DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a junior in high school, and I try to follow the rules of etiquette (though I have often found them lacking in certain situations, such as when a boy decides that they want to carry you like a sack of potatoes to your next class), but I have noticed in the past that my teachers who are there to teach us do not follow the same rules.

Perhaps it is just me, but I find comments (by teachers) to the effect of "Didn't you just go?" to be unconscionable when asking discreetly to use the restroom.

Not only do I find the behavior of a teacher commenting on students' bodily functions insulting, but in doing so the teacher brings the class' attention to a question that I am trying to ask discreetly. And for the record, if I had just gone I would not be asking.

GENTLE READER: The teachers are not carrying one another down the halls like sacks of potatoes, Miss Manners trusts. If etiquette has failed to have a rule against this, she will declare one right now, provided she does not have to do hall-monitor duty.

Perhaps they are unduly suspicious. But then, again, they do teach junior high school. Which is all the more reason that they should know why it is a dreadful idea to allow talk about anyone's bathroom habits to be heard by the rest of the class.

Miss Manners can tell you right now that an argument that teachers are rude is doomed. You would do better to mention that the present system led to unpleasant teasing.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: How do you handle people who are always late for their regular club meeting (30 minutes or more) and blame others if they are left when a trip is planned?

GENTLE READER: With more patience. Not patience to wait for them, Miss Manners hastens to explain. Patience, while you keep starting on time, to wait until they realize they will always be left behind.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it proper to correct someone on a limpy handshake?

GENTLE READER: Were you thinking of a bit of encouraging bone-crushing? Or just a few pithy words to head off statements about being delighted to meet you?

Limp handshakes, which may have a medical justification, may not be exciting, but in any case they are not rude. An example of rudeness that comes to Miss Manners' mind is using an introduction to offer criticism.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Do you have to send birth announcements to your parents, siblings (people closest to you that already know), etc.? My husband and I disagree on this. He says no and I say yes.

GENTLE READER: Oddly enough, the purpose of an announcement is to announce. Therefore they need not be sent to those intimates who are on your news-when-it-happens list.

But Miss Manners is not strict about this, knowing that some like to have announcements as keepsakes. She is also aware that recipients sometimes use the cards to remind themselves to send baby presents, which is probably no news to the parents.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was in the deli section of a store where you have to take a number to be served, a young woman with four children, one screaming constantly and mother only approaching once, holding his hands and talking to him as if he could understand logic, reasoning, etc., while she went on about getting her order placed.

I approached her and asked if she realized how annoying his constant screaming could be to others waiting for their turn.

She replied, "Do you know how annoying it is for someone like you to approach me when I'm trying to teach him a lesson?" I replied, "Really, what lesson would that be?" and walked away.

GENTLE READER: Really -- did you leave the deli counter without taking your sliced prosuitto and side order of cole slaw?

And what lesson did you teach at the sacrifice of your lunch? That children shouldn't turn cranky in public? The mother already knew that. That a good mother would be able to silence her child? Nobody knows that.

But perhaps, Miss Manners hopes, you could think this over and teach yourself to control your own public outbursts.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I haven't talked to my older sister alone since she met her current spouse in 2004. My younger sister and I can go to lunch or talk on the phone without hurting our husbands' feelings because we need "sister time."

Since my other sister's spouse is a woman, I guess she's a sister, but it's not the same. Is this just the way it has to be, or is there some kind way of getting around this?

GENTLE READER: Yes: Give the lady the dignity of her position in the family -- which is to say, as an in-law. She was not adopted into the family; she married into it, as did the husbands.

But Miss Manners gathers that there is more than a little defensiveness involved here, whether on the part of your sister, her spouse or both. That will have to be addressed first, not only with reassurances, but couples' gatherings.

You might also invite the spouse out by herself on some casual pretext (such as "I'm going to be downtown Thursday, near your office"). Once it comes out, in the debriefing, that it was merely a friendly lunch and not an excuse for you to discuss their marriage, things should be easier.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I recently went down to visit my now ex-boyfriend's family. We stayed at his family house for the weekend, and they were overly accommodating for me being there.

A couple weeks after I came home, we broke up. I was about to send his family a thank you letter for my stay at their house. Do I still send the letter even though we broke up?

GENTLE READER: Of course. You accepted their hospitality even if you subsequently rejected their son.

The moral here, Miss Manners feels obliged to point out, is: Don't wait two weeks before thanking your hosts.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I drove through my neighborhood's relatively new beer barn for the first time yesterday. It is at a busy, slightly derelict intersection. You drive in, open a window and tell the girl in a bikini what you want.

Perfect for fat guys whose beer bellies aren't gigantic enough. I assume part of the business model includes the girl in the bikini being underpaid and expecting tips from fellows who find her appearance compelling.

As a gay man with a tiny rainbow Texas on my license plate (covering up the actual silhouette of Texas thereon), am I exempt from this? If a man of similar age, attire and friendliness served me in the same situation, I'd give him a dollar.

GENTLE READER: Is it any wonder that Miss Manners hates tipping questions?

Etiquetteers are supposed to be stalwarts of the tipping system. Supposedly, they are the only creatures on Earth who neither quail (for fear of under or overestimating the amount) nor swagger (with the desire to impress or punish) when expected to tip.

But the fact is that reasonable tipping is dependent not only the price paid, but on such variables as the custom of the region, the degree of luxury of the establishment and the frequency with which the same service is used. It is therefore impossible to give a standard answer.

And now you go and add the element of how much erotic appeal the server has to the customer. Thanks. Miss Manners doesn't doubt that consideration of this might apply to some, but perhaps not to the etiquette-conscious.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have always been under the impression that one wears neither white nor black to a wedding: the former, of course, to avoid upstaging the bride and the latter because it seems gloomy.

Nonetheless, in attending weddings in recent years, I have seen many women guests (and, through photos, guests at Chelsea Clinton's wedding) wearing black, as though "black tie" meant black for the women as well.

My adult daughter and I disagree on this, so perhaps it is a generational shift. Please clarify the preferred practice for us. I remain convinced that attending a wedding in black may make one look slim but also despondent.

GENTLE READER: If an entire generation agreed with your daughter, Miss Manners would have to tell you to accept the change. There was a similar change, nearly a century ago, when the prolonged wearing of mourning was abandoned, making way for the "little black dress" on ordinary festive occasions.

However, how come the same people argue against wearing black to funerals "because it's too depressing"? It is especially in connection with the deaths of young people that wearing "bright colors" is sometimes specifically requested, as if to deny the awful and solemn finality of the service.

So apparently the association of black with death survives. And we know that color symbolism prevails at weddings, or what are all those brides -- young or old, first marriage or fifth -- doing in those huge (or slinky) white dresses?

So you and Miss Manners are not the only ones who find that the same black dress deemed chic -- or just "safe" -- at a party brings an aura of pathos to a wedding.

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