DEAR ABBY: About the restaurant closing time item in your column -- how many restaurateurs did you interview before writing your answer? If my closing time is 9 p.m., that is when we close the door to NEW customers. Whoever arrives before 9 receives our best service until they leave.

Indeed, I do fault the employees and management of the restaurant in question. In my judgment, that restaurant's policy lost a minimum of four future customers in that one incident alone. -- WARD HORNBLOWER PROESCHER, COMMODORE DINING EVENTS, LAYFAYETTE, CALIF.

DEAR WARD: I didn't interview any -- and I apologize for that answer, which generated some eye-opening mail. Read on:

DEAR ABBY: A restaurant's posted closing time means NO ADDITIONAL customers after that time. Or, that's when the kitchen closes. Or, no more food service after that time. But it does NOT mean that the door is locked at the stroke of 9 and diners should stop what they're doing and get out. If a person has been seated 15 minutes before the posted closing time, certainly the expectation is that the customer will have time to eat.

What kind of stupidity allows employees to make a customer's dinnertime so miserable that they not only won't return, but will surely tell all their friends about their experience? That's no way to do business. I think the restaurant was at fault. -- S. DAVID IN SHERMAN OAKS, CALIF.

DEAR S. DAVID: After chewing on it for a while, I must agree. Read on:

DEAR ABBY: Speaking as a lifetime restaurant worker, the posted closing time is when no more customers are allowed into the restaurant. Guests entering before that time have the right to receive the same quality of service as those entering at the height of business hours.

Owners and managers who care about their guests would have disciplined employees acting like those at the restaurant in San Carlos.

The problem with that restaurant, and too many others, is the employees forgot the most important rule of proper service: Guests are never an inconvenience. Guests are our livelihood! Without them, we might as well be dishing out food at a school cafeteria, instead of practicing the fine art of restaurant service, one in which many of us take a great deal of pride. -- DONNA WILLIAMS, NASHVILLE, TENN.

DEAR DONNA: I stand corrected, but I did receive a small percentage of mail such as the following:

DEAR ABBY: Thank you! Thank you! Thank you for the terrific answer to "Disappointed Diner in San Carlos, Calif." I have worked in food service for 30 years, 23 of which have been in management. Closing time for late customers has always been a problem. For some reason, people think that when the last customer leaves, all the manager and crew have to do is lock the doors and go home.

We want customers to have a pleasant dining experience, and most people do respect our closing times. However, I have seen many instances where my entire crew has been held up for two hours due to inconsiderate customers. Sometimes I feel like asking customers how they would like to stay an extra two hours at their jobs after their scheduled quitting time! -- JILL IN CULVER CITY, CALIF.

For Abby's favorite family recipes, send a long, self-addressed envelope, plus check or money order for $3.95 ($4.50 in Canada) to: Dear Abby, Cookbooklet No. 1, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, Ill. 61054-0447. (Postage is included.)

DEAR ABBY: My father-in-law is loud and opinionated, but his latest statement takes the cake. I am due to give birth to a baby on his birthday in September. He has made a pronouncement to the entire family that he will be very upset if I have the baby on his birthday, as he doesn't want to share that day. This is no joke.

The rest of the family hopes I have the baby on this date just to spite him. I wish I were a million miles away. Frankly, at eight months pregnant in the Texas heat, I don't have much of a sense of humor left. I would like the birth of my baby to be a time of joy, not the punchline of some sort of adolescent-level joke. -- HOT AND TIRED IN TEXAS

DEAR HOT AND TIRED: Your father-in-law is talking as though the Texas heat has addled his brain. He should regard the arrival of his grandchild as the ultimate birthday gift -- not competition. Shame on him. You may have to listen to the braying of a jackass, but you don't have to validate it.

DEAR ABBY: The man who lamented the snickers and insults he endured from strangers who interpreted his holding his mentally disabled son's hand as a sign of "homosexual bonding" has experienced the discrimination and contempt that gays and lesbians experience every day.

