DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a 20-year-old college student. My grandmother sends me dozens of forwarded emails each week with information such as "watch out for new virus."

I try to be respectful, and even spent some time last semester trying to reply to each email she sent, despite the fact that it was cutting into my other priorities, like school and sorority. However, it annoys me that she expects me to have the time to respond to her excessive emails.

A few months ago, a spam account got a hold of my email and address book and sent my contacts (including my grandmother) an email with a virus link. My grandmother clicked on the link (apparently all the Internet knowledge she sends to others didn't teach her not to click on an unknown link), and I had to spend hours on the phone with her, helping her get rid of the virus.

After that incident, I finally realized I didn't have time to sit and reply to ridiculous forwarded emails when I have other priorities, such as keeping my GPA up. I saw my grandmother a few weeks ago, and I could tell she wanted to make a rude comment about my not responding to her emails. I still think it's absolutely ridiculous to respond to a forwarded email. Do you have any advice on forwarded emails?

GENTLE READER: You are under no obligation to reply to forwarded emails with no personal content. However, you are under an obligation to your grandmother.

But before you make Miss Manners responsible for your GPA, allow her to suggest a less time-consuming way of handling the situation. That would be to deal with the underlying problem, rather than the surface one.

It is not that your grandmother is dying to know what you think of the canned material she forwards. She just wants to hear from you. An occasional quick message, if it is only to say that you're up studying for a chemistry exam and hope she is well and that her garden is in bloom, would please her more.

But there is no escaping the task of digging older generations out of the computer problems they bring on themselves. That is the burden the young have to bear. Someday, when the technology is totally different, your young will dig you out of the mistakes you would not have made if you had paid closer attention to their warnings.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: When I looked up the sauce spoon on the Internet, I saw pictures of a spoon with a v-shaped notch taken out of one side. Is that it? If so, what is the purpose of the notch?

GENTLE READER: Sauce spoons for individual place settings look as if a truck ran over your oval soup spoons. Allegedly, the notch is to allow oiliness to run off, but Miss Manners believes that as they are a 20th-century French invention rarely used, the notch serves as a tipoff that attempting to use this nearly flat-bowled spoon to eat anything liquid would be disastrous.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was invited to a shower by a group of the groom's mother's lady friends. Apparently it was close to the "small" wedding (three weeks) and the bride and groom could not be home for the shower, as they both work in a city about five hours away.

The invite said that since the couple was unable to attend, the guests would be honoring the mother of the groom by proxy.

Something old or new? Many of my friends in their 50s thought it was strange. I might add, I know only the groom's mother, but not the couple.

I sent a gift card to a nationally known store for more than I would have spent on a shower gift, as I did not expect to be invited to the "small" wedding. That was immaterial, however, as I am more perplexed by the proxy situation.

GENTLE READER: A shower that the guests of honor claim to be too busy to attend is, indeed, new to Miss Manners.

Unfortunately, schemes to acquire goods without exerting oneself on behalf of the donors is not. Guests are often told to bring or buy their own refreshments and address letters of thanks to themselves -- and that's if they are even invited. The virtual shower, meaning a collection of presents unmarred by socializing, is another modern invention. It would seem sufficient to send one's virtual good wishes.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have a problem responding to acquaintances asking to take food home. This has happened at both board and committee meetings at my home with different people. Hunks of meat and gourmet cookies were requested.

I don't know how to decline what I consider to be rude and a burden on my limited budget. These are NOT my friends or family who would be accommodated, as I would be by them.

Am I being rude? What can I say to discourage this?

GENTLE READER: "Please have your fill while you are here -- I don't do takeout."

What puzzles Miss Manners is that you seem to think that it is all right for friends and relatives to request leftovers that they have not been offered. Hospitality requires providing refreshment to one's guests, not catering their future meals.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: When I received a small gift and a thank-you note for a personal service I performed, I was unable to thank the individual in person for the gift and wrote a note. Subsequently I was told that thank-you notes are not required when receiving a thank-you gift. Seems to me, I received a gift and should acknowledge it. Please advise as to the correct procedure.

GENTLE READER: Your instincts are better than your advisers'. Whoever told you that has confused the thank-you present with a thank-you letter alone, which does not require a you're-welcome letter.

Or maybe your friends are just trying to drive Miss Manners crazy with their false etiquette pronouncements. No doubt they are the same people who persuade brides to be rude with the ridiculous claim that a year is allowed them between receiving presents and giving thanks.

All presents require immediate thanks, whatever the motive or occasion that prompted them.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am seeking a polite, civil, yet firm way to express that a person's opinions and thoughts are unwarranted and unwelcome.

My husband has had full custody of his daughter since the age of 3; she is now 12. Last year, for three months, the child had a trial custody change to her mother's care. The court reversed that decision after "Tammy" provided the child with drinking parties (where minors were getting drunk and making sexual contact with one another).

Tammy is also in the process of being tried on child abuse charges. She is currently allowed two days a month visitation with the child.

My issue arises each visit, when Tammy approaches my husband and me wanting to talk about all sorts of parenting issues that bother her. For example, Tammy feels that the child needs to have her nails manicured at all times; that we should consider taking her out of school if that is the only time the hairstylist has an appointment for a trim (as every six weeks is too infrequent a trim, according to Tammy); and that the child should be allowed a two-piece string bikini of her choosing.

My husband and I try to exit these conversations with, "I'm terribly sorry, but we must get going," so as not to set a bad example of rudeness in front of the child.

Tammy then persists, calling, emailing and text-messaging us daily until we hear her out for what could be hours of conversation because she insists that a 12-year-old should be allowed miniskirts and attendance at parties without adult supervision.

We cannot block Tammy from our phones and email, in case of emergency when she does have the child for a visit. Is there any way, still keeping civil with Tammy, that we can let her know that her thoughts, in the opinion of the courts, the law and ourselves, are rubbish, and we don't wish to waste any more of our lives listening to them?

GENTLE READER: Suppose there were a way -- which there is not -- of politely saying, "Keep your rubbishy thoughts to yourself"?

Are you dealing with someone who would reply: "Oh, I'm so sorry; I didn't mean to bother you -- of course you are right -- so do as you think best, and I won't say another word"?

If your stepdaughter's mother is convicted of child abuse, you may have help in limiting her ability to communicate. It also sounds as if, aside from being annoying, she is actually dangerous enough to children to require you to appeal the decision about even two-day custody.

Miss Manners doubts that anything short of that will work. She is glad to hear that you consider rudeness out of the question, but even firmness would be more likely to antagonize than to deter someone who is not hesitant about making a nuisance of herself.

So you are reduced to deleting emails, answering her calls only when the child is with her, and continuing to rush off. Your real problem will be explaining the mother to the child with tact and compassion.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)