DEAR MISS MANNERS: When I take my 6-year-old to the doctor to treat allergies or colds, medical forms ask for my marital status. I’ve been leaving this part of the form blank ever since getting unsolicited advice on single parenting from a nurse a few months ago.

I provide a second emergency contact when the forms ask for one, and I’d be happy to give my marital status if I could see how it was relevant to my child’s treatment.

Today, I was checking in my child for a medical procedure. The nurse asked me for my marital status, and I replied, “Oh, why do you ask?” I hoped she’d either give me a medical reason or move on to the next question, but instead she said, “So I can fill in this form.”

Annoyed, I shortly answered: “Skip.” She moved on to the next question. Could you please suggest a more polite way to handle this conversation the next time it comes up?

GENTLE READER: “I am my child’s primary parent. Neither of us is currently married -- nor are we looking.”

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband is a groomsman for some longtime friends of ours. They attended our wedding a couple months ago, and we are so excited for their coming union. Then we found out that I am not invited to the rehearsal dinner -- only he is.

When we were planning our wedding, I was told that if anyone in the wedding party had a spouse, they were to be included in all rehearsal-related activities. I am particularly bummed because we are traveling across the country for their wedding. Is it appropriate to express my disappointment to the couple?

GENTLE READER: Only if you want to make for an extremely awkward next encounter. The couple will either begrudgingly invite you to the rehearsal dinner, or remain steadfast that it is wedding party-only. If it is the latter, surely there are other spouses in a similar position. Miss Manners suggests you seek them out to plan your own evening’s entertainment. And then resolve to have a lot more fun.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: There is a six-year difference between my sister and me, but there is no missing the fact that we are sisters. Lately in social settings, we are often asked which one of us is older. This question has been asked by complete strangers and co-workers.

With strangers, I have no hesitation in taking a page from your book and asking, “Why do you want to know?” and then changing the subject. My quandary is in responding to co-workers and their significant others. We have another work/family gathering in a few months, and it would be helpful to have a polite, tactful response.

GENTLE READER: To be clear, if Miss Manners recommended, “Why do you want to know?” as a proper response, it was meant to be asked in a tone of mild curiosity, not shirt-gripping demand.

And she reminds you that strangers are no less entitled to a polite answer than family and friends, no matter how impertinent the question. How about answering, instead, “We are like twins. Can’t you tell?” That should confuse them into silence -- and changing the subject themselves.

(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 boss received a beautiful bouquet of flowers for her birthday from a business vendor. As she was away on a vacation, and would be gone for another week, I sent her a photo and video of the bouquet and card so that they could be temporarily enjoyed, at least visually.

I was a bit stunned to get a call from her asking me to please call the florist, and ask if the flowers could be picked up and a new bouquet delivered upon her return, but I said “Of course.” So I called the local florist and they said they’d see what they could do.

Apparently the florist then called their client, the sender, to ask if they’d like to pay to send a second bouquet. Somebody bears the cost of a second bouquet.

It seems to me that a gracious person would have said, “Oh, those are beautiful; would someone in our office like to take them home and enjoy them?” Was her request a symptom of over-entitlement?

GENTLE READER: Alive as Miss Manners is to the rudeness of others, she cannot help noticing that there would be less rudeness if we did not go around expecting to find it. What your boss did was unexpected, but not rude.

What happened next created the mess, much like the actor who drops a prop that causes another actor to trip and fall into the lap of the gentleman in the front row.

Your boss’s hope that the flower shop would reschedule the delivery after it had occurred was absurdly optimistic. But she is the boss. Your call to the flower shop should have been: “My apologies. I realize this is unusual, but my boss is out of town. Would it be possible to reschedule the delivery?”

The word “reschedule” makes clear that you are asking the flower shop not to charge you a second time; the apology is an acknowledgment that, unless your company does an enormous amount of business with this particular florist, you can hardly expect them to comply.

The florist should then have responded: A. “I’m sorry, but we cannot reschedule after delivery has been made”; B. “We are happy to deliver a new bouquet next week, but we will have to charge for it”; or C. “Sure.”

None of this having happened, the sender should, after the florist’s call asking for more money, have called your boss (or yourself) to find out what was going on, at which point someone could have canceled -- or paid for -- the pending order. The point being that clarity and good will all around would have made unnecessary any question about the quality of your boss’s upbringing.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is the best response to a gentleman who looks over to you in church and says, “By the way, your perfume is very nice.”

GENTLE READER: “Shhh.”

(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: What is proper placement at a dining table? Specifically, where is the head of the table?

GENTLE READER: The head of the table is where the host is seated. Miss Manners presumes you are asking in your capacity as host, and not as a guest, but the answer is the same.

The only difference is that, if the table itself does not make the answer obvious, then you will need to convey that information so no one sits in your chair. This can be accomplished with place cards or by telling guests individually where they are to sit, both of which are less work than constructing a dais or procuring fan-bearers.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: When one person is already in a narrow hallway, and another person comes down the stairs and tries to enter the hallway and pass by the person already in the hallway, what should happen?

GENTLE READER: Who yields place to let another pass is generally determined by factors other than physical location, such as age, gender, ability (or disability) and even visibility (of the space or the people). But in very narrow spaces, where there may be a limited number of places to go when getting out of the way, Miss Manners is content to have the person closer to the pull-off give way.

She notes that your question was more open-ended (“what should happen”), but if the situation you are describing involves, for example, two newlyweds who have just moved into a first apartment, what may happen in tight quarters is not, first, an etiquette question.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: If someone is riding in the back seat of a car with friends, and the driver drops off the other friends first, should the remaining one in the back seat move up to the front seat?

GENTLE READER: Etiquette encourages this without demanding it, although Miss Manners takes into account the distance to the final destination, the outside weather conditions and the car speed at the time the previous friend disembarked.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Years ago, when gentlemen walked on the outside of a woman when walking along the street, the way I heard it was that it was to protect the lady from threats. Was this, or is this still, the case?

GENTLE READER: It was and is the case (although other countries always put the lady on the gentleman’s right), and threats from the street have not, unfortunately, disappeared.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Could you please tell me proper etiquette for a wedding reception that has now been changed to a “pre-elopement party”? Does this call for the same gift as a wedding?

GENTLE READER: The pre-elopement party is a new one on Miss Manners. She is inclined to classify it still as a wedding reception -- for which presents, though perhaps appreciated, are not customary. She assumes that the guests are not expected to bring ladders to abet the impending escape.

(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.)