DEAR MISS MANNERS: When my husband and I invite one of our out-of-town friends for dinner, which we do two or three times a year, we always use cloth napkins that go with the tablecloth. Our friend always arrives wearing a thick layer of very bright red lipstick. By the end of dinner, her napkin is covered in lipstick, which is hard to clean. Should we give everyone at the table paper napkins, buy black napkins, or just accept the time spent scrubbing out the lipstick? My husband thinks I am being whiny, but he doesn’t scrub the napkins, although he does a lot of the cooking.

GENTLE READER: There is a reason that restaurants and catering businesses generally use white cloth napkins: They are easier to clean and sanitize with bleach. Miss Manners is not the household hints department, but that sounds reasonable to her.

Paper napkins are flimsy, and black napkins would look strange in contrast to a light-colored tablecloth. They also betray your obvious contempt for a brightly colored lip.

However, if you find yourself still scrubbing and your husband won’t help, it is far better form to accept the loss of the napkin over that of the friend.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: A friend calls at odd hours when I’m not home (but she thinks I am), and does not leave a message. She knows that I can look at my caller ID and see that she called.

When I don’t call her back, she is offended, and thinks I was at home and just didn’t answer her call. I think that since she did not leave a message, then that means she did not need or want to be called back. Am I in the wrong, or should she be leaving a message?

GENTLE READER: Your friend’s method has a one-sided efficiency: requesting a callback without the bothersome task of stating why.

Both parties must agree to this system for it to be effective. In negotiating this agreement, Miss Manners recommends that you warn your friend that without a message, you will not be able to determine the relative urgency of her calls -- and will therefore be forced to assume that they are all low.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have two very dear friends who do not know each other, but they both have the very annoying habit of correcting my “mistakes,” such as how I pronounce the name of a foreign city, official or other word.

We have all had at least 16 years of education in this country, in distinctly different areas of study, and yet they are the grammar and culture experts, it seems.

Neither is the kind of person who does this to undermine or to show off, but I am annoyed and offended by their compulsion to correct me. I would never do this to them, but on occasion they have been incorrect in what they said.

Do you have a polite and inoffensive way I could convey my displeasure with their behavior without “correcting” them?

GENTLE READER: Blame a third party. “Funny, I have never heard it pronounced bru-shetta, but I am sure you must be right. Let’s have our waiter settle it. He’s Italian.”

(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 just had surgery, and my boyfriend wants to leave for the weekend with his friend. I feel very hurt. Is it just me?

GENTLE READER: One of the duties of a boyfriend (a girlfriend, too) is to demonstrate a more-than-passing interest in the object of his affections.

Miss Manners uses the word “demonstrate” advisedly. She has no objection to his feelings also being genuine; that is merely outside of the realm of etiquette. But no matter how deep his love, you cannot reasonably be expected to appreciate it while he is away skiing and you are eating applesauce through a straw.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am fed up with my fiance’s parenting skills of his 20-year-old son. This son lives with us in the home we bought together, as do my two children, ages 11 and 14. His son makes over $30,000 a year, does not contribute to one bill in our home, and does not have one chore to do.

I am a clean freak and I keep my home actually spotless, and his son is a complete pig with his room. He has been told a million times not to eat upstairs, as we just replaced the carpet, and he still continues to bring food upstairs.

I know it’s his room, but it is still my house, and he shows no respect as to the rules of the home. He comes and goes as he pleases, and never asks if he can help with anything. He won’t even take his own garbage out, nor does my fiance tell him to. We are even paying for his son’s cable that is in his bedroom.

My fiance is a wonderful man, and I don’t want to jeopardize what we have over this adult kid, who hopefully will be moving out soon. His other children are not speaking to him, and I feel that he does not want to make his son mad by giving him chores or making him pay a bill.

So, before I lose my mind, can you please tell me how I can close my eyes to all of this and live happily in this home with my fiance while his son resides there?

GENTLE READER: Second families face challenges that first families are spared, but one hopes that second family members also have the benefit of having learned something the first time around.

Your stepson’s age is both an asset and a liability: an asset because he will most likely be moving out soon, a liability because his interactions with his father are long ingrained.

Miss Manners can offer two starting points. First, identify some areas in which you are willing to recognize your stepson’s autonomy: perhaps at the door to his bedroom. Second, discuss the situation with your fiance, explaining that, as his son’s primary parent, he may have to be more active than in the past -- while also recognizing the effective limits of your own authority to make change directly.

(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: If you are invited to someone’s home for drinks and appetizers, how do you know when it is time for you to leave?

GENTLE READER: Before dinner is served or the hosts go to bed. As Miss Manners fears that seeing such activities is an indication you have already overstayed, she recommends keeping a discreet eye on the other guests.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My daughter, a Protestant, is engaged to be married to a Roman Catholic. One of her bridesmaids is now backing out of being an attendant because the marriage violates her conscience. The bridesmaid’s husband is also not supporting this interfaith marriage due to his strong religious beliefs.

However, in the same letter where the bridesmaid sorrowfully declined fulfilling her commitment to be a bridesmaid, they ask if they may still be permitted to attend the wedding. The harsh judgment exhibited by this lifelong friend has grieved my daughter, and she doesn’t especially want the couple to attend. How should we respond to them?

GENTLE READER: Protest is the ax of the body politic: It is sometimes necessary to fight entrenched injustice, but people who wield it should watch out for unguarded fingers and toes.

Your daughter’s bridesmaid is free to protest against the Catholic Church, but she cannot, in this particular case, do so without also implicitly questioning your daughter’s judgment in wanting to honor her fiance’s faith. As that is a serious insult, your daughter is right to drop her from the guest list.

The bridesmaid will no doubt say that that was not her intention, but Miss Manners’ patience with the frankly illogical has, of late, been under strain. Religious objections are quickly becoming a national sport.

Such objections can be made with good or bad motives, but let us not pretend that the motive is neutral. Your daughter should send her bridesmaid a written note saying how sorry she is that the bridesmaid is unable to overlook her objections to the church this once. And, that being the case, she should add that it would be best for all if the bridesmaid did not attend. This will avoid conflict with family, guests -- and at least one priest -- whose faith is deeply held.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is there still a measurement that’s considered “proper” for how close a stamp is placed to the top and the right side of an envelope? I seem to remember that years ago, correct placement was considered proper etiquette.

GENTLE READER: Etiquette governs behavior among people, a fact obscured by the public’s -- though not etiquette’s -- obsession with the disposition of the silverware.

As the stamp is now more likely to interact with a machine at the post office than a clerk, it need only be in reasonable reach of that machine.

But as the recipient of the letter may see it before it lands in the trash, Miss Manners counsels that the stamp not be placed so as to draw unwanted attention on its way out. It should be far enough from the edges that it will not detach, and even enough that it does not suggest the poster was in no condition to be writing letters.

(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.)