He should be concerned less with freeing these snickerers of their "mistaken notions" and more with promoting the idea that our violent and intolerant society should learn to accept any mutually affectionate gesture of hand-holding, no matter between whom. -- DON IN PORTLAND, ORE.

DEAR DON: I agree with you. But lighten up. Right now the man is too engrossed in his own pain to appreciate the bigger picture.

DEAR ABBY: A local ratio station sponsored a contest where listeners submitted poems about their hometowns. I thought you might like to have a copy of mine. -- LORI J. BENNETT, FORT WORTH, TEXAS

DEAR LORI: You thought right. I like your poem, not to mention your sense of humor. Read on:

MY HOMETOWN

For years I've proclaimed with bravado

To friends and colleagues alike,

That my hometown was in Colorado,

The state with the peak named Pike.

I've boasted of snow and the ski slopes

And of crisp, clear skies of blue.

But my bragging was nothing but false hopes

And so I'm confessing to you:

In truth, it wasn't the Rockies I saw

On the day I was born.

It wasn't a landscape, rugged and raw,

It was only a field of corn.

The purpose of this little ditty

Is so all of the world will see,

I was really born in Sioux City,

Home of Abby, Ann Landers and me!

To receive a collection of Abby's most memorable -- and most frequently requested -- poems and essays, send a business-sized, self-addressed envelope, plus check or money order for $3.95 ($4.50 in Canada) to: Dear Abby's "Keepers," P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, Ill. 61054-0447. (Postage is included.)

DEAR ABBY: As a confirmed cat-lover, I couldn't help identifying with the enclosed "Rules of Etiquette for Inexperienced Cats." I'm sure your other cat-loving readers will get a kick out of it. If you agree, feel free to print it. The author is unknown. -- KITTY MC DOWELL, LEHIGH ACRES, FLA.

DEAR KITTY: (As a cat-lover, you are aptly named!) I do agree, and here it is:

RULES OF ETIQUETTE FOR INEXPERIENCED CATS

-- If you have an upset stomach, get into a chair quickly. If you cannot manage this in time, get to an Oriental rug. Or, shag is good.

-- Determine quickly which guest hates cats. Sit on that lap during the evening. He won't dare push you off, and will even call you "nice kitty." If you can arrange to have cat food on your breath, so much the better.

-- For sitting on laps or rubbing against trouser legs, select colors that contrast with your own.

-- Always accompany guests to the bathroom. It is not necessary to do anything. Just sit and stare.

-- For guests who say, "I love kitties," be ready with aloof disdain, claws applied to stockings or a quick nip on the ankles.

-- Do not allow closed doors in any room. To get one open, stand on hind legs and hammer with forepaws. Once the door is opened for you, it is not necessary to use it. You can change your mind. When you have ordered an outside door opened, stand half in and half out and think about several things. This is particularly important during very cold weather or mosquito season.

-- If one person is busy and the other is idle, sit with the busy one. For book readers, get in close under the chin, unless you can lie across the book itself.

-- For ladies knitting, curl quietly into lap and pretend to doze. Then reach out and slap knitting needles sharply. This is what she calls a dropped stitch. She will try to distract you. Ignore it.

-- For people doing homework, sit on the paper being worked on. After being removed for the second time, push anything movable off the table -- pens, pencils, stamps -- one at a time.

-- Get enough sleep during the daytime so that you are fresh for playing at night between 2 and 4 a.m.

DEAR ABBY: My husband and I have been invited to a wedding in early October. The groom has owed my husband $425 for more than eight years. Requests for repayment have been ignored. He always has some excuse not to repay the loan.

Abby, if we attend the wedding, are we required to give a wedding gift? We feel we have given enough already. -- SHAFTED IN WISCONSIN

DEAR SHAFTED: If you attend the wedding, you should give them some kind of gift -- even if it's only a token.

For Abby's favorite family recipes, send a long, self-addressed envelope, plus check or money order for $3.95 ($4.50 in Canada) to: Dear Abby, Cookbooklet No. 1, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, Ill. 61054-0447. (Postage is included.)