DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband’s parents are visiting soon. How do I prepare for their three-day stay?

How should I prepare my home, how often should I cook, should I buy new sheets, plan activities? Should I buy them gifts? I do not want to look like I am trying too hard.

GENTLE READER: Why not? In-laws love that sort of thing.

Three days is a good amount of time to make things special for them, but also not to schedule every minute. Plan to make most meals, if possible, but leave room for them to invite you out or make their own plans. Suggest a few activities that might be to their liking, but similarly do not over-schedule.

Presents are unnecessary, although tokens like chocolates on their beds, or items related to the city or their interests, are always charming. Sheets need merely be clean, not new.

In short, Miss Manners recommends that you make every reasonable effort to make your in-laws’ visit comfortable, trying your best to ignore critiques -- or to seek them.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was dining out with two friends, and about halfway through the meal, one of them got up and went to sit with a couple in another room. (This is a place she frequents and she knows many of the other patrons.)

She briefly returned to finish her meal and pay her bill, but took her dessert out with her to the other room. When I left with the friend who had stayed with me, we all said goodnight.

What I’m wondering is: 1. Is this as rude as I think it is? and 2. Was there anything that should have or could have been said?

I’m not planning to go out with her again anytime soon, and it’s a shame -- I would have liked to continue to socialize with her.

GENTLE READER: Unfortunately, she does not seem to share the sentiment, particularly if there was no follow-up apology. If one is forthcoming or this person expresses a desire to see you again and you are willing, Miss Manners suggests that you tell her you will choose another place -- a restaurant less distracting than the last one.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: When we travel and are houseguests, we try to be guests that they want back. One thing we do is strip our beds, either putting our dirty laundry in their laundry room or folding it neatly at the end of the bed, next to the blankets.

Our last two houseguests left and never did this. This left a lot of extra work for us. Am I assuming this should be done? Are there new etiquette rules that we should be aware of as houseguests?

GENTLE READER: “New” etiquette is generally an excuse for rudeness and does not set the standard -- unless it is coming from Miss Manners herself.

Perhaps with the invention of paid shared-housing apps, guests have mistaken financial transactions with being a guest. Proper etiquette is still to do as you have been and make as little work as possible for your hosts.

(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: After several years and several thousand dollars invested in treatments, my husband and I have accepted that we are highly unlikely to conceive children naturally. We always planned to adopt and/or foster children later in life; however, this development led us to move up our timeline.

We have been practicing answering inquires regarding whether we have children with a simple, “Not yet.” However, some relatives, friends and even a few acquaintances (such as co-workers in my small office) know we are experiencing infertility.

Now, when people learn we are in the process of becoming foster/adoptive parents, we are often met with unsolicited stories of miraculous pregnancies that occurred once a couple “stopped trying so hard” and decided to adopt. Typically, the subjects of the story are a cousin’s dentist’s nephew, or some such distant acquaintance. Sometimes the stories are told without any awareness of my infertility -- perhaps folks assume, due to my age, that our pursuing adoption must mean I am infertile.

We believe these people mean well and generally don’t know what else to say when faced with the issue of infertility, which is still a bit of a taboo topic. We believe they want to impart a sense of hope and perhaps also ease their own discomfort.

However, these stories tend to have the opposite effect on me. I have worked hard to cope with the grief of infertility. Some days and situations are very difficult for me, but I do my best to put on a brave face and remember the world does not revolve around my inability to reproduce.

My typical response to these miraculous pregnancy-after-adoption tales has been to smile, nod, and say something along the lines of “How wonderful for your relative/friend/dentist’s nephew.” I find this to be a better response than to roll my eyes and groan, although doing so would more accurately convey my internal feelings.

I’m afraid if I wish to discuss our plans for adoption, or my infertility (which I believe to be important, in order to lessen the taboo and the sense of isolation so many infertile individuals feel), I must also endure these stories. However, I wonder whether Miss Manners approves of my kind-but-not-inviting-further-discussion response.

GENTLE READER: It is not your duty to promote awareness at the cost of your privacy. Politely refusing to discuss your plans except amongst trusted intimates is undoubtedly your best defense. Acknowledgment, with no further encouragement for those who offer advice or share stories, is perfectly acceptable.

Meanwhile, Miss Manners is left to wonder what response these helpful bystanders hope to elicit -- and to ponder the icky and contradictory implications of “not trying so hard.”

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Being a moderate aficionado, when you are asked to bring an appropriate wine pairing for the appetizers and main course at a partial potluck, is the wine considered a gift to the hostess to become a part of her cellar? Or, like the dessert brought by other guests, is it to be opened and enjoyed by all?

GENTLE READER: Once you bring an item to be consumed at another person’s house, it stays there, whether or not actual consumption takes place. If you are worried about guests not being able to enjoy the wine in your presence, Miss Manners recommends that on this occasion, you become slightly less an aficionado.

(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: When I was out on a double date, my date and the other couple used a knife and fork to eat pizza and nachos. I thought that these were literally finger foods.

GENTLE READER: These people should not run for public office. Not only are nachos finger food, but Miss Manners has trouble imagining how one could eat them with a fork and knife. A spoon, perhaps.

How to handle pizza will depend on the formality of the restaurant. There is no ban on being more formal, but it seems unlikely that three people made that choice independently. More likely, someone started and everyone else followed.

If so, it will be important to know whose idea it was before you open the conversation at your second date by poking fun at the other couple’s pretensions.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My brother is 61 and refers to women of all ages as “girls,” and even worse, calls seniors “old girls.”

I’ve tried for years to get him to change how he describes women, but to no avail. No amount of wincing or obvious discomfort on my behalf has any effect on him.

Besides, he says, these terms were not considered disrespectful when he was growing up, and he refuses to change and be “P.C.”

How do I react when he speaks this way in groups in which we are both included? I’m resigned to his ways in private, but not objecting to them when others are around may sound as though I’m complicit with his terminology, and I certainly am not. We may be siblings, but we do not share the same perspectives.

GENTLE READER: Having herself been around in the old days, Miss Manners can assure your brother that calling men “men” and women “girls” was never a sign of respect, even when no one objected.

Even if your brother’s memory were correct, it would not justify current rudeness. Rather than wince in private and contemplate speaking up in public, you would do better to speak up in private and wince in public.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Most of our family cookouts are potluck style. Since we have the biggest, most kid-friendly yard, we end up hosting most of them.

We supply the meat and several other dishes that won’t travel well. Usually, other family members will commit to bringing other things, like salad or sweets. This is always appreciated by me and everyone else.

One kind and somewhat older relative brings a whole watermelon and expects me to cut it up so everyone can enjoy it. But after cleaning my house before the cookout and running around making sure everyone has fresh drinks and what-not, I really don’t feel like excusing myself and attempting to cut a whole watermelon! It’s a tedious and messy job, and to do it while trying to host? No thanks!

I would rather this person not bring anything at all. Is there a polite why of expressing: Either bring a fruit salad or something else that is ready to go?

GENTLE READER: Family potluck cookouts are not, as a rule, formal affairs. Miss Manners therefore offers a simpler, less confrontational solution: Locate the nearest strapping young relative, hand him or her a knife, and ask that person to do the honors outdoors.

(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.)