DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband and I, along with a friend, pre-purchased hard-to-get opera tickets. We’ve looked forward to attending for many months.

However, we just learned that our companion intends to bring her extremely unruly “comfort” poodle -- not only to the opera, but also to a lovely restaurant for dinner beforehand. This dog is hyperactive and annoying; it is not a service animal that our friend needs for seeing or hearing.

Now that we know the dog is going, we want to bow out of the engagement, but would prefer to do it in the least hurtful way. Should we simply say we won’t go if the dog comes along?

GENTLE READER: That is not the least hurtful way, but Miss Manners agrees that being a party to this party is going to be anything but enjoyable.

Your friend has put you in the impossible position of denying the importance of the poodle to her well-being -- which you presumably have no desire to do -- or of bearing witness to the inconveniences that you know this pair will impose on others at the event.

While it would be rude to renege on the commitment you made to attend (absent an illness or other force majeure event), people do make mistakes. See if you can change your tickets, then apologize to your friend that you are actually attending on a different date. Otherwise, you are going to have to get sick, which Miss Manners sees as the least bad choice.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: We have been friends for many years with a married couple and their adult son. They are a very wealthy and socially prominent family. The son and his fiancee, whom we have also known for several years, had a very elaborate destination wedding; we were invited, but had to decline, as we were going to be out of the country.

Upon our return home, we wanted to deliver their gift to them, so I called the son. He and his new wife were out of town, so he asked me to drop it by his office and leave it with his private secretary.

This was a very expensive gift, carefully chosen, beautifully wrapped and accompanied by a card expressing our best wishes and congratulations. It has now been over two months and not a word of acknowledgment has been expressed by the young couple by phone, text or mail. It is very frustrating to go to so much care and effort to pick out a special gift, hand-deliver it, and never hear a word of acknowledgment.

We will soon begin seeing the young couple and his parents frequently, as the social season is beginning. When we see them, if they do not mention the gift, how do we politely ask if they liked it?

GENTLE READER: The traditional prompt is to ask the parents -- only once, and in an embarrassed tone -- if their son received the gift, as you have not heard from him. This will, Miss Manners believes, cause them to see that a thank-you note is forthcoming -- while disguising your request as a valid concern addressed to the couple to whom you are closest.

Miss Manners is confident that it will also cover the implied lack of confidence in the personal secretary.

(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 good friend who is the polar opposite of me on politics, religion and almost every other subject. We are cognizant of these differences, and refrain from debate or argument on these subjects. Amazingly, we still have things to talk about!

However, she sent me a letter in which she requested that I support a nonprofit organization that she actually started and is running -- which I admire, but do not support. What I mean is: I admire that she had the initiative to start the group, fulfill her own desire to help the community and do the work. But it is not an organization that I personally would ever send money to.

While I support a number of charities with money every month or so, I choose them carefully. If I do not send money to her organization