DEAR MISS MANNERS: We built a beautiful vacation rental home and spent a lot of time and money to furnish it with quality items so that our rental guests can feel that they have their "home away." Many people expressed delight, saying that how much they enjoy the provisions.

We run a substantial financial deficit on the home and don't know if we'll break-even -- ever. We opened our home for others to enjoy. Several items are already "disappearing," and we decided not to replace them. Our home is individually owned -- we are not part of a larger business (not that this is appropriate, either) that might be able to absorb the losses.

Some time ago, I saw a little poem that politely reminded people that these items are here for them to use at our home and to please leave them behind for the next person to use; and also, please treat the home with respect so that it remains nice in the years to come when they return.

Can you provide me a few polite reminders that I can frame and place in a few rooms?

GENTLE READER: If Miss Manners knew a little poem or a cute saying that would reform thieves on the spot, she would be in conference with the police department right now.

You do not say whether it is your shampoo bottle or your television set that keeps getting stolen. Hotels give away the former, which has gotten people used to believing that they are owed a souvenir, but it has not prevented the theft of larger items.

At any rate, a warning, however coyly worded, would insult your honest guests. Miss Manners suggests you limit your guest list to them.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My brother served in Iraq a couple of years ago. He suffers from PTSD and was wounded. The physical wound is not one you can see, but people (family especially) will still ask him what it was like to fight in the war and even go so far as to ask if he killed anyone.

We have a family reunion coming up, which he is considering not attending because of the possibility of having to field questions of that nature. I haven't seen him since he graduated from boot camp and would be heartbroken if I couldn't see him because of this matter.

I understand where he's coming from, but I would like to know what the appropriate response is to questions of that nature. Would it be OK to just give family a heads up to not ask him about his war experience?

GENTLE READER: Can you do this without creating consternation and even more curiosity about his condition?

It would be kind to save your brother the trouble of saying, "I really don't feel like talking about the war these days," which is all he needs to say, although he will unfortunately probably find that he has to keep repeating it to the same people.

But Miss Manners begs you to do this in a nonalarmist way. Something such as, "Alex will probably tell us about the war eventually, but right now it's his least favorite topic, and I know he'd appreciate our staying off the subject."

You don't want the family to start looking at him nervously or backing away as he approaches.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: When my sister was married, one of her friends attended the wedding but did not bring a gift. In the days that followed the wedding, the guest told my sister "I can't believe your parents didn't come around to each table."

My sister was amazed that this friend would make such a comment, especially since she had not followed etiquette to bring a gift for the bride and groom. I find her comment about our parents rude and almost unbelieveable, considering she is "calling the kettle black"!

I am now planning a baby shower for my sister, and she's asked that I invite this same woman. Since they work together, I think my sister feels obligated to invite her to "keep the peace," based on others who will be invited.

If this woman arrives to the baby shower without a gift, how should I handle the situation?

GENTLE READER: Do all of you believe that etiquette is a battering ram for you to use as a weapon against one another?

It is customary for wedding guests to give presents and for wedding hosts to greet their guests. However, the rudeness of omitting these courtesies is nothing compared to the rudeness of confronting one another with failure to do so. You deplored it's being done to your family, and yet you seem to expect Miss Manners to sanction your doing this in return.

How you handle the situation of guests' arriving, with or without presents, is with a smile and a greeting.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a recent college grad and have been applying for jobs online. Most of these jobs require that applicants send a resume to an email address, and there is no number to call or an address (to apply in person).

I have received very few responses or even replies that they received my resume, which is the problem. I don't know if it wound up in a spam folder or was deleted.

If that is the case, I would like to send it again. But if they received it and just didn't want to hire me, I wouldn't want to send it again and seem like a pest.

If you apply for a job online, shouldn't they at least let you know they received your resume, even if they don't hire you, so at least you would know it didn't disappear in cyberworld? What do you think?

GENTLE READER: Yes, they should. But nowadays, businesses plead understaffing -- compounded by the great number of people looking for work -- to excuse the lack of feedback they give to job applicants. As if they had never heard of using form replies, which is easier than ever with e-mail -- and as if they hadn't been just as unresponsive when times were flush.

Beleaguered as they are, they are not likely to be noticeably worse off if you resend your message, mentioning that you had not heard back. Miss Manners has heard that some employers consider persistence to be a virtue.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: Have you noticed how many people do not seem to be aware of how to eat properly or how to hold an eating utensil?

Whenever I eat out, I notice more and more people who hold a fork like it is a dagger and stab at their food like it is still alive and then bring the chunk of meat (and it is a large chunk) to their mouths in a very unsettling way.

In a formal restaurant, I saw quite a few young people (anyone under 30) who seemed to have no idea of how to eat properly. One man was shoveling food into his mouth with portions so large he had to chew them with an open mouth until he could partially swallow some of the food to close his mouth. His date was not much better, as she filled her fork with pasta and then slurped it up into her mouth and bit off what she couldn't fit into her mouth. They both held their utensils like they were foreign objects.

Looking around the room, I noticed quite a few people not faring much better. In case you are thinking this was a dive, the average entree was over $30, bottles of wine were twice that, and the place is actually very nice.

In discussing this with friends, they agreed that many people nowadays seem to have a difficult time doing something as simple and basic as eating in a manner which separates them from cavemen.

GENTLE READER: Let us not be so quick to malign cavemen. Whatever their eating rituals were, they probably all knew and followed them, which is more than we can say of modern Americans.

In normal societies, primitive or somewhat civilized, eating properly is learned as routinely as talking -- perhaps more so, since at times there is a stronger motivation. But modern America has all but done away with the routine communal meal in favor of grazing, munching and other such means of ingestion, which are done without guidance or observation.

One might think, then, that there would be no one left to disapprove. Except those of us in the etiquette business, who are popularly supposed to spend their pathetic lives waiting to pounce when someone fails the Pick a Fork test -- a test that interests no one but themselves.

Wrong. There is someone else who is thought to notice -- a feared and respected personage known as The Head Waiter. The presumption is that all waiters at expensive restaurants report infractions to him.

So there are those who do learn conventional table manners in order to practice them in restaurants. Others, as you have observed, do not bother. Therefore, Miss Manners keeps her eyes strictly to her own table when dining out and advises you to do the same.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My sister-in-law's husband's son is dying of cancer, and his ex-wife came to visit his son. Since her arrival, she has insinuated herself at the arm of her ex-husband, and it is not at the behest of his new wife, my sister-in-law.

Should she step aside and let his current wife comfort him, or is this proper etiquette?

GENTLE READER: His ex-wife came to visit his dying son?

Ah, that wouldn't, by any chance, be the dying son's mother, would it?

It is not just etiquette, but, Miss Manners would think, simple humane decency that should keep your sister-in-law from injecting jealousy into these poor parents' attempt to comfort each other.

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