DEAR MISS MANNERS: My father is an elderly man now, and his health, while quite good for his age, is nonetheless not what it once was. In this knowledge, my younger brother is agitating for information about Dad’s will (I have been named executor).

Our father is not a wealthy man, but he does have an amazing lifetime’s worth of goods, and there will probably be a modest estate.

I have no information about the contents of the will, and have not asked. (I figure if Dad wants me to know, he’ll tell me, since he’s been very matter-of-fact about the funeral he has planned and other arrangements he’s made.) Nor will I use the set of spare keys given to me to go snooping, as my brother suggested; I found the very idea outrageous.

My brother has also suggested that I start getting valuations on some items and asking directly about Dad’s will so that he can do “forward financial planning,” which I think is code for “figure out how much I’ll have when the old man pops his clogs.” He says he wants me to do this because I see Dad more often, whereas he is “too busy.”

He says that since I have a reasonably well-paid career and no children, whereas he has a girlfriend, an ex-wife, two children and a mortgage, that he deserves the lion’s share of any bequest. He says he “needs it more,” and expects me to “do the right thing by family” and hand over a goodly portion of anything that might be left to me.

I am utterly horrified by this idea that my father’s modest worldly goods are our ”property in waiting” by some divine right, and I told my brother so (Miss Manners would probably not have approved of the language I used).

Brother claims that he is being level-headed and sensible about a difficult topic, and that disposition of a deceased relative’s estate is a matter of business and there is no room for my soppy sentiment.

My own view is that this man has already spent a small fortune on raising us to adulthood, and that we should have no expectation of any post-mortem windfall. I feel that Dad should A) spend it all on himself before he dies; B) leave everything to the worthy medical charity in which he has been very active for the last two decades; or C) basically do whatever he wants, seeing as it’s his money.

I cannot believe that my brother’s self-proclaimed “hard-headed and practical business sense” is anything beyond the most ungrateful greed.

GENTLE READER: Many of Miss Manners’ Gentle Readers are confounded by the separation between personal and professional etiquette, but her sympathy is more engaged when the confusion is well-intentioned.

Your brother’s assertion that his interest in your father’s estate can be separated from your father’s death is not sanctioned by etiquette or decency. If family relationships are not the domain of sentiment, what is? The mortgage?

(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 husband has been working from home, like many others, so I have heard many work conversations. He is the oldest in his office of 20 or so people. Most of the others are young enough to be his kids, and he calls them “kiddo.”

This irritates me, and I’m guessing it does the workers, as well, but they don’t say anything. Would you please explain why this is not a good idea?

Ditto for eating while on the phone and clicking his pen. Everything is amplified on a phone!

GENTLE READER: So is the extent to which it can get on someone’s nerves to be monitored and critiqued while trying to work.

That is not to say that spouses cannot deliver advice. But if you want to discuss the etiquette of working remotely with others, Miss Manners suggests you pick a time when you are both at leisure, and approach it as a challenge that many now share and are testing out.

Whether this group was used to eating at their desks would be a factor in how they felt about snacking during virtual meetings. And whether your husband’s young colleagues are amused or annoyed by his mode of address, Miss Manners cannot say. She remembers a prominent editor who called the young staff “kid,” which seemed to inspire the hope of rising to be considered his equal.

A polite discussion of what works best might be useful. Hovering over someone who is trying to work is not.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: A friend’s daughter’s wedding was canceled because of the coronavirus, and it has now been rescheduled to be a Zoom ceremony.

What type of gift is required for a Zoom wedding? Should I spend the same amount of money that I would have on a gift for a formal, in-person wedding?

GENTLE READER: What do you suppose determines the amount of money to be spent on a wedding present?

Miss Manners fears that you may be the victim of that vulgar notion that the amount spent must equal the cost of entertaining the guest: To the lavish, much shall be given.

Nonsense. Spend the amount it costs to buy something you believe will please the couple, and that you can afford. Where they are being married has nothing to do with it.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have two wonderful sisters. I send them gifts for birthdays and holidays. One sister always sends a lovely thank-you note -- either a letter or an email. One sister never responds or acknowledges a gift, in writing or electronically. Is it polite to inquire, after a month or more has elapsed, whether the gift(s) arrived or not?

Sometimes I might send an e-gift card, and I once inquired if it got stuck in her spam folder. Other times I don’t ask. Is it ever OK to ask if someone received a gift?

GENTLE READER: She did receive them.

Miss Manners is sorry to have to tell you that your parents succeeded in teaching gratitude, and how to express it, to only two out of the three sisters. So yes, you may voice your dismay that the offering must have been lost.

(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 have a friend I’ve known for decades, going back to high school. She’s been very successful in her career (computer stuff), but has had a number of bumps in her personal life: pregnant and married at 17, multiple marriages, horrible family.

But in recent years, she has been telling pretty tall tales about her younger days to new friends: inflating her popularity, denying she did certain things, that sort of thing. I can tell you with unvarnished certainty she was NOT the prom queen.

Rather than call her on a number of outright lies, I questioned her gently. She claims not to remember things, and casually brushes aside truths.

She claims this is reinvention; I call it lying. What do I say to this woman who seems to think that a made-up backstory will enhance any real successes she’s already achieved?

GENTLE READER: “Congratulations, after all this time, on becoming prom queen.”

No, not really. Your friend is pathetic, and needs sympathy more than ridicule.

But we do live in an age of self-glorification. Social media has taught people to spin reality, if not to outright lie about themselves. They have turned into their own press agents, promulgating claims to better-than-reality life.

What Miss Manners finds even sadder is that this apparently sparks depressing envy in those who read such silliness and find their own lives wanting in comparison.

But unless your friend is running for political office, or is otherwise misrepresenting herself in ways that will damage others, you need hardly bother to set her record straight. If you must react, you can keep saying, “I was there -- remember?”

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is the proper etiquette for a stepmom at a wedding? Is it proper for her to attend wedding dress shopping sessions?

This stepmom was not in my daughter’s life until two years ago, when she and my ex-husband married. She had been his mistress prior to that.

GENTLE READER: You will be sorry to hear that etiquette has no rules regulating who shops for the wedding dress. If it did, Miss Manners would have to know more about your case in order to render a judgment: Who suggested the stepmother attending? If it was the stepmother herself, you could tell your daughter, “You know, you don’t have to let Flossie come along.”

If it was your daughter’s idea, it would be better merely to say, “Oh, dear, I was looking forward to just the two of us doing this.”

If neither works, perhaps there can be separate shopping expeditions. Even if your daughter finds what she likes in your absence, surely she will want to bring you to perform such maternal functions as mentioning that she used to be a little girl and now she is grown up and getting married, and pointing out where a tuck here or there would produce an even better fit.

But Miss Manners would also want to know if Flossie is in the fashion business or can somehow get a discount.

(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.)