DEAR MISS MANNERS: Although our society has become quite informal in recent years, I still find occasions where the personal social card would be useful.

In the past, ladies indicated their day at home in the lower left-hand corner of the card. I do not have a regular day at home, but would, on occasion, like to use the card to indicate a day or series of days when I will be at home to callers.

Is it acceptable to pencil or ink that information in, or would it be more appropriate to have separate cards printed?

GENTLE READER: Are your friends familiar with this custom? Miss Manners remembers it fondly, but then her memory goes back a long way. Others might think that you accidentally sent out the card on which you had written your regular hair or therapy appointment.

She does not want to discourage you from allowing your friends to drop by informally on a specific day when they know they will always find you at home. It is a charming custom and peculiarly suited to today's bad habits, as it is one of the few recognized (or once-recognized) social events to which an advance commitment is unnecessary.

But you will have to make allowances for social change. To begin with, the mail service will no longer accept the tiny personal card, so you should use the larger-sized "informal" or "correspondence" card. This has more room for a message, which is fortunate, because you can no longer merely write "Tuesdays after five" or even "at home Tuesdays" and expect anyone to understand it as an invitation. If you ask people specifically over for the first such day and explain your plan to them, perhaps they will catch on, and you will have revived a very pleasant tradition.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: On several occasions I made a couple of short outfits and dresses for my two great-grandchildren (ages 2 and 4), the children of my grandson and his wife, who live out of state. I never received acknowledgements of these gifts but knew they did receive them.

My daughter-in-law told me that my grandson's wife expects my grandson to send a card of thanks because I am his grandmother and not hers. I feel that the mother in the family usually does the card sending (since these are her children, too), and the father usually leaves this up to his wife. Who is right?

GENTLE READER: Nobody. The great-grandchildren are held blameless on grounds of youth and presumed illiteracy, and the rest of you are all focused on the wrong question. Including you, Miss Manners regrets to say.

The point, surely, is that you were never thanked. Whether this is done by the lady of the house or the blood relative or whichever of them has legible handwriting is an issue for them to decide between themselves. To let the task go undone because they are unable to settle this is inexcusable.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: When a widow who lives alone has others over for dinner, who sits at the head of the table? I recently had two couples over for dinner, and one of my gentleman guests was taken aback that I sat at the head of the table. Was I incorrect?

GENTLE READER: No, but Miss Manners assures you that you would have a hard time being less correct than your guest.

First, he has no business appearing taken aback at your seating arrangements, even if you choose to place yourself in the middle of the table as a centerpiece. Second, a hostess always presides over her own table, whether or not there is a host at the opposite end.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am encountering a new form of customer service with more and more frequency. Often when I walk into a bank, one or two people will shout a greeting to me across the bank lobby. However, they are unable to assist me with my banking needs because they need to be available to shout a greeting at the next customer who walks through their door, so I have to go wait in line for the next teller to help me anyway.

Another example is the video rental store. These customer-service-prone employees also holler a welcome to me from over by the counter as I enter their store. To do so, they must take time away from the customer they are actually helping, and I never hear them say "excuse me a moment" to me when I am the customer being helped and they turn to holler at someone entering their store.

Also, when I wait in line at a department store cash register, I will often be asked, "Miss, Miss, Madam, Madam?" with ever increasing volume until I respond, and then, "Can I help you?"

Sounds good? But they are in the middle of helping a customer who is in front of me, who, for all the logic I can muster, is not signing her credit receipt fast enough for the sales clerk. When I do answer and say that I have a question or a purchase or whatever, the answer I get is that they will be with me in a moment.

Duh! That's why I'm patiently waiting my turn in line. Maybe this last example is just an overly zealous department trying its hand at multitasking.

I appreciate these establishments for trying to provide customer service, so can I try to ignore them, as though I cannot hear them, until it is my turn in line? Is there a better response?

GENTLE READER: That would be to return the greeting upon entering a store, and, at the counter, to reply with your need so that the clerk can be thinking ahead.

Miss Manners is aware that the most unexceptionable courtesy becomes charmless when turned into policy and repeated by rote. Still, it is better than omitting the courtesies. To acknowledge a customer's arrival is polite, no matter how awkwardly done. Please do not discourage it.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was recently invited to a brunch in honor of friends who were recently engaged to be married. The brunch is being hosted by the parents of the groom to be. My question is this: In addition to a gift for the engaged couple, does etiquette also require a gift for the host and hostess?

GENTLE READER: No, but the question that is probably torturing you is: Where is all this going to end? There will be the wedding showers, the celebratory parties, the housewarming, the anniversaries, the re-enactment...

Are you going to have to furnish your friends' entire lives?

Miss Manners assures you not. Neither engagement presents nor host presents for parties is obligatory. You may want to bring one anyway, but two would be overdoing it.

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