DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have just started life in a dorm and I find it hard to meet people or strike up conversations. Do you happen to have any pointers to this?

GENTLE READER: Do your laundry.

Miss Manners does not intend this as a comment on your hygiene, which she has not the least desire to examine. Laundry rooms are the respectable place for accidental meetings, in dormitories and apartment buildings. They provide a legitimate excuse for clean people to hang out with nothing much to do and such surefire conversation starters as "Oops, I forgot my soap."

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have a question regarding the proper placement of pillows. When pillows are placed onto a bed (in a pillowcase), should the open end of the pillowcase face the middle of the bed or the edge of the bed?

This has become quite a quandary for me and my girlfriend. She will gladly admit that when the pillowcase has a decorative border, it is appropriate to place them with the opening to the edge of the bed. However, when there is no decorative border, she places them toward the middle of the bed.

When she makes the bed, I then turn around and adjust the pillows so that they are facing the edge of the bed. She will change the pillows around to face the middle of the bed (when there is not a decorative border) when I make the bed. This has become a little game that we play day in and day out. However, we would appreciate knowing if there is actually a "proper" way to do it, or if it really depends on what you like.

GENTLE READER: Conventionally, the open ends of the pillowcases are at the edges of the bed. However, you will be disappointed to hear that there is nothing proper or improper about aligning them as you wish. Miss Manners has no intention of marching into a couple's bedroom and rating for propriety the little games they play.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: On a trip to a big box store I noticed that a length of heavy rope had been tied into a lynching noose and laid out across the aisle. The history of lynching has recently received much media attention, and I live in a county that suffered more than its fair share of lynchings, so it is unlikely this was unintentional.

Most of the customers of this store are African-American. I untied the knot and put the rope away. I could have brought this to the attention of a manager, but I thought that if the symbol was removed without anyone having taken offense, then whoever did this would have failed to give offense. When someone chooses to give offense and no one notices, has no offense been given, or it is better for society if we make an issue of these things? It often feels as if the fuss that follows an anonymous hate crime is more damaging than the crime itself. Should I have called a manager?

GENTLE READER: If you were the manager, would you not want to be aware that someone was using your merchandise to imply that your customers were in danger of being lynched on the premises?

Miss Manners suggests that you ask yourself why. But here is the answer anyway: Your kind and quick response only solved the immediate problem. Management needs to be on the lookout in case the larger problem surfaces again.

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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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