DEAR MISS MANNERS: My 20-year-old daughter was recently married. She is also pregnant. One of the guests at the wedding gave a gift of Pampers and baby wipes. I was simply livid. It was such poor taste. I would like to know what is an appropriate response to this obvious slight.

GENTLE READER: A letter of thanks for a useful, if not glamorous, present.

Miss Manners does not understand why this troubles you. It is an insult to insinuate that a bride is pregnant, or at least it used to be. But one who is frankly so can hardly take offense when this is recognized.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My girlfriend puts bacon bits on her salad, something I find disgusting. I tell her this is "gross." She says it is rude of me to comment negatively about her food. I say this is not rude of me, that I think it is gross even though she doesn't. Please help us settle this.

GENTLE READER: What is gross here is your putting your nose into someone else's salad. Miss Manners would say that the lady only erred in not going far enough. Even monitoring what others eat is rude, much less commenting on it. Even more serious an etiquette travesty is your assumption that thinking something justifies saying it.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My family has joined a local swimming pool that has a very nice children's pool. There is a fee for bringing guests. We occasionally invite friends and pay the fee. I know that some friends would like to be invited more frequently and wonder why we don't ask them. I am fairly certain that they are not aware of the guest fees. I would love for them to join us more often, but simply cannot afford to pay to bring guests regularly. Is there a polite way to let them know that they are welcome to join us if they are willing to pay the fee?

GENTLE READER: Although this sounds more like a neighborhood cooperative than a private club, it is ungracious to suggest to guests that they reimburse you for inviting them as guests.

But why don't you invite them to become members? People whom you like, and who enjoy going there often sound like obvious candidates. At the least, this will give you an excuse to inform them of the joining cost, the dues and other charges, such as guest fees. If they choose not to join, they will still be able to guess why you do not invite them more often.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband's bachelor habit was to accept invitations to other people's homes, yet never invite those people to dinner at his home. Did I acquire all of his social debt when we married?

Now, most of it is good debt, to people with good character who I'm looking forward to knowing. However, there is also bad debt to a certain couple he was chummy with. It's not a matter of personality, but of character. They were open adulterers at one point, and they have always been gossips. I'm acquainted with them.

Going forward, he's agreed with me that "we" don't have to condone their kind of behavior by socializing with them. He's said that he'll do me the favor of not accepting invitations to their home anymore. In the future, he will limit his time with them to public spaces and I can decline pleasantly.

But what about the past social debt? Does it ever expire? If it doesn't, is there any way to minimize the pain with this gossipy couple? Can one dinner in my home pay off, say, five in their home from the past three years?

GENTLE READER: The situation is worse than you thought. Miss Manners is sorry to have to tell you that the very people who never held it against your husband for failing to reciprocate will soon be declaring you antisocial. "She won't let him see his friends," they'll say, as if you kept him locked in the basement.

You could, of course, ignore this, since you are not crazy about these people anyway. But it is also kind of you to recognize his debt and make a token repayment. By that, Miss Manners means that yes, you can reciprocate with a single dinner. The household is, after all, under new management, although Miss Manners trusts it is still a partnership and that you will not run up social debts you do not intend to pay.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My mother passed away after being in the hospital and nursing homes for over 13 months. Although her rheumatoid arthritis didn't cause her death, she suffered from it for many, many years. I had made it known to family members through my husband and in-laws that if anyone wanted to make a donation in her name that I would like it to be made to the Arthritis Foundation.

Imagine our surprise when I received a note from my sister-in-law's parents informing me that they made a donation in my mother's name to a charity they supported (it was to the school her father went to which my mother did not have link to). We have asked several friends and family members what they thought of this and have had a mixed response.

What do you think? Is it proper to make a donation to a charity you support in the name of someone else as a memorial?

GENTLE READER: No, but neither were they obliged to donate to the charity you chose. Miss Manners notes that you, as well as they, have accepted the notion -- widely promoted by charities -- that donations can serve another purposes in addition to helping the direct beneficiary: Honoring someone else and getting credit for oneself. You intended the former, but they chose the latter -- and it was their money.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was taught that when you used a guest towel in a powder room or ?bathroom, you crumpled it and left it, obviously used, on the counter. Just as you leave a used ?linen napkin crumpled beside your plate after a meal.

After a visitor has used the facilities, rather than gathering up a ?couple of guest towels for the ?laundry, all the towels on display have to be laundered because you ?have no idea which one was ?used.

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners has dreadful news for you. Brace yourself.

None of those towels was used. That's right. Those guests, whose hands you so warmly shook at their departure, probably didn't wash.

No, wait, that's not quite fair. Some may have used tissues they had in their pockets. Some might have used the toilet paper and then re-flushed. Some might have stayed in the bathroom until their hands air-dried.

But all of them were reared with the idea that a guest towel is a totem object that one must never touch, even when one happens to be a guest. They will use your own private bath towel, if they can find it, rather than sully a guest towel.

Why this is, Miss Manners cannot say. Even people with no discernable manners adhere to this peculiar belief. They would argue that this saves work for the hostess, as if she would welcome such an unsavory and unsanitary practice. Alas, as you point out, it doesn't even do that.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Next year my parents will have been married for 50 years. Quite an ?accomplishment except for the fact that for approximately 15 of those ?years, my father was having an affair of which my mother, myself and ?my siblings knew.

It is also possible that the affair continues to ?this day, but I think you will appreciate the fact that I don't want ?to ask or even know.

How should we handle the anniversary next year? I think it would be ?extremely hypocritical to celebrate it any way but perhaps very ?privately. All of us, my parents, siblings and spouses, know the ?history of the relationship and can perhaps at least celebrate its ?tenacity.

My sister, however, would like to have a bigger celebration ?of perhaps 100 people, some who know of the history, some who don't. ?I'm not comfortable with that as I really don't see that this is a ?marriage to celebrate. Affair or no, it's a miserable relationship.

GENTLE READER: Have either you or your sister attempted to find out what your mother would like? It is possible that she may feel that such a party is a public affirmation of the marriage. Or she may feel that there is not much to celebrate.

She should be given the choice. Your grim comfort will be that your father has forfeited the consideration of having a say in the matter.

But please don't tell Miss Manners that you can't ask your mother because you want to surprise her. Surely she has had enough surprises in this marriage.

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