using this nomenclature for more than two generations' living memory! Should I not honor a lady's wishes in how she is named, if I know them?

GENTLE READER: Of course you should. Whether or not you plan to take your husband's name, don't you expect others to respect your choice? Miss Manners hopes that the research time you save will be employed learning that correcting others is even more seriously incorrect than whatever incorrectness you spot.

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