DEAR MISS MANNERS: I think this is a question about how to deal properly with concrete disagreements that seem to be acting as stand-ins for emotional issues.

The specific example has to do with salt. My sister's family visits our parents for several weeks at a time, and we go up for a few days so the cousins can see each other. My sister does not believe in using table salt, either in cooking or at the table. (Salt in condiments, snacks, canned foods, etc. is not a problem.) My parents also don't use table salt in cooking, but they keep a small amount on hand to put out when they have company. We cook without added salt, so each person can season things to their own taste at the table.

My sister used to argue ferociously with me whenever I went in search of salt for meals: I wasn't respecting my parent's wishes, I always force others to conform to my demands, etc.

There are several reasons why I think the issue isn't specifically about salt. For one, my parents don't object. For another, my sister has no problem putting salt out for her friends when she hosts them at my parents' house.

I don't know if our participation as guests makes a difference -- we purchase groceries and do the lion's share of the cooking. (Only "approved" recipes -- it's made abundantly clear when something is not acceptable, so we stick to recipes that get raves and are specifically requested.)

I try to accommodate style differences as much as possible since these visits are so short, and I realize that going without salt for few days is hardly a tragedy. However, this is the one of numerous minor issues that we found the most stressful. In desperation, one time I brought our saltshaker from home and the issue of salt at meals never came up. The reduction in acrimony was amazing, so since then we travel with the salt shaker.

I didn't feel like I was imposing my will on others. (We only salted our own food.) I await your verdict and any suggestions you may have about how to deal with this type of issue in the future.

GENTLE READER: What shocks Miss Manners here is not that the use of salt could ignite a family feud. Vicious battles over trivial matters identified as etiquette problems (often matters about which etiquette couldn't care less) are all in her day's work.When people who are not normally etiquette-conscious go to pieces over a minute point such as this, you may be sure that worse problems underlie the surface complaint. (And people who genuinely believe in etiquette ignore such transgressions in those they are not charged with rearing.)

Does this mean that Miss Manners recommends dealing with the deeper problem instead? Well, that could be a lot harder and take a lot longer. What shocks -- and pleases -- her is that bringing your own salt shaker actually solved the problem.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My father says that it's polite to pick up the phone (even if you know someone has already picked it up) to see if it's for you.

I think that only one person should answer the phone, and if it's for someone else in the house to say one moment please, and go get the person. What do you think?

GENTLE READER: That your father wants to know who is calling you.

:

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Every working day, I pass over a toll bridge on my way to and from work. In the summer, when I have the air conditioner turned on, I always turn it off as I approach the toll taker.

I was rather unconscious of this until recently when I had a passenger named Dave along, and as I reached for the on off switch Dave beat me to the punch. As we left the tollbooth, I switched the air conditioner back on and after a few seconds I asked Dave why he had done it.

He had no memory of doing so. We discussed this behavior for several minutes and concluded that somehow it seemed rude to have the cold air blasting out of the car as we were transacting our business with the toll taker.

Is this behavior covered by some more general rule or are we just being finicky?

GENTLE READER: Are you implying that there is something wrong with being finicky? Uh-oh.

Yet Miss Manners had never heard of this refinement, and it is all the more impressive that you were both unthinkingly polite. There is a lot of the other kind of unthinking behavior on the roads, including at toll booths, so if you promise Miss Manners that this is a real courtesy that doesn't hold up the works, she congratulates you both on the discovery.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Please provide guidelines for terminating unpleasant conversations with a person seated next to me on an airplane.

On one journey, the fellow in the adjacent seat started a conversation by telling me that he was curious about my opinion of U.S. policy in Iraq. When I told him that I did not wish to discuss the subject, he loudly said: "Oh, then you just don't care about the troops."

Patiently, I told a falsehood, stating that my day had been difficult and that I simply wished to be alone.

Several months later, another passenger began a similar exchange and I perhaps overreacted by stating that I had no interest in his opinions and remained confident that we could finish the flight without another word to each other.

Although this worked, I visibly saddened. To avoid the social sin of committing verbal abuse or the intolerability of being the subject of such, I ask Miss Manners to suggest a utilitarian and perfectly polite sentence or two for turning one's fellow passengers to the "off" position.

GENTLE READER: Alas, this is how rudeness spreads. You reacted politely to rudeness, but then let the rude response you got push you into self-doubt and into being rude yourself on the next similar occasion.

The way to deal with such rude people is to refuse to deal with them, which you did. Being rude, he took a parting shot, but then you were quit of him.

In the second instance, you accomplished this by being rude yourself.

It was perfectly all right to say that you had had a difficult day and wished to be alone. It was even the literal truth, as your seatmate had created the difficulty and you did, indeed, wish him to leave you alone. It also worked. But did you really want to copy the manners of those you found offensive?

:

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Please advise me of the polite way to remind a grandfather to send a college graduation gift to his granddaughter.

I am the mother of the new college graduate, and I am disappointed that my father has allowed his wife (not my mother) to send my daughter a card that she made on the computer, without a graduation gift.

I telephoned my father to inquire about his gift to my daughter, gently reminding him that graduation season is now over. He told me that he had to take care of his wife's broken bridgework, etc.

Should I bring this up again if no gift is forthcoming in the near future? If yes, how should I bring the subject up? This is the first grandchild to graduate from college.

I will also let you know that birthday gifts to my children are months late, if the gifts ever arrive. The same with Christmas gifts. (In the past, when I have brought this to the attention of my Dad, he acted offended.) Also, I know that my Dad's wife regularly buys gifts for her own grandchildren, and since her grandchildren live near my Dad and his wife, they are frequent (sometimes daily) visitors. My children (my father's only biological grandchildren) live several states away.

GENTLE READER: Just a wild guess, but perhaps you do not like your stepmother?

You may have ample reason, for all Miss Manners knows, and you probably cringed at her applying the term "mother," however modified, to your father's wife.

But none of this trumps the fact that presents are always voluntary, and attempts to extract them are rude and therefore justly offensive to the targets. If your father chooses to ignore his grandchildren, it is a sad loss to him, as well as to them. But periodic payments in the form of presents do not alone establish a relationship -- even if you could succeed in getting them, which you plainly cannot.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have an aging dog (13 years old) that has been arthritic for four years now. She still loves going for walks, and this actually helps her.

But during these walks, at least one to three passers-by comment to me on the age of my dog. This seems rude to me, as I love this dog dearly and they are essentially pointing out that her days are numbered. I actually had a guy tell me, "That dog is on its last leg" (and that was two years ago)!

Were this an isolated or rare event, I wouldn't mind so much, but the fact that I can count on it every walk has me at a constant loss for a proper response. The best reply I can come up with is "Yes, she is probably going to die soon."

How would you suggest I should respond?

GENTLE READER: Politely, of course -- by saying, "She's fine, thank you; are you all right?" And by resolving never to let these people meet your parents.

: