DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it appropriate to call another woman's husband a pet name and leave voice mail messages that start off as "Hi, honey"?

GENTLE READER: Yes, if she is either his mother or his mistress.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: When is it allowed for a guest to bring his or her own food or drink to another house? This is in situations where there is no medical issue or allergy involved.

For example, one is visiting one's aunt. She offers tea, but does not have your favorite artificial sweetener. Is it OK to pull a couple of packets of sweetener out of your purse, instead of using her sugar?

Or one is on a diet and visiting a friend. Is it allowed to bring one's own low-calorie, low-fat snacks and produce them when the host offers refreshment?

Or there is an invitation to dinner, but it is possible that the hosts are not aware that one is following a low-carb, gluten-free diet (not a medical need, just a desire to follow this particular diet). How much food can one bring -- appetizers, entree, side dishes? And does one need to bring enough to feed all the other guests, or just oneself?

GENTLE READER: Alas. Miss Manners is reluctant to open up these floodgates by providing solutions to any of your situations -- particularly when it comes to satisfying the changing "needs" of fad, fleeting diets (speaking of floodgates, which are sure to open up at that statement).

It is never polite to offend your hosts with the implication that (in non-allergic or medical situations) your own food is better and healthier for you than anything that they might provide.

Nevertheless, in the name of limiting those angry protests, here are some alternatives to what you propose:

If you want to provide your own packets of artificial sweetener, you may do so, but only if you say something like, "Oh, I'm watching my sugar intake and these new sweeteners are wonderful. Perhaps you would like to try one." But then you must be prepared for whatever lecture your aunt might have about their more serious ramifications, relative to sugar.

It is rude to produce your own snacks when offered refreshment. If there is absolutely nothing you can eat, you may politely abstain. Fill up before you get there.

And no, you may not bring your own unauthorized food, particularly only for yourself, to a prepared dinner party. You are permitted one attempt to offer to bring one item to share with all of the guests, but if it is declined, you must adhere.

How any modern host could possibly account for every single guest's tastes, diets, preferences, medical needs and allergies in this age is beyond Miss Manners. She only asks that they make a reasonable attempt to fulfill the latter two categories, and that guests make their own reasonable attempts to eat something on their plate and not complain.

(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, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW IF IT IS APPROPRIATE TO THANK SOMEONE AFTER THEY HAVE ALLOWED YOU TO YELL AT THEM.

GENTLE READER: YES, BUT IT WOULD BE BETTER TO APOLOGIZE.

Oops, Miss Manners should have waited until that truck went by. She suggests that you turn down the volume for the apology -- and all future occasions, other than alerting people that they are on fire.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: When I saw one of my good and longtime friends at a party at another friend's house the other day, she informed me that she was not inviting us to her forthcoming get-together. She explained she is cooking fish and that we are vegetarians.

She also informed me that some other common friends were invited. I know that the spouse of one is also a vegetarian, so being vegetarian was not the reason. She also knew that we were busy and would not have been able to come anyway.

I can't understand why she would make a point of telling me that we were not invited. I find this very rude and I am upset. Should I be?

GENTLE READER: Rather than flattered at being told "Nyah, nyah, you're not invited"?

Miss Manners is upset, too, at the emergence of the negative invitation -- often bridal couples telling people they will not be invited to the wedding -- and she doesn't even know your friend.

Nevertheless, she suggests you focus on the larger issues -- that you have not been excluded from anything you could have attended; that your awkward friend presumably does not want you to feel left out -- and ignore the smaller ones: that some carnivores are married to vegetarians; and that guests should not be excluded merely because they cannot eat everything on their plates.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have five grandchildren (two are my daughter's and three are my son's). My oldest grandson is actually a step-grandson, and although he has a good relationship with his biological father and grandparents, he lives full time with my son. He has been my grandson since he was very young and has always called me "Nannie" -- the same as all my other grandchildren.

A friend of mine, who has no grandchildren yet, feels that I am being less than truthful when asked how many grandchildren I have and I answer "five." I feel it is unnecessary to go into a big explanation for a simple, casual inquiry. Who is right?

GENTLE READER: The only thing Miss Manners can find that you are doing wrong is to consider such a heartless busybody a friend.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: We invited three couples to dinner for our 30th anniversary. Are we obligated to pay the entire bill?

GENTLE READER: You are obligated to notify them in advance whether you are actually inviting them, in which case you do not charge, or offering them an opportunity to buy your company.

(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, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: When I am drinking lemonade or iced tea in a restaurant, sometimes a small lemon seed gets sucked up through the straw into my mouth. I know that one properly removes unwanted items with the utensil that brought it to the mouth, but how could that apply with a straw?

I suppose I could not use the straw, but it seems more sanitary than drinking directly from the glass. So I have been discreetly removing the offending little pip with my fingers, but your image pops up in front of my face, and I get the uneasy feeling it's a no-no.

GENTLE READER: Not as much of a no-no as it would be to shoot the pit out through the straw -- especially with Miss Manners' face right in front of you.

Despite that personal danger, she appreciates your question. Others who have tried to alert her to exceptions to rules seem to believe that etiquette is either callous or gullible. For example, they will dispute a directive to shake hands on the grounds that it would be wrong to expect this of someone who had lost a hand or an arm. (Well, yes, and thanks for pointing that out.) Or they will claim immunity from thanking their benefactors on the grounds that they are too busy, in presumed contrast to those who put time and trouble into pleasing them.

Please forgive Miss Manners from straying so far from your lemonade. It is just that she is tickled to hear of a legitimate exception to a common rule. Right you are: This is a problem she had not contemplated. In her excitement, she gives you her blessing to continue to deposit the pit discreetly into your hand.

However, here is a complication you may not have considered: Suppose the pit gets stuck in the straw, and you are unable to tap it out?

In that case, you have her blessing to ask for a replacement straw.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I would appreciate your point of view on when Christmas decorations should begin appearing in residential front yards.

I grew up with an unwritten rule that you do not put anything out until the Friday after Thanksgiving. With holiday creep continually pushing retailers to put Halloween out in August, I am appalled that my neighbors begin their Christmas decorating the first weekend of November.

I want to give them a friendly note to WAIT until a more appropriate time. At this point, I'm subjected to three months, versus two, of their display, and it encroaches on my Thanksgiving. Grrrr!

GENTLE READER: If you growl at your neighbor, who would be likely to growl back, you will have succeeded only in turning the area into a zoo, if not a jungle.

Miss Manners recognizes the problem of creeping holidays, but she also recognizes property rights. And property courtesy, even toward those whose tastes you find troublesome.

If you can find an inoffensive way to say, "Christmas already! My, how time flies," Miss Manners would consider it. But frankly, she does not trust you not to growl.

(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, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)