DEAR MISS MANNERS: I needed to have the washer and dryer replaced in my apartment, and two maintenance workers showed up to do the work around breakfast time.

I usually make breakfast for my husband before he heads to school, but I felt uncomfortable cooking for the two of us without offering anything to the maintenance men who were there.

So I declined to make breakfast because I did not want to cook for two extra people. My husband thinks I was being silly and should have just made breakfast for us without worrying about them. What would Miss Manners have done in this situation?

GENTLE READER: Not deprived her husband of breakfast on the grounds that others did not have the sense to have their own meals before they left for work.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: When cutting meat at the dinner table, my wife of nearly 50 years holds her fork as though she’s stabbing someone. It apparently doesn’t embarrass her, but it makes me cringe inside.

I suppose I should have mentioned this a long, long time ago, but how would I even have gone about doing that? Or should I just let it ride?

GENTLE READER: After 50 years, you might let things be. Miss Manners can understand your having waited to be certain your new bride was not going to act on that violent impulse, but by now, she has had ample opportunity.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I’m retired, and I volunteer four days a week at a senior center. I assist low-income seniors with simple tasks, playing games and general socialization, and I also help serve the daily communal meal. The employees of the organization are likely considered my supervisors, but we’re also quite friendly and I thought we’d established friendships.

I suffered a stroke recently and was hospitalized for a couple of weeks. A few of the seniors who have my phone number called and kindly expressed their healing thoughts and wishes, but no one I “work for” (the nonprofit and its employees) has expressed a thought, called or shown even a hint of caring.

I feel like I don’t want to return to my duties after healing, solely because none of them seem to miss me enough to say so. Admittedly, my feelings are hurt.

Any idea how I can pointedly, yet politely, inform them of my decision and how their behavior, or lack thereof, led me to this decision?

GENTLE READER: The problem with the all-too-common rhetoric about the company (any company) being a "family" and your co-workers being friends is that it is, as you have sadly discovered, insincere.

Miss Manners does not mean to say that no one makes lasting friendships at work. But your expectation that friendship came with the job was unrealistic.

You are of course free not to return, but a letter explaining your reasons will be shrugged off as naive -- and perhaps as evidence that you are right not to come back. The genuine infraction is that all the people who know it is a lie continue to repeat it.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, gentlereader@missmanners.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am trying to drink more water, so I set an alarm on my phone to remind me hourly. Sometimes I am in public when the alarm (birds or crickets chirping) goes off.

I turn it off immediately, but my husband says the noise is rude. But if I could remember to shut off the alarm when leaving the house, I wouldn’t need an alarm to drink water in the first place. Am I being impolite?

GENTLE READER: It depends where the alarm goes off. If it goes off in the car, it will annoy your husband, but is not, strictly speaking, rude. If it goes off on the subway, no one may notice it over the cacophony of other alarms going off -- unless of course, it is the designated quiet car.

If at the library, the symphony or similar locations, Miss Manners is confident that the other patrons will be helpful in letting you know that they think you are being rude.

Diving to silence it when it does go off is, of course, important, but it would be much better to get in the habit of checking before entering spaces where some level of decorum is expected.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: A friend sent me an invitation to her child’s 7th birthday party; however, it came with a handwritten message that stated, “It’s probably best to come after 4 when the party is over and all the children leave.”

I do not have children, but I have several friends who do, and I typically get invited to their kids’ birthday parties. I am happy to attend if I’m able, but I don’t expect an invitation every time. I realize some of the parties are small, family only types, or just for the kids in their child’s class, etc.

But I thought this was strange. It seemed like a way to invite me to a party, while sending a seemingly mixed message that I’m not really invited after all. Why would I want to show up when my friends will probably be cleaning and everyone else will be departing?

I’m not sure if they just assumed I wouldn’t want to come to the party because it will be a lot of children, but typically people would let me decide that when inviting me.

What do I make of it? Should I follow up with, "Am I going to be the only one showing up at that time?” It feels awkward, so I’m thinking of politely declining, but it has truly left me baffled.

GENTLE READER: You have fallen victim to the evolving etiquette of the children’s birthday party, which changes so fast that even the parents of young children have trouble keeping up.

Miss Manners believes that rather than insulting you, the likely intent was to offer you the choice of attending the full event or -- on the reasonable assumption that a roomful of rambunctious 7-year-olds is not always appealing to non-parenting adults -- showing up for the adult after-party instead. Unfortunately, that explanation was omitted, leaving you to make a choice you did not fully understand or to call the host or another guest and ask for clarification.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, gentlereader@missmanners.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband and I have joined a fitness club. The policy of the gym is that members do not talk on their phones in the workout area.

While there is very little of that, many people do talk with each other and text on their phones. The problem is they sit on the machines while doing so -- sometimes for five or 10 minutes.

Since many of these people are more muscular and intimidating than we are, is there a nonconfrontational way we can ask to use the equipment while they finish their conversation in another spot?

GENTLE READER: Shouldn’t you be nonconfrontational even toward people who are not capable of beating you up?

Miss Manners is grateful for anything that stops people from becoming belligerent, which is what she gathers you mean by confrontational. But she hopes there is something besides fear of violence preventing people from treating others harshly -- possibly respect, the assumption of goodwill and the desire for a harmonious community.

The nonconfrontational approach in this case would be to say, “Excuse me, are you still using this machine?” Should they refuse to move, you should appeal to management -- but also politely.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Every graduation season, my nonagenarian mother receives invitations to at least one graduation. (She has over 20 grandchildren.) Last year, she attended one college graduation, an hour’s drive away, during which she was unable to see the graduates. Another graduation, further away, was missed with the parents’ blessing.

Now a niece is finishing her specialty in medicine and dearly wants my mother to attend the ceremony. My niece is stationed 10 hours away by car.

My mother declined. Now my sister and my sister-in-law -- the graduate’s mother -- are pressuring her to go. One of them told my mother that her spiritual adviser said that turning down an invitation was insulting and hurtful and should never be done.

Well, that’s just nuts! I’m pretty annoyed.

Is my mother’s refusal of this invitation a faux pas of exponential proportions, as has been suggested?

GENTLE READER: Imagine a world in which it was wrong to decline any invitation:

An acquaintance invites you to come over for a house-painting party. A rejected lover invites you on a trip. A teenager invites you to go skydiving.

“Just nuts,” as you have already concluded.

So instead of brooding, Miss Manners recommends explaining gently to your relatives that while your mother is gratified that they are eager to have her, repeated urging -- though meant to be flattering -- is only making her feel bad that she is not physically up to going.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: How do you fend off rude questions from co-workers such as, “That’s a nice sweater. Is it new?” They often like to scrutinize every thread and stitch on my apparel as they ask this question.

While I don’t mind compliments about my clothes, I do mind the judgment that follows these supposedly thoughtful remarks.

GENTLE READER: Unless this is accompanied by a leer, Miss Manners would consider it more tedious than intentionally rude. But you can easily dismiss it with, “Thank you. I’m glad you like it.”

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, gentlereader@missmanners.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)