DEAR MISS MANNERS: I live in a large city, and I am frequently approached by individuals who may or may not be homeless, and are presumably less wealthy than I am.

I work 50 hours a week and make a median hourly wage, with no health or pension benefits, and while I could give a little money to any given individual, to give to each and every individual would require more funds than I would like to spare. (To do so would also seem to penalize those impoverished individuals who are too polite to request money from a stranger.

Typically, I simply answer these individuals with a "no," or ignore them entirely if they begin a more involved monologue. Is this the proper response? If so, is there a proper tone of voice in which to deliver it?

Note that the would-be recipients of my charity are sometimes literally asking if I have any money ("Got any change?"), not whether I will give it to them, to which the more truthful response would be, "That's none of your business," but I like to keep these interactions brief.

GENTLE READER: Would you mind also keeping them civil?

It never fails to amaze Miss Manners that people will tolerate blatant begging (in the form of "gift registries" and instructions on invitations) from friends and relatives who are in more or less the same circumstances as themselves, yet feel indignant about being importuned by the needy.

There could be many reasons for not giving money on the street, even aside from your own circumstances. But there are no excuses for being rude. Never mind the literal questions you are asked -- you need only say, "I'm sorry" and move on.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have a friend whose favorite sports team plays on the opposite side of the country to where she presently lives. As you can imagine. she has few opportunities to follow their progress first hand. She will be moving (some weeks before her birthday) to a new city, relatively near (well, 45 miles) to a location where said team will play a series against the local team around the time of her birthday.

I would like to give her two tickets to one of the games for her birthday, but I am aware that she may not (for a variety of reasons) be able to attend. I would not be offended if she could not use the tickets, nor if she offered them to another who could use them.

Should the gifter acknowledge this when presenting the gift, for example in the card, or should it be assumed that this is the case?

GENTLE READER: Couldn't you save both yourself and your friend a great deal of awkwardness by telling her your idea in advance and asking when might be a convenient time for her to attend one of those games?

Yes, Miss Manners knows that you would like to surprise her. But the surprise of receiving something one would love to use but cannot is not a pleasant one.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I'm a cashier at a local grocery store. This is the first job I've ever had, and I enjoy it a lot. Occasionally, however, when a customer has alcohol in their order and I don't ask to see their ID, they will ask, in a very serious manner, why I didn't.

I usually blush and stammer over "um"s and "ah"s, which isn't the most eloquent answer, I know, but is the only thing my mind can come up with after being caught off-guard. Sometimes, I can awkwardly manage to change the subject by telling them their total, but then they spend the rest of the transaction glaring at me, or they'll actually press their case and repeat their question.

How do I answer without insulting them?

GENTLE READER: What would the insult be -- that they looked grown-up? Miss Manners finds the jokey pretense to youthfulness terribly tedious. Don't these people know that asking to be carded is a sure proof of being over age?

But you still have to deal with them. The kind explanation would be, "You look honest, so I assumed you wouldn't be attempting anything illegal, but you're right, I should have checked."

Or since they have that silly age sensitivity, you might cure them of this habit by asking, "My mistake (now your voice gets louder) -- exactly how old are you?"

DEAR MISS MANNERS: At the first family wedding I have been to in years (basically because of cost considerations), I asked my sister (mother of the bride) when the presents were going to be opened and placed for viewing.

I was informed that "we don't do that anymore; the bride and groom open them the next day."

When I was growing up, at all weddings and showers, the gifts were opened and placed for others to see.

Is this new? I realize that this is not an obligation to display the gifts, but I have always thought it was a courtesy, because others might enjoy seeing everything.

GENTLE READER: It is true that etiquette did used to sanction the display of wedding presents, although not, as you seem to have experienced, with the children's birthday-party routine (also used at showers) of opening them in front of the guests. Nor would they have been opening them "the next day," when the couple would be off to enjoy their first sanctioned privacy, not hanging around with nothing better to do.

The presents would be opened as each arrived -- and the letters of thanks written and sent immediately. At the time of the wedding, when the bride's parents were likely to be receiving, and perhaps even holding the wedding at home, they were displayed on tables covered by white damask cloths, with, or, more discreetly, without, the cards of the donors.

Miss Manners does not doubt that it is also true that guests relished inspecting them, but not because they found it heart-warming. You know they must have been checking to see how much was spent, and whether, in comparison, they spent too much or too little on the presents they sent.

As this is not a particularly seemly activity, etiquette was already condemning the practice decades ago. Miss Manners considers that a custom justly killed.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: How does one go about introducing a new eating utensil?

I have great problems eating pizza, onion soup and spaghetti neatly. What I need is a delicate pair of scissors, which would be called "cheese scissors." They could resemble the small scissors that hairdressers use. On the place setting, they could be placed to the right of the knife.

How can I go about making these scissors acceptable? Shall I just buy a pair and start using them?

It seems to me that discreetly cutting the cheese string would be much more lady-like than pulling a long string of cheese or wrapping it around my finger until it finally breaks. What do you think?

GENTLE READER: Great idea. You'll be a social pariah, of course, but at least you won't have strings of food hanging down your front.

Don't get Miss Manners wrong. The hostility will not come from silver snobs, who would be delighted to add another useful tool to our (ah, their) collections. The idea behind specialized tools is, naturally, to make life easier for the diner, not harder.

However, it is unfortunately true that there was a nasty time during the 19th century industrial revolution when guessing the uses of peculiar flatware served as an entrance test for moving up into the middle class.

This is no longer the case. The table has become simplified, to put it delicately -- possibly because so few people sit at it. But the sting of the old days has a peculiar afterlife. People still speak with mysterious pride of "not knowing which fork to use" as if nearly all those specialized Victorian pieces hadn't been melted down to finance World War I, and now they would be lucky to get a metal fork instead of a plastic one.

Those are the folks who may at first admire your originality and daring, but will turn on you if your idea catches on. They'll brood that you look down on them for not recognizing, using or owning the new tableware tool.

But at least you won't have cheese on your chin.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: It's that time of year again. My in-box gets cluttered with solicitations for donations payable to the young lady or young man that is graduating from high school, college, beauty school or the school of hard knocks.

These are children that I will most likely never meet, and I have had to cover the workload when their parents (my co-workers) missed work because said child was sick.

Why is this practice used? Am I right to be mortified that complete strangers solicit me for my hard-earned money?

GENTLE READER: Mortified? No.

If these really are solicitations, not just invitations that you interpret as such (in which case you owe nothing more than politely declining and wishing the graduate well), all you have to do is to throw them away. It is the parents who Miss Manners believes should be mortified that their children, whom they cannot throw away, are out begging.

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