DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is office etiquette regarding communal, or individual, refrigerators?

I am very fortunate that I work in an office that is, for the most part, a collegial and professionally supportive environment. You would think common sense would dictate behavior, but I am not currently in a position to re-educate my colleagues.

For medical reasons, I have a small refrigerator under my desk, in the typical contemporary office cube. After opening up its occasional use to a few colleagues who asked politely, it has become communal property. Yogurt, eggs and salad dressing hang around for months.

People bop in and out of my cube, shoving me aside (always saying "excuse me" as a form of polite interruption) while I'm on the phone at my desk. One person feels free to store containers that take up half the shelf space of a really small unit. Regular pleas to take stuff out go unheeded, so I throw them out with no reaction from those who deposited the things there. I feel like a mean or bad person to cut the use off to everyone because of a few bad apples. What do you think would be the appropriate way to address this little quality-of-life issue?

GENTLE READER: There is a larger, psychological issue here, and it illustrates why etiquette is not, as you and others think, entirely a matter of common sense.

It is that people think of office amenities as part of the institutional set-up, not as courtesies from their colleagues. They would know better if they truly thought about it, but they don't. The same people who would hesitate to take a peanut in your house unless you passed the bowl will stick a hand in a desktop candy jar without registering the fact that the individual sitting at the desk has had the courtesy to provide this.

Miss Manners does not want to suggest that you should stop being generous -- only that you should not surrender control of its limits. A policy of throwing out all food at the end of each work week, spoiled or not, and a lock on the door, so you can wave off people who disturb your work and turn away heavy loads, should regain you that.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is the proper way to write a thank-you note to several people who have given you a collective gift? Some friends recently surprised me with a bridal shower gift that they shopped for and purchased together. Of course I thanked them in person, but I want to follow up with a note of appreciation.

We're members of the e-mail generation, so I'm not sure if I can send a group e-mail to all of them, or if I should handwrite notes addressed to each of them, all saying basically the same thing.

GENTLE READER: E-mail is not a generation. It is one of many forms of written communication that we are fortunate enough to have at our disposal, and we are supposed to be able to choose the proper one for each occasion.

Miss Manners is a member of the horseless-carriage generation but she still knows how to ride a horse. (Sidesaddle.)

Thank-you letters must be written by hand to everyone who has given you a present.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have often frequented family restaurants that serve delicious large sandwiches. The problem? Often the sandwiches are too large, and even the toothpick in the center fails to keep them together. I find it impossible to eat one without part of the tomatoes and almost all of the mayonnaise, mustard and ketchup ending up on my fingers, face and shirt. Using a fork and knife is fruitless, because then the sandwich slides apart. Is there a way to enjoy the food without feeling like a slob of a diner?

GENTLE READER: No. Ask the waiter to take the sandwich back to the kitchen and have it cut into quarters. Or eighths, if necessary. Miss Manners does not believe in setting up food to be a trap to the diner, although she realizes that this is how most people think etiqueteers get their jollies.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am trying to save a friendship from a big social blunder. Please tell me if there is more I can do to make amends.

My husband and I have been friends for several years with another couple, one of whom is Jewish. We have spent several holidays together, including Passover Seders at their home. This year we received an invitation to attend the Seder from this couple. However, it was to be held at the house of a third couple we did not know well. We never received an invitation directly from the host couple.

For several reasons, it felt awkward to attend this event. We were feeling very stressed from our jobs, and not very social. However, we delayed making a decision about attending, so did not respond to either couple.

A few days before the event, my husband decided he did not want to attend. He said he didn't want to attend a Seder because he "wasn't Jewish." On the day before the Seder, the husband of the couple called us to see if we were coming. I said we were not, and very unwisely repeated my husband's reason, which he repeated to his wife.

The wife is very offended at the remark, and at our "canceling at the last minute." She told me this briefly when I forced a conversation, but she would not speak to my husband when he tried to talk with her. I wrote both of them a letter apologizing for our untimely response to their invitation and for my husband's thoughtless remark and my thoughtlessness in repeating it. I have said we respect her religion and are sorry to have caused offense. I have expressed a wish to continue the friendship.

There has been no response.

I cannot think of anything else to do. We encounter this couple regularly in social situations, and so the awkwardness continues. We feel sad that our thoughtlessness has caused us to lose a friendship.

GENTLE READER: First you insulted these people by ignoring their invitation. Then you insulted them by blaming your rudeness on the difference in religion. Plus you insulted them retroactively by indicating that you had not enjoyed their previous hospitality in the years that you did attend their Seders.

Miss Manners is afraid that this is not a small "whoops" that you can easily rescue. Or that you may be able to rescue at all. Short of claiming that your identities were stolen, there is no excuse for such responses to people whose only crime was to invite you to share a significant occasion.

She suggests conducting a campaign of abject apologies in which you toss in as many ways of blaming yourselves as possible. That, for example, you were afraid you would embarrass them in front of their friends because you knew so little about the occasion, even after those beautiful Seders you enjoyed with them in the past, and had meant to study up, but then...

Wait. It is not Miss Manners' job to find ways for you to grovel -- it is yours, and very much your husband's. Both of you should be doing that -- by letter, as they do not wish to talk to you about it.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I plan to have an open bar and high-school steel-drum band during the cocktail hour of my wedding reception. Gratuity is included in the amount I will pay the bartenders. I will also be paying the band, but it is a public school band, so, as you know, they are always in search of and in need of funding. Would it be rude to include in the program "Please do not tip the bartenders. However, please feel free to show the band your appreciation."

GENTLE READER: To give a fund-raising event for the school band would be an excellent idea, in Miss Manners' opinion. To give a wedding and instruct your guests to tip the people you have hired is not.

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