DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband and I are attending a 50th birthday party for his brother-in-law. My husband wants to bring his guitar along, although he has not been asked to do so. It seems very presumptuous to me, and selfish. Help!

GENTLE READER: It might help if you offered your husband a little musical treat: Gracie Fields singing "I Took Me Harp to a Party (but Nobody Asked Me to Play)."

Miss Manners finds herself especially moved by the lines, "I felt so ashamed of not striking a note/That I tried to hide the thing under me coat."

If that doesn't discourage him, you might persuade your husband to tell his sister or brother-in-law what he plans. For all you know, they will be delighted. At the very least, they will be warned.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I attended a dinner party at which the tablecloth was a unique, delicate and lovely textile that the hostess had picked up on her travels. Before sitting down, she explained that the textile was of special importance to her and was irreplaceable, and asked us not to spill any food or drink on it.

We all said we would be careful. Unfortunately, my glass of wine did get spilled on the textile. It was a complete accident -- the glass tipped over when the table was jarred. I apologized profusely and helped with cleanup.

The hostess was very upset. She later emailed me asking me to cover the cost of specialty cleaning for her textile and, if the cleaning was not successful, to reimburse her for the textile itself. I apologized again for the spill and told her I understood how upset she must be, but that I was not able to pay for the spill.

Well, today I got a bill from her for the cleaning service, along with a note reiterating how special this textile is to her, saying she'd asked us not to spill, and explaining that when a guest damages a host's property, they have a responsibility to pay.

I'm not sure how to respond. I kind of see her point, but it's not like I spilled on her upholstery or drunkenly crashed into a priceless family vase. I don't know whether to ignore it, say another version of what I've already said (I'm sorry about the spill, but I can't pay for this), or be more explicit (I'm sorry about the spill, but this was the wrong choice of tablecloth and I don't think I'm obligated to pay). I have a feeling she won't let this go, regardless of how I respond. Or should I just pay up?

GENTLE READER: With a total lack of sympathy for the hostess, Miss Manners nevertheless advises you to pay up. It's just too bad that all the guests didn't respond to that humiliating warning by jumping away from the table and declaring themselves unworthy to dine on anything so valuable.

Although the hostess's revealing that she valued the cloth over the guests and her demanding payment are both gross travesties of hospitality, it is true that a guest should offer to replace or fix what he has damaged, even though it was an accident. In turn, a host should refuse, knowing that absorbing accidents is part of the cost of entertaining.

(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: Why do people feel that I have a need to know what is going on in either their or their spouses' underwear?!

I have a friend whose husband has prostate cancer. I sympathize, but I do not need to know that he cannot urinate, or the color of his urination, or if there is blood. I was at a party recently when the hostess pulled me aside and told me about the color of her husband's urine.

I do not need to know if your husband is required to wear a truss, or anything else going on in his underwear.

What do you say? My feelings are, if something is going on in your pants, I do not need to know!

GENTLE READER: And why don't they just post it on the Internet and be done with it?

Wait, they probably do.

Miss Manners remembers when cancer of any type was considered unmentionable. Obituaries stated that the person had died "after a long illness." (Nowadays, it is "after losing a battle with ..." as if it were the deceased's fault for not having fought hard enough.)

Certainly it was good to stop treating a disease as if it were shameful. Bringing it out in the open had the enormous benefit of allowing sufferers and their caretakers to identify one another, and perhaps provide comfort, assistance and information.

But it also loosened the ready tongues of those who simply like to talk about their and other people's illnesses. The way to put a stop to this is to say: "I'm awfully sorry about your husband and please give him my best. But I should tell you that I'm terribly squeamish. You wouldn't want to have to look after me if this made me feel faint."

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I love to wear hats, but sometimes people give me a funny look. But this time I really want to wear a nice and elegant hat to a wedding.

It is going to be in the evening, in the summer. First is a church ceremony, followed by a formal reception. I am used to wearing a hat in church, but would it be better to remove it before I get to the reception? (It will be in a different location; actually, we will be driving to the reception.) What do you think?

GENTLE READER: That as much as Miss Manners wants to help you, you also need the help of your friends. Not the ones who give you funny looks; we don't care about that.

It's the brides. They have to stop having evening weddings. A lady does not wear a hat in the evening, except for a tiny bit of fluff that can pass for a hair ornament.

But look at all those heavenly hats that are worn at European weddings, where civic unions must be conducted when the offices are open. The festivity of all those colorful hats (as opposed to the all-purpose black dresses that keep showing up incorrectly at evening weddings) should be enough to bring back the traditional daytime wedding. That, and the fact that these are less expensive than those endless nighttime bashes.

(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: It has become so frequent as to be nearly ubiquitous these days that whenever I am called upon to pass some time in a doctor's waiting room, I am required to at least listen to a television broadcast.

I write not to ask whether anything can be done about forcing television on captive audiences, but to inquire about whether there is a polite way to pass my waiting time without having to listen to the television, which is nearly always tuned to a news channel with whose political views I take issue.

On the other hand, informing the receptionist that I will choose to wait in the parking lot places an undue burden on the office staff when it is my turn to be called. Is there an acceptable alternative to simply putting up with it?

GENTLE READER: Possibly. Miss Manners has been in waiting rooms where everyone present was reading, dozing or playing with their telephones, and still the television droned on.

Offices that feel no compunction about keeping people waiting for long periods of time nevertheless do feel obliged to provide entertainment. As these offices' previous idea of amusement was to provide old issues of pharmaceutical magazines, they probably consider television to be a bold step into the new media world.

Your first line of defense should be to ask those present whether anyone is watching. If several people are, you are stuck. If only one or two are, you can ask whether they would mind moving closer to the set so that they could hear it with the volume turned down. But if no one answers, you will be a heroine if you ask the receptionist if you may turn it off.

A refusal should justify your asking for a quiet place to wait and supplying your telephone number for a summons.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is a gracious way of deflecting questions about my voting intentions in the coming election? And what of circumstances where my would-be interrogators do not pick up on gentle attempts to steer the conversation to a less divisive and explosive topic?

GENTLE READER: Then you address the one they started.

No, not to answer it -- Miss Manners said to address it. You could do this by turning it into a conversation, instead of a quiz.

"Isn't it strange," you might ask, "that the secret ballot must have been intended to protect us from the powerful, and now it protects us from one another? I've seen people who I thought had the highest respect for each other becoming alienated simply because they have honest political disagreements. Do you find that people who disagree with you have more rancor about it than they used to?"

Of course, you will say all this pleasantly, without emphasizing the implication that you will turn angry and disrespectful if your interrogator's politics turn out not to be identical with yours.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: After my son's funeral, a woman came to me and requested she get the flowers back that she had brought to the service. I thought this was extremely tacky! What would you have done?

GENTLE READER: Probably just looked at her with tears welling up and said nothing before walking sadly away.

(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.)