DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was given an old mirror to use for an art show, as a feature in my booth where I sell women’s clothing of my own design. The friend who let me use it was vague about whether it was lent or given for that purpose. The mirror appears to be a part of an old armoire and doesn’t have any monetary or sentimental value. Three years have passed since the show. The mirror has since decorated my 5-year-old daughter’s room, where she uses it to dress, often checking her “look.”

The other day, my friend said, “Hey, if you have that mirror, I want it back.”

I am not a miserly person, but I kind of feel a little bit like a public storage unit. Do you have any thoughts or reflections about this situation, or am I totally in the wrong for feeling off about returning the item? Should I return it or let her know that I gave it to my daughter?

GENTLE READER: Three years is a long time for a mirror to be in doubt about its owner, and, assuming it’s not talking (other than to declare everyone who uses it the fairest of all), probably also too long to know who was in the wrong. Is it the owner for changing her mind, you for assuming that a loan was a present, or everyone, in that there was no mutual understanding at the time it was handed over?

Fortunately, it makes no difference. The owner now believes it was a loan, which means she is, gently or not-so-gently, accusing you of making off with her belonging.

The first order of business is therefore to clear yourself of the charge by apologizing and confessing that you misunderstood, as you thought it was a present. Miss Manners has no objection to your mentioning how attached your daughter has grown to it, so long as you then earnestly offer to return it.

If this does not discourage your friend from insisting on having it back, you will have to turn it over graciously if you wish to keep the friendship. It is worth remembering that what you consider uncompensated storage, she may think of as an uncompensated loan.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I’m a college freshman. My dad is giving my classmate and me a long ride, like two hours.

Should I sit in the front so that he won’t feel he’s being treated like a driver, or should I sit with my classmate in the back seat, since I don’t want to be rude to my guest?

GENTLE READER: You are right to think of yourself as a host in this situation, but Miss Manners has an easy solution. Put your classmate in the front. You thereby make it clear that your father is not the chauffeur, and your friend is not the baggage. It also leaves you free to swoop in to facilitate conversation as you like.

(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, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband and I go grocery shopping two times a month. To expedite the process, each of us retrieves half of the items on the grocery list, and we use two carts. I always keep my cart right next to me, and only leave it to take a few steps down or across an aisle to retrieve an item.

My husband will leave his cart at the far end of an aisle for around a minute or so (occasionally more) when he’s retrieving a few items at the other end. He will also leave the cart in one aisle to grab some items from another aisle. I do not expect him to be quite as fastidious as I am about staying near the cart, but I have witnessed people having to jostle around his cart or having some difficulty reaching items that his cart is obstructing.

He insists that such occurrences do not happen as much as I think they do (which may be true, as I am often in another section of the store, getting the items on my half of the list), and that he isn’t separated from his cart long enough for his behavior to be rude. He does try to grab items quickly when he leaves the cart unattended.

My opinion is that his behavior is inconsiderate to fellow shoppers. Am I right?

GENTLE READER: Not having checked on him either, Miss Manners cannot know whether it is true that he rarely does this, and only for a few moments. She would therefore be inclined to trust his word -- unless he also leaves his car in the middle of the street while he does errands.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My child attends high school with 2,200 other students. Today, a Friday, they found a gift card on school grounds in the dirt valued at $10 for a local ice cream parlor.

Since this occurred after a club meeting, school had been dismissed for more than one hour, the office was closed and the students and staff had departed, not to return until Monday.

Honesty is very important to me, so I am wondering if it is OK under these circumstances to allow my child to keep the gift card for their own use. I’m sure it can be turned in to the office on Monday as a lost-and-found item; however, the chances of the owner being found are slim.

Am I simply looking for an excuse to allow my child to keep it, or is keeping it acceptable?

GENTLE READER: Yes, you are looking for an excuse, and no, it is not acceptable.

Access to this ice cream is not melting over the weekend, Miss Manners feels obliged to point out. So there is no reason not to do the honest thing and turn in the card -- hoping that no one will show up to claim it.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: How much time should elapse before an RSVP is answered?

GENTLE READER: Long enough for the recipient to get to the nearest telephone, device or desk.

(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, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I understand the proper usage of “Ms.,” “Miss” and “Mrs.” as you have written about it, but what about “Mizz”?

I have heard this title used fairly often at my old elementary school, by a mix of teachers and students. It was a verbal title, never a written one.

I would have passed it off as a mispronunciation, had I not heard a fellow student explain it thus: “‘Miss’ means unmarried, ‘missus’ means married, and ‘mizz’ means it’s none of your business.”

While I would never want to snoop into a lady’s personal life, I also see no reason for anybody to be ashamed or embarrassed of their relationship status. Could you please inform me what the proper usage of this title would be?

GENTLE READER: “Mizz” is not a separate title, but a perhaps slightly southern pronunciation of “Ms.”

But Miss Manners wonders: Do you folks go around making snarky interpretations of “Mr.”?

Oh, that’s right -- you can’t, because it is an all-purpose honorific for all gentlemen, regardless of whether or not they are married. So you can’t accuse them of being ashamed or embarrassed.

“Ms.” accomplishes the same thing. Like “Miss” and “Mrs.”, it derives from the once-respectable title of “Mistress,” which applied to all ladies -- and was driven into disuse by just the sort of snarkiness you repeat.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: This holiday season has been a particularly bad one for thank-you notes at my house. Even though we did receive a few actual notes, the vast majority did not send one, and one person even said, “We don’t do that”!

We also got two hastily written emails and a Facebook post, including some that didn’t acknowledge the gifts at all.

Has this become accepted practice? Do you think they are giving me a message that they don’t want gifts in the first place?

I’m not asking you to tell me how to get them to write notes; instead, I’m asking if I’m expecting too much from people in this electronic and busy world.

GENTLE READER: There certainly are people involved here who expect too much. They are the recipients of your generosity, who expect it to continue without any gratitude on their part.

It will be acceptable to ignore presents when it is no longer accepted to give them.

So Miss Manners agrees that your offerings couldn’t mean much to people who have no response to them, and that you should stop annoying them with your generosity.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: While I agree that not saying “thank you” is rude, I don’t see why that should mean that we stop giving them gifts. Choosing to give a gift is about the giver, while failing to say “thank you” is about the receiver.

Should we lessen ourselves as givers because we did not get a response to our generosity? Do we give only to get a response?

GENTLE READER: Presumably, you give in order to please the recipient. If you have no reason to think you have succeeded, Miss Manners sees no point in persisting.

(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, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)