DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a deaf individual, and therefore, my husband is my communicator. Whenever I interact with a business and anticipate being called by them in the future (to schedule an appointment, etc.), I always ask if their business name comes up on the caller ID. It surprises me that most receptionists do not know. They tell me to look for their number on the caller ID and they leave it at that, leaving me stumped.

As a reminder, in this day and age, we receive a lot of unsolicited calls with bogus numbers and no names. We do not answer the phone. If it’s important enough, the caller will leave a message. Then my husband listens to all our messages, returns calls and clears out the messages.

My best advice for all businesses, of any kind: Please have your company name come up on caller ID. This will avoid much confusion, blame and wasted time.

GENTLE READER: Reasonable as it is of you to hope that callers will identify themselves properly, the best antidote to confusion and blame is to assume good intentions. That, and remembering that you and your husband are not the only parties to your call.

Miss Manners is not suggesting that someone is listening in, only that the telephone company, your telephone manufacturer and any number of other participants have a say in how caller ID identifies a caller.

The receptionist does not tell you what will appear on your screen when receiving a call because he or she does not, and likely cannot, know. If you will agree not to criticize her for not being up on the latest technology, Miss Manners will ask to leave a message when she does not reach you on the first try.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My girlfriend always gets offended when I put hot sauce on food she cooks. She says it is “trailer-trashy.” I personally love hot sauce, and do not see the issue. Can you tell me if I am showing bad dinner etiquette by eating her food with hot sauce on it?

GENTLE READER: At family meals, hot sauce -- reasonably applied, and preferably after first tasting the dish -- is allowed by etiquette, if not by proud chefs.

The problem is how to get it onto your food without escalating the disagreement. (Miss Manners presumes -- hopes -- that the lady did not start out by calling you offensive names, but only resorted to it out of frustration that you were not listening. This would be an explanation, not an excuse, for her poor behavior.)

The solution is to derail the conflict by inventing something about which you can reach a compromise. Admit that you realize that having the hot sauce bottle on the table is, indeed, poor manners, which you would like to correct by having a dish to put it in. You hope that she will then agree to overlook your weakness for a little extra spice in your life.

Failing that, you could offer to bring the filled plates to the table while her attention is elsewhere.

(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: Could you please advise me on the acceptability of blowing on one’s soup to cool it before eating? Is this a practice that can be done only en famille?

If it is ever proper, what is the right way to do it: to blow on a spoonful or on the cup or bowl? How gently or vigorously may one blow? If it is never proper, why not?

If it would be proper but for a family member objecting to it, which family member trumps: the one who thinks it disgusting, or the one who fears scalding her tongue?

GENTLE READER: No, no, no. You may not blow on your soup, not even if you are six feet apart from the nearest person.

The solution to steaming soup is patience. The most that Miss Manners will allow to speed the process is to permit you to fill your spoon and hold it just above the bowl while appearing to forget about it while you make conversation.

But do you not understand what a colossally bad idea it is to disgust someone with whom you live? If you persist in doing that, even in cases where etiquette rules do not forbid your behavior, it will to lead to something really scorching.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My live-in health care aide, a kind and cheerful person, has been dining with our family regularly for about a year. She is a former nurse, and joins the conversation with gusto when it turns to topics such as the toilet habits of cats (ours, hers and others’).

It may seem odd that such subjects arise at all, but this becomes easier to imagine when I add that I am nearly silent, owing to a speech problem stemming from a stroke. So my interruption, apart from being uncouth, is not possible. And one of our irrepressible sons, also a good person who has done much for me, is as likely as the aide is to introduce such topics.

The others at the table (my wife, our other son and our daughter) seem oblivious. I don’t want to chastise either aide or son, but at times, the discussion becomes animated, enthusiastic and profoundly unappetizing.

I have commented that such matters are better discussed at times other than at meals, but it does not result in any long-term change, and I find mealtimes stressful as a result. Can you suggest a way to encourage discussions of more appetizing topics in a nonaccusatory, but effective, manner?

GENTLE READER: Good manners always require attention to avoiding giving discomfort to others, never more so than when a person cannot give voice to his concern. Miss Manners would have thought a facial expression of revulsion would be enough to alert the offenders -- especially one who is trained to observe signs of impending physical distress.

But if you are not inclined to drama (and even Miss Manners would disallow anything graphic), you should have a private conversation with your wife or daughter asking for a gentle declaring of “No toilet talk” to cut off such conversations.

(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: Increasingly, as I scroll through social media, I see more and more GoFundMe pages. Many of the issues do require serious money, including funds for top surgery (removal of breasts for trans or nonbinary people), money for rent, insurance fees, mission trips and more.

Unfortunately, I feel unsympathetic and quite frustrated when these come across my page. Yes, I believe top surgery is a legitimate decision. I also believe it is an elective surgery, and asking for donations makes little sense. I would never ask for donations for a different elective surgery, like breast augmentation or liposuction.

We all have to pay rent. Just last month, when I struggled to pay my own rent, I applied for (and received) a housing hardship stipend and increased hours on my weekend job to make ends meet. If you didn’t want those insurance fees, you should have read the fine print before signing your name.

I wish there was some way to communicate that these fundraisers all seem like money grabs. Am I justified in my thoughts, or should I learn to be more sympathetic, and donate to these causes?

GENTLE READER: You are not likely to discourage money-grabbing as long as it works. So why are you even contemplating helping to make it work?

Distributing whatever funds you have available for charity by giving to whoever happens to ask is not the best way to support good causes. Unfortunately, many people feel pressured to do so, even if they sympathize less with augmenting breasts for the unendowed than with providing food for the hungry.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My wife says one should time the mailing of greeting cards (birthday cards, Valentines, etc.) so that they arrive on the special day itself.

I maintain that as postal deliveries may occur any time during the day, they should be timed to arrive the day before the event they are meant to celebrate. What sayeth Miss Manners?

GENTLE READER: That she is in awe that your wife can predict postal service to the day. Does she also know the recipient’s birthday plans? Surely, she wouldn’t want the card to arrive when the celebrant is making merry elsewhere, only to return too late and tired to retrieve the mail.

(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.)