DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it acceptable to wave at someone once you have made awkward eye contact? Or should you just wink and hit 'em with a terrible pickup line? Any help you can give me would be much appreciated, as this happens to me quite often. I have tried both options, and my counselor seems to think the pickup line is what gets them.

Also, what is your opinion on a guy's height? Because I have been told that once you get over 6 feet tall, you get more ladies, yet that is not occurring to me.

GENTLE READER: Huh? Presuming the best, Miss Manners hopes that you are simply seeking acceptable ways to start a dialogue with strangers of the opposite sex in order to get to know them better.

First, she strongly encourages you (and your "counselor") to stop thinking of ladies as something to "get."

Actually, there is no "second." Try thinking of women as actual people who enjoy real and interesting conversation -- not weird hand gestures, offensive or half-baked lines, or exclusive physical fetishes. Approach them as such and you should be fine -- or will learn otherwise quickly.

Miss Manners assures you that she has no opinion on height other than its convenience for out-of-reach items and further wonders how you plan on adjusting yours now that it has occurred to you.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: We are staying in a vacation rental for a month, and we had guests fly in to join us for four nights. Their flight home was scheduled to leave at 5 p.m., so we needed to drive them to the airport at 2 p.m., which gave us time to enjoy the rest of the day on our own.

Their flight was delayed by 2 1/2 hours. We learned about this delay a good hour before we needed to leave for the airport. How should they have handled this delay?

Could they say they are delayed and expect us to put the rest of our day on hold, waiting to take them to the airport?

Could they have not told us about the delay and let us take them to the airport, allowing us to enjoy the rest of our day?

GENTLE READER: Or your guests could admit to being delayed and offer to get themselves to the airport. You would still be left with a decision to make -- delay your plans or take them up on their offer -- but your guests would not have had to lie in order to be gracious.

If this plan is not forthcoming, you also have the option to say, "I am so sorry, but we made plans for the rest of the day. Could we help arrange for some other means of transportation?"

But perhaps the real problem here is with the guests themselves. Yours have seemingly done nothing wrong. But the fact that the enjoyment of your day seems to be predicated on whether or not you have to spend another partial afternoon with them is sad. Miss Manners suggests that in the future, you vacation with friends who are a bit more entertaining. Two and a half hours' worth, to be exact.

(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: In today's age of constant contact with our ever-present phones, what's the appropriate response when a friend with an alternative schedule (for instance, working in another time zone) contacts me during work hours on my personal cell?

I feel awkward ignoring their calls, but also feel perturbed that they do not appreciate that I work standard business hours.

I received a mid-afternoon call on a Monday from a friend who informed me that now was a good time for him to return my Sunday call, but unfortunately, I was working and wasn't available for a long chat. I felt rude but confused as to how I should have handled it.

I am salaried and could take the call and leave work later, but also feel that it is unprofessional and keeps me "on call" around others' schedules. I would appreciate your advice on texts of a similar nature: It seems not responding immediately to texts is now considered rude!

GENTLE READER: Because technology has made it so that everyone is immediately reachable does not, Miss Manners assures you, mean that humans have to follow suit.

Since it is so commonplace for people to turn off their ringers, it is likely that no one pays attention to the time that they are calling anymore. But that does not mean you have to answer it.

If it makes you feel better to blame it on technology, then do it fully. Leave an outgoing voicemail message (or text equivalent) that states your business hours and when you will be able to reasonably return calls. You may find that your devices end up talking to one another for a while, but at least your job security -- and general sanity level -- will be safe.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My daughter just got married in a small ceremony, and a group of about 20 friends and family went to dinner after, which I had arranged. The groom's parents offered to pay half the bill, which wasn't a problem -- but their credit card was declined.

As I was the one the wait staff was dealing with, I simply paid the entire bill and handed the declined card back, while saying, "It's all settled."

Was I wrong to not give them a chance to pay a different way? I assume they'll figure out eventually that they weren't charged, and if they insist on paying me back, they'll figure out a way to do it. But my main concern was avoiding embarrassing them in that celebratory moment.

GENTLE READER: Which was tactful. Miss Manners assures you that it also would not have been remiss to have taken one of the other parents discreetly aside to explain the situation. Cards may be declined for reasons other than fraud.

But if you were in a position to be generous without making a show of it -- or insisting on immediate payback -- it bodes well for the future of the relationship. Or -- if it becomes a habit -- its complete and utter demise.

(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: We have two cats, a Siamese and an orange tabby, both about 2 years old. When the orange tabby uses her litter box, well, it's just pungent and disgustingly smelly. My husband just sits there and says when you have pets they come with smells.

I beg to differ, and what if we had company over? What's the proper etiquette in these matters? I await your reply because I think leaving it, even after one use with fresh litter, is one too many. I think he's trying to gaslight me and he's just being lazy.

GENTLE READER: Your husband's observation that pets come with smells is accurate but lazy -- by which Miss Manners means unhelpful. So do people, but we do not therefore conclude that all activities are open to public viewing.

Bathroom facilities for the pets should be kept out of range of visitors, meaning nowhere the two will come into close or sustained contact, olfactory or otherwise. Within the family, agreement must be reached, with understanding and preference given to more sensitive members.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: When I hosted a large event a couple of months ago, the food was catered, but I supplied the liquor, including two very expensive bottles of brandy, with the proviso that I would take home the remaining liquor at the end of the evening. I spoke to the hired bartenders before the guests arrived to confirm this.

At the end of the evening, after most of the guests had left, I went to the bar to assist the bartenders in packing up the liquor, and was surprised to find that both bottles of brandy were missing. The bartenders told me that they had not been emptied by the guests. The manager of the facility, which has excellent surveillance cameras, pulled the video of the bar area, and it showed that one of my dearest friends had taken both bottles. How do I -- or should I -- address this with my now soon-to-be-former "friend"?

GENTLE READER: Your sticky-fingered friend clearly does not share your (or Miss Manners') ideas about polite behavior. But you do have one thing in common: You are both in possession of guilty information, even if you, unlike your friend, have nothing with which to wash away the unpleasant taste left by such knowledge.

Commercial establishments routinely, and often understandably, install surveillance equipment, sometimes to protect their patrons and always to protect themselves. But your spying on your friends -- even your guilty ones -- is not polite.

How, then, to correct the problem without admitting your own, lesser, transgression? Your first option is to admit the knowledge, but obfuscate how you came by it. "The establishment tells me you saved the brandies for me. Thank you so much! When can I come by to pick them up?"

Being more confrontational, this approach is more likely to go wrong, particularly if your friend has already disposed of the incriminating evidence. A gentler approach is to talk fondly of the party to your friend at the next social event, mentioning that your only disappointment was that the bartender told you that someone helped themselves to the bottles that you were hoping to share with your guests. This is unlikely to get your brandy back, but it may ruin the thief's day.

(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.)