DEAR MISS MANNERS: Our neighborhood has a listserve where people discuss and post issues from yard sales to neighborhood functions. The following was posted:

"Hi Neighbors,??Does anyone know whether there are any regulations in place regarding ?the use of emergency sirens during the night/early morning hours?

"While I recognize the need for sirens when emergency vehicles are ?traveling, with the purpose of alerting other vehicles and/or ?pedestrians, the sirens can also be extremely loud especially when ?used constantly rather than intermittently. Both this morning and ?yesterday morning, my children (and my husband and I) were awoken between 6:30 and 6:45 am by very loud sirens. Before moving here, we never had this ?problem."

Wondering if you could publish just what exactly is wrong with this scenario. It is rather humorous, albeit disturbing!

GENTLE READER: Indeed. One wouldn't think that respectable people needed to be reminded to have their heart attacks and house fires at a decent hour.

Miss Manners certainly hopes that is the case with this neighbor. As the lady is new in the neighborhood, she has the opportunity to serve as an example of those who are generous enough to value others' slumber over their own life, limb and property.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband has always let our son, who is now 3, play with various items on the table when we go out to eat. These items include sugar packets, creamers, jelly packets and things of that nature. I think it's gross that they are playing with things that other people will actually use for their food and drink, but my husband thinks it's no big deal because these items are wrapped.

I chose to let it go several times in the past in an attempt to not be controlling and let him do his thing. However, when my son and I went out to lunch with his aunt and her children, my son went to grab for these items, to which his aunt immediately said "no, no" because she was closest to him.

I want to make this a consistent rule that he not be allowed to play with these items to avoid confusion in the future. Although my husband is willing to back me up on this rule, we still are curious as to the manners aspect of it.

GENTLE READER: The reason is that it revolts other people.

In better days, when children were routinely taught table manners (and conversation) every night at the family dinner table, the most frequently heard admonition was "Don't play with your food."

Intermixed with "Tell us about your science project" and "Pay attention to what your father is saying; you might learn something" were specific instructions, such as "Stop making a volcano out of your mashed potatoes and gravy," "Stop blowing bubbles in your milk" and "Stop throwing peas at your sister."

And so on, about everything on the table, including the candles, the napkins and certainly including all foods.

If anyone questions this, Miss Manners can supply a cautionary tale about an American ambassador in Europe who lost his job for not obeying. At a state dinner, he bet his dinner partner that he could shoot a pea across the table into the decolletage of the lady seated opposite him. Won the bet but lost the job.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have "one of those faces" people often find familiar, somehow. Friends have often "spotted me" in places I've never been. When I lived in L.A., strangers would say they saw me on TV shows.

Other than the boyfriend who insisted he saw me out with another man, my apparently numerous dopplegangers have caused few problems. But recently, while attending my daughter's softball game, I was approached by a woman who sat down beside me and my 3-year-old and asked, "Do you have another daughter. I said, yes, one that was playing on the team.

"No, another one," she said. No. "How about a son?" No. "Well, where do you work?"

At this point, I said I was feeling uncomfortable. I said. She looked at me as if she didn't believe me. "Anywhere else?" No.

"You look very familiar." She didn't look familiar to me, at all, but I thought saying so would be rude, so I just continued to watch the game.

"Where would I know you from?"

I was not about to give her a list of my personal affiliations. Not only was it none of her business, but I don't like discussing religion or politics with acquaintances, let alone complete strangers.

"I'm sorry, I don't know," I said. At this point, my daughter was going up to bat, so I was watching and cheering for her.

The woman pressed on. "Well, where do you live?" I told her my city. And she continued her questioning with, "Whereabouts in (the city)?"

I gave her a vague reference to our side of the city ("off of such-and-such highway" which could have been anywhere on the northeast side), and inadvertently drowned out her next question with our family's cheering for my daughter, who'd just had a hit.

I then started to say to her, "I'm sorry I can't be of more help," but she got up and left, as if she were angry.

I didn't think I was under any obligation to provide personal information to someone who was utterly unknown to me, and who was interrupting our family's enjoyment of the game.

Was there some better way I should have dealt with the situation? And, just out of curiosity, is there any kind of etiquette involved in approaching someone who looks familiar? In my past experiences, people at least offered some suggestions, such as "Do you attend this church?" or "Do your children go to that school?" But she offered me nothing. It was very strange.

GENTLE READER: You didn't think of offering her the explanation about often being mistaken for others?

Miss Manners agrees that your inquisitor was rude in her relentlessness. Two guesses, such as you suggest, ought to be the limit in such an inquiry, and then one should be obliged to give up. You are hardly responsible for the continuation of rudeness in that show of dissatisfaction.

But surely you could have spared yourself the ordeal by a pleasant admission that this happens often, and the firm statement, "And I don't believe we have met before."

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I work in a call center/sales position. When speaking to potential clients or offering customer-service on existing sales, is it improper to address them as Sir or Ma'am?

GENTLE READER: No, but many of them are so eager to be mistaken for youngsters that they don't realize that.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: A husband comes home after a few months away on business. His two small children run up to him and he hugs them. He sees his dog waiting for the sign to come and get a hug from him. Husband pats his chest and the dog comes to him, gets a hug. Then the husband sees that his wife is annoyed because he has greeted the kids and dog first.

I think the wife should be OK to wait for the hug hello, after the kids and dog, because she is the only adult present in this scenario.

Question: Is there a husband-returns-home hug hierarchy? What if his mother was also present -- should she take precedence before the wife?

GENTLE READER: A young gentleman of Miss Manners' acquaintance once told her that his friend's father (whom she knew to be a debonair specimen of a culture she will not name) had instructed the two boys in the priorities in life. "First the mother," he said, "then the son, then the car, then the dog, then the gun, then the daughter, then the mistress...." and finally he got to the wife.

Miss Manners does not believe that this is such a case. But she does believe that the wife here thinks so.

That would be petty and petulant. In the absence of other evidence, such as the above-mentioned declaration or associated behavior, it should be presumed that hugs are distributed as the recipients present themselves, and not in any hierarchal order.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My best friend's grandmother died recently. I had only met her once but wanted to be there for my friend and his mother, whom I had known for years.

I didn't think I would be able to show my respects at the funeral home, because it was during the daytime when my wife works and I am alone with the kids, and I didn't want to expose them to death at the ages of 3 and 6 years. Unexpectedly, one of my neighbors came home from work early, and, not wanting to impose any more than necessary, I asked her to watch the children while I went to the funeral home. My neighbor agreed to, but asked if I could be back as soon as I could.

I went to the funeral home in my shorts and a collared short sleeved shirt and was able to attend for about a half hour during visiting hours.

To this day, my best friend likes to point out that I showed up in shorts instead of a tie. I think that I had limited time and it was best for me to just be there, no matter my dress, for as long as I could.

Could you possibly let me know if being there was more important than being there dressed up? Even though I know in 20/20 hindsight that it really would not have taken long to change my attire.

GENTLE READER: You are trying to set Miss Manners up so that you can take the lofty position that what is in the heart is more important than what was on the hanger.

But that is not a proper choice. Clothes are a symbolic way of demonstrating on the outside what is in the inside, and somber clothes are traditionally worn in connection with bereavement as a sign of respect. Although many people violate this nowadays, your friend's reaction shows that it still carries emotional weight.

Your best chance of placating your friend is to drop the inside-outside argument and make the best of your time constraint when you apologize.

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