DEAR MISS MANNERS: Could you kindly advise on how to graciously, efficiently and politely cancel a party (dinner, cocktails) on the day of the party when treacherous driving conditions make it a hazard to venture out on the roads? Should the hostess or the guest call to cancel?

GENTLE READER: "Graciously, efficiently and politely" is not enough in this case. Miss Manners is afraid that it is also necessary to sound panicky. Either guest or host may accomplish this with the proper tone of hysteria.

"I don't know what to do," the guest wails. "I was so looking forward to this evening, and now we're afraid to risk it because the streets are all ice and they're issuing warnings."

The host's version is, "I've been agonizing, because I'm dying to see you, but I simply can't let you endanger yourself by coming out in this weather. We'll do it another time."

Then they can both settle down for a cozy hot toddy in their respective homes.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband and I own a cottage with three of his siblings. As we all have different decorating tastes, it has become difficult to agree on what decorations have been brought into the cottage.

There is one decoration that I feel is absolutely tasteless and wondered what you think I should do about it. My sister-in-law framed a picture of her 22-year-old son on the toilet and put the picture on a shelf in the bathroom next to the toilet.

I really don't think it's appropriate. We have many guests and visitors (many of them are children) and I'm embarrassed by the picture. I have turned it around and placed it in a drawer, but it always ends up on display. I even tried moving the picture to a bookshelf in a different room, so it wouldn't be as conspicuous, but as I feared, my sister-in-law moved it back to the bathroom shelf.

During my last visit to the cottage I took that picture and hid it where nobody will ever find it. Was that the right thing to do? This is a serious letter. My husband's family feels I'm being too sensitive and unnecessarily offended.

GENTLE READER: That's not a tasteless decoration; it's a tasteless joke. Miss Manners realizes that this doesn't make the picture any prettier, but it does make it easier to deal with.

People get touchy when their notions of tasteful decoration are questioned, but they are happy to blame failed jokes on other people's deficiency of humor. To encourage this, you should tell your sister-in-law apologetically that you are afraid that uptight people are squeamish about her little joke and that furthermore, you are afraid you are one of them. Thus removing the picture -- especially now that everyone has seen it -- would be a kind concession to your fastidiousness, not an admission of her vulgarity.

And what do you care, so long as the vulgar thing is gone?

DEAR MISS MANNERS: A "casual" friend of 20-plus years called me with the exciting news of her daughter's engagement and told me to "save the date." She filled me in on the wedding plans, sought my advice on altering her heirloom wedding gown and asked me to clip the engagement announcement from the newspaper.

As the "saved date" approached, no wedding invitation came in the mail. About one month prior to the wedding, we received an invitation for another affair on the same date. I was uncertain of what to do. Should I call my friend and ask if the promised invitation was forthcoming?

I concluded that such a phone call could cause embarrassment (canceled wedding?) and chose to accept the other invitation. A few days following the "wedding date," we received a beautiful wedding announcement! Obviously, we were cut from the "A" list! We responded with a modest gift and card. I have said nothing, but am hurt and offended. When the "promised" invitation was not delivered, should I have called my "friend"? After all, it could have been lost in the mail and my lack of response would have been perceived as rude.

GENTLE READER: You could have called and asked if you were saving the correct date, but it is probably just as well that you did not. In that case, Miss Manners is afraid that your putative friend would have had to invite you, after all. And then, having admitted to saving the date, you would have had to attend.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have a single male friend who is a serial monogamist. He dates one woman exclusively and devotedly for about six months, and then, inevitably, he ends the relationship.

It's bad enough that he does this to relative strangers, but he's also working his way through all the single women in our common group of friends. I hate what he's doing to himself, but also to our group as a whole.

His exes bear him ill will, of course, but so do the rest of us. Inviting "the gang" over for any social gathering can be a diplomatic nightmare, and we are all getting sick of losing friends-who-are-girls.

I also think this guy has a serious problem above and beyond a garden-variety type of commitment phobia. I think he needs counseling. So my question is, should I say something to him?

I am happily married so I'm off his romantic radar. He and I have been friends for eight years. Furthermore, if he were an alcoholic or clinically depressed, or in need some other way of a friend's intervention, I'd do it. And frankly, at this point, I think we as a group may decide to vote him off our proverbial island if he keeps hurting people we like.

GENTLE READER: The last Miss Manners heard, dating was not classified as a disease.

Isn't the whole idea of it to keep getting to know different people until you find one you want to keep? It is really not becoming in happily married people to chastise their single friends for not settling down with people whom they have found disappointing. And you never know what might work out -- as the ladies in your group surely thought when they took their chances with your friend, in spite of having observed the same pattern you did.

But if he does not necessarily have a psychological problem, you surely have a social one. The counseling you can offer is the warning that you plan to keep inviting your friends from whom he has unhappily parted, and unfortunately will not be able to include him at such times.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am an employee at a grocery store, and I push carts. I got to tell you pushing carts is a hard job. I be out in the parking lot sometimes by myself and I got to deal with a lot of carts people just throw there any where. When it's busy like Friday, Saturday and Sunday and after 4 p.m., I struggle pushing carts. People will see you coming with carts and cut you off. They run past stop signs.

I try not to grab so many carts because I don't want to hit a car. Sometimes it's hard to catch a break.

GENTLE READER: It is. Miss Manners would like to recommend to your employers that they issue you an orange or red vest and a hand-held stop sign as an indication of authority over the rude.

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