DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband and I have friends that stay with us at least one week ?each year, ?and although we enjoy their company, ?we desperately need your advice. We live in a small house and therefore it is impossible for more than two people to engage in ?prep work and cooking.

Our friends enjoy cooking as much as we do, and they insist on taking ?over our kitchen and preparing meals without our consent. We have tried ?sharing the experience, but each time it resulted in our being pushed out of the room.

It is stressful to plan meals because they want to ?participate in that, as well. They have no dietary restrictions, only palate ?restrictions, and ?despite the fact that none of us are professional chefs, and we entertain on a regular basis, ?we feel insulted that when it comes to this couple, our skills don't appear to cut the cake.

What does one do when guests feel comfortable whipping up meals, going ?through cupboards looking for ingredients, and taking cooking utensils ?out of our hands while forcibly insisting on preparing our meals?

I ?have made ?comments such as, "Oh please, allow me to cook for you. I enjoy it!" ?However ?my words are of no consequence. Are we being too controlling, or is it common ?for people to feel a bit territorial when it comes to kitchens?

GENTLE READER: So many hosts complain to Miss Manners that their guests won't lift a finger that she might be expected to tell you to be grateful. But don't worry. She understands why you must feel like braining these good people with one of your own frying pans.

It is not only because it would be rude and violent that you cannot clobber them. It is because of those good intentions.

While guests are supposed to be helpful, they are also supposed to accept the hosts' way of doing things. (And why shouldn't you feel territorial? It's your territory -- the whole house is.)

Miss Manners is afraid that you cannot entirely prevent them from offering their form of reciprocation. But you can get it under control if you out-gracious them.

Before they arrive, tell them that the cupboard is bare, but that you are shopping and need to know what they want in case they want to cook one of their lovely meals. You will then set aside a day for them to cook, and have the ingredients they need on the counter. Then pour yourself a drink and stay out -- or better yet, go out and take a walk -- while they are busy.

But you will also insist that they do the same -- go have a drink elsewhere while you cook, because the kitchen is so small it makes you nervous to have company there. Keep saying, "No, no, I want you to relax," as you push them out the kitchen door. And oh, yes -- keep your hands off the frying pan.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am getting married soon and I was wondering what the etiquette was for wedding cake toppers. Is it important to look like the cake topper? Is it important for the flowers on the topper to look like my fiance's flowers?

GENTLE READER: It is not necessary for bridal couples to make themselves resemble icing, although Miss Manners has observed that a not-inconsiderable number of them do.

Contrary to what the wedding industry may tell you, the decorative elements of weddings are not regulated by etiquette. You can even be legally married without choosing a color scheme. So have the flowers whatever color you like, or have figures that represent you or don't; anything that is not actually unappetizing is correct.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I received an e-mail from an acquaintance who is recently married and intentionally pregnant, asking if I might like "to be the coordinator of some support for us once the little one emerges. It would involve checking in with us on a regular basis about what kind of support we could use, and then a fair amount of e-mailing and phone calling (probably a few phone calls and/or e-mails a day) and making some sort of calendar to keep track of what, who and when. Needless to say, it would be a fantastic gift."

The over 50 friends and family members who also got this email were told, "If you don't want to organize but are interested in being on the help contact list, some suggestions we have been given for ways to be supportive are: meal drop off every other day or so, grocery shopping, helping clean or organize around the house (dishes, laundry, etc.). We are looking forward to sharing this immense transition with all of you."

Is their request appropriate? Worth noting is that both sets of the couple's parent are financially very well off and live within 10 miles of them. It seems that they are asking their friends to take on the job of volunteer nanny.

Several of my own friends and family read the e-mail and threatened to write you personally if I didn't. Some were even tempted to scold the couple directly. Any words of wisdom you care to impart?

GENTLE READER: Words would fail Miss Manners, had she not long been prepared by observing -- and trying valiantly to stem -- the rapid growth of shamelessness.

Weddings and childbirth are now commonly associated with demands for goods and services. Rather than risk depending on the good will of their relatives and friends, the principals demand to be given showers and parties, issue orders for tasks, and use registries to choose their own presents or frankly request cash. Enlisting others to become their servants, cleaning house, supplying meals and rounding up still more free help is only the obvious next step.

As with your acquaintance, they assume it will be taken as an honor to share -- share the costs and the work, that is, while they revel in the glory.

Why anyone goes along with this is beyond Miss Manners' understanding. No, you cannot scold such people, much as they deserve it. But you can ignore them, as you would any other outrageous solicitation, and if everyone did perhaps this abominable attitude would be supressed.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What are the appropriate steps to take when one accidentally accepts two invitations for the ?same day? It doesn't happen often, maybe once every couple years, but I recently accepted ?an invite to a dinner party only to remember a couple days later that I'd already promised to ?attend another event.

GENTLE READER: And you want to go to the second one, don't you? Miss Manners thinks that because you aren't already on the telephone to the second host, apologizing profusely for not having checked your calendar, sobbing about how you hate to miss it, and so on.

No, you can't do that to the first host, because he asked you first. Besides, more time has passed since you accepted that invitation than the second one, so it wouldn't be plausible. You must stick with the first host and grovel your apologies to the second one.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have frequently taken secret delight in eating asparagus with my fingers, which I know from your etiquette advice is correct. My husband and I were discussing this practice at the dinner table this evening, as we gently corrected our young offspring in their continuing efforts to pick up errant peas with their fingers.

This is something of a "tree falls in the forest" question: The asparagus rule is, in my experience, not very well known (although perhaps that says something about the company I keep). If one is attending a dinner party at which a lovely dish of lightly steamed asparagus is served, and one proceeds to convey one's stalks to one's mouth via fingers; if the other dinner guests are unaware of the asparagus rule and are shocked and offended, has a breach of etiquette been perpetrated?

Of course, polite people would not point out their dismay, and a polite person would not try to correct the offendees' erroneous assumption of wrongdoing. However, one can tell by the quietly shocked expressions, quickly masked, that one has offended.

In other words, if they don't know it's really OK, and they think you're a slob, have you committed an etiquette faux pas? If you suspect it might look pretty snooty to eat with your fingers and then quote Miss Manners as your authority, should you just quietly cut the asparagus with your knife and fork, as the hostess is doing? Is it correct to eat asparagus with knife and fork if you prefer?

GENTLE READER: Well, yes, it is also correct to eat asparagus without causing a sensation. But when you consider how few ways perfectly polite people have of causing a sensation, surely you will not begrudge Miss Manners this one.

It is true that on rare occasions, the super-polite may refrain from doing something correct to avoid embarrassing others. Stories about drinking the finger bowl water -- to prevent a misguided guest who has done so from the humiliation of knowing his error -- are attached to practically every halfway-humane monarch in history.

But that is not the same as running the risk of being thought incorrect when one is not. Miss Manners imagines that anyone so rude as to go around reporting this supposed error will eventually get his comeuppance from someone who knows the rule.

Nor is it a case of the tree in the forest. The true application of that to etiquette is that errors committed in total privacy do not count. Miss Manners does not advise telling this to your children.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have two very good friends who are married to each other. The wife has a doctorate; the husband does not. When I see them, I usually hug the doctor first, and then her husband. When I leave, I say bye to them in the same order: doctor, then husband. I know the doctor a little better than her husband, but is this the correct order of things? Just wondering.

GENTLE READER: You have left Miss Manners wondering what the lady's being A Doctor has to do with this. Surely you don't think hugs are ranked by academic achievement. Perhaps you just like saying it about your friend. In any case, she is the one to greet first, because she is the lady.

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