DEAR MISS MANNERS: I believe I already know your stance on cash requests for weddings in lieu of gifts: that it is never appropriate. This may be a new wrinkle (although no doubt you've heard and seen them all):

My sister is remarrying at 50-something to another 50-something. Their fabulous, and expensive, wedding invitation states that they already have enough stuff and are requesting guests to " endow a chair."

At first, I thought I was being asked to fund some needy student's scholarship or deserving professorship. Then I noticed on the return portion of the expensive invitation, right next to meal choices, was a little box to check for the number of chairs I was willing to endow at $60 apiece.

I went off the deep end a bit, thinking, What next? BYOB? BYOF? Or perhaps we would just bring our own chairs, sidestepping the need for endowment.

Now, I'm in a quandary as to whether I'm allowed to attend the wedding and reception if I don't pony up $120 for my husband and I.

I'm sure the food and drink at the party will be wonderful, and expensive, but I already have a bad taste in my mouth. How does one politely respond to such a proposal? I would like to be on speaking terms with my sister for the next 50 years.

GENTLE READER: Actually, that is a new one on Miss Manners. And she hates to repeat it, knowing that there will be people who, far from being appalled at this astounding display of greed and vulgarity, will think, "What a good idea."

Why anyone would want to attend a wedding of people who think of them merely as customers is hard to imagine. But you are the bride's sister. It would behoove you to commiserate with her for having been reduced to such public begging. You might consider sending her a check, accompanied by a plausible excuse to cover sparing yourself the embarrassment of having bought entrance to her wedding.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I read your column frequently and find it to be both entertaining and educational. However, there is something I have always wondered about with respect to your responses.

It seems that, in nearly all of your replies (and in your suggested replies for others to use) when the message is expected to be not to the receiver's liking, you begin it with the disclaimer "I'm afraid that ...." Presumably, you are not truly and literally "afraid" in all such situations. So, what is the reason for this expression?

I can only guess that this expression is used to "soften the blow" of disappointment to the other by giving the (transparently false but polite) impression that you actually agree with the other person, but that "whatever-it-is" is not under your direct control, but rather something that you, too, must comply with because you are "afraid" to do otherwise.

Since this expression is not one that I grew up with, I would appreciate your clarification of its use and how it came to be this way. Thank you.

GENTLE READER: You are quite right in guessing that Miss Manners is not cowering in the corner when she dispenses etiquette advice. But neither does she give advice with which she disagrees.

The conventional phrase "I am afraid" refers, in these questions, to the fear that the other person does not like what he or she is being told. It is a polite way of saying "I feel your pain that -- hold still! -- I am about to inflict."

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a very private person, and I believe that having good manners is important, so I work hard at being polite every day. I have had a co-worker for the last two years who keeps asking me what I'm "really like."

When this happens, I answer, "This is what I'm really like," until he gets tired of it and gives up. I have encountered other people who ask me variations of this same question, e.g. "What is the real you like?"

My co-worker has started saying with great pleasure if he ever hears me say something even vaguely negative or not entirely polite, "Now, there's the real you coming out."

I am getting frustrated with people who assume that my slip-ups and mistakes expose more of my real character than the manners I work hard at every day. I am getting tired of people who take my reserved demeanor as a kind of challenge.

Is there a way to politely get these kinds of people to leave me alone and stop prodding me like I am some kind of circus animal? I feel like they're hoping I'll crack one day and throw a fit, but I don't understand why.

GENTLE READER: Whole schools of unpleasant art have been built on the idea that only the ugly is real.

The same notion applied to people appeals to those who, like your co-worker, want to justify their own rudeness on the grounds that they are being natural, honest and true to themselves. As they undoubtedly are, more's the pity for the rest of us.

Manners, your colleague doubtless points out, are artificial. So are other forms of learned behavior, such as literacy, toilet training and, indeed, civilization itself.

You are quite right that such people are hoping that you will crack. It would be kinder to commiserate with them for having such a dismal view of humanity.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I'm a senior in high school who plays on our girls' basketball team. I've known most of my teammates for years, and, for the most part, we get along well.

However, there is one "quirk," if you will, that drives me crazy. Many of our girls sometimes make a huge and annoying fuss about the smell in our lavatory after someone uses it. The best way to describe it is how young boys react when one of them releases odor. The girls, some of them fellow seniors, will hoot, holler, fuss and laugh.

Maybe I'm making too big a deal and they're just joking, but I find this behavior both juvenile and insulting, as I expect it from my younger brother and his friends. Is there a tactful way to remind my teammates that although we're athletes, we're also young ladies, and that this is not the way to conduct ourselves in public?

GENTLE READER: Well, they are juveniles. And they may grow out of it -- if they don't decide that freedom consists of aspiring to men's locker-room behavior.

Be grateful that you are beyond this yourself, and not their mother. As Miss Manners is sure you know from observing your younger brother and his crowd, usurping that position would only drive them to grosser behavior.

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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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