DEAR MISS MANNERS: Our house uses an electronic door code instead of a key and lock. Our relatives know the code, from times when they needed to access our home without us there -- for instance, picking up supplies for us while we were in the hospital, or getting to the house before us for a dinner when the weather was bad.

Outside of times such as those, when is it acceptable for them to use the code?

GENTLE READER: None times. Because they then transform from helpful relatives to scary intruders.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: If someone comes downstairs in the morning, who should be the one to say “hello” (or “good morning,” etc.) first: the one already downstairs, or the one who comes down and enters the room?

Is it gender-specific? Say, the man comes downstairs and the woman is already there, or vice versa? Or does that even matter?

GENTLE READER: It does not. There is no hierarchy to saying “good morning.” Rather it is the responsibility of the first one who notices the other and preferably makes eye contact.

Surprise greetings from behind when one is making hot coffee or bacon is not, Miss Manners assures you, as cute as you may think.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was at work and I had to go to the washroom in a hurry. I happen to have a shy bladder.

A colleague of mine -- not one I’m particularly close to -- stood outside my stall and started telling me in detail about her latest medical issues and prescriptions.

I could not produce. This was extremely irritating. I had to wait until she finally left.

Why do people do that? Seems to me silence is golden in a public washroom, and privacy is the order of the day. How would you have handled the situation?

GENTLE READER: By saying, “Sorry, I’m having trouble hearing you. I will be better equipped to listen when I am finished in here.”

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My mother is a very sweet and kind grandmother to my 3-year-old girl. She always has gifts when we visit, asks for new pictures and is very invested in my daughter’s life. However, one thing irks me.

She uses the wrong spelling of our daughter’s nickname. Each time she asks, “How’s Lucie doing?” I respond with something like, “LUCY is doing well.” She also puts the incorrect spelling on Christmas and birthday gift tags.

Her heart is obviously in the right place, but her spelling is not. Is this not worth worrying about, since it’s only a nickname? How else can I gently correct her without coming off as rude or offending her?

GENTLE READER: “We know it’s only a nickname, but we’re spelling it ‘Lucy.’ Your version is cute, but we don’t want to confuse her as she gets old enough to spell it herself.”

Miss Manners warns you not to be surprised if Lucy soon comes up with her own inventive spelling -- which may or may not include hearts and smiley faces. Or turn out to be “Lucie.”

(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: Our group of friends is about 15 people large. We have known each other for over three decades. At the opposite end of the group is a couple that we only see when the entire group gets together.

We like to entertain, and have invited this couple for years. They have never accepted our invitations, though they accept invitations from others in the group. In some cases, they RSVP “no,” but other times they do not reply at all.

Finally, we hosted a party and decided not to invite them. The entire group got together a few days before our party, and several people were talking about how much they were looking forward to it -- unbeknownst to them that two people present didn’t get an invitation.

Suddenly I felt like we did the wrong thing by not inviting them. On one hand, I thought: Perhaps there’s no harm in sending an invite if you know they won’t come anyway. On the other hand, we have finite space, we’re buying food and supplies, and I’d rather invite people I know will come.

Part of me also feels that you don’t get the courtesy of an invitation if you never show or if you repeatedly fail to RSVP.

GENTLE READER: Listen to that latter part of you.

Miss Manners assures you that the repeated offense of not answering an invitation justifies not getting another one. She further suggests you use caution with the excuse that they will not come anyway if you invite them. Too many wedding hosts rely on that logic and suffer the consequences when they guess wrong.

Had the couple or someone else in that pre-party gathering pointed out the omission -- or if the tension was palpable enough -- you might have said, “Lacey and Doug, you never seem to be able to attend our parties, so I didn’t want to burden you with an invitation.” It sounds as if it did not come to that, but it is there for the taking if it does.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What’s the polite, kind thing to do when one must miss a funeral for reasons such as illness or injury?

My aunt’s mother just passed away, and the funeral is in a few days. However, I’ve come down with a bad cold and, in the interest of not making others sick, I plan not to attend unless I recover far faster than expected.

I want my aunt to know that I care enough to attend, but I don’t want to make this about me. Is a text appropriate? A note after the funeral?

GENTLE READER: Assuming that you have already written a condolence letter, a phone call would be more personal than a text -- and more polite than a note afterwards, when everyone will have wondered where you were.

“I am so sorry that I won’t be able to attend, but I’m afraid I have a dreadful cold and I don’t want anyone to catch it,” you might say. It goes without saying, Miss Manners hopes, that you avoid using hyperbole (e.g., “I’m feeling deathly ill”) for obvious reasons.

(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: One co-worker likes to host office parties with food-themed potlucks. She will suggest a dish that she will cook and bring to share, such as trays of chicken wings or seafood pasta. Generally a lunch would have eight to 20 people.

As she likes to make these meat- or seafood-based dishes, she will then ask for financial contributions to pay for the ingredients and keep her own costs down. Everyone else is welcome to additionally make or bring something to share.

Co-workers aren’t happy with her asking for money AND a food contribution to these lunches. They feel if they do either, that it fulfills their participation for the occasion, and that she should not be asking for money to make her dishes.

I don’t have a problem with paying her money and contributing food of my own. I’ve often even added more to have a better party, because people do love a hearty plate.

But some co-workers have refused to participate in any way because they resent her asking to cover costs for her food; they feel that she’s unjustly enriching herself on their financial contributions.

We’re talking $5 to $12 per person for contributions to office parties in general; she’s asked for $7 to $10 on a few occasions for her food. What’s the proper thing that should be happening?

GENTLE READER: Why does Miss Manners feel a nagging curiosity about your place in all this -- as if you have a position of more authority in the group than you have mentioned?

She agrees with the co-workers who are refusing to participate -- but not for the reasons they give. Her belief is that if the boss wants to reward workers for a job well done, then they should either pay them more, send them home early (where they can socialize with their actual friends and family), or, if there must occasionally be an office party, pay for the refreshments out of office funds.

Not being a fan of forced socialization at work, she is even less a fan of making the workers pay for it. That one co-worker is now demanding that her co-workers increase their contributions is ... grotesque.

If you ask because you are the boss -- or HR -- and were looking to solve the problem, you are in luck: You can pay for the party out of office funds.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: When sitting at a table that can accommodate one person on each side, what is the best way for two friends to sit? Is it different for a couple? Sitting across from each other makes conversation easier, but I have been told it is more “confrontational.”

It seems many romantic couples prefer to sit to the side of each other. Or does any of this even matter?

GENTLE READER: Assuming both people stay more or less in their own seats, Miss Manners is indifferent to whether they wish to gaze fondly into their beloved’s eyes or ear during the soup course.

(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.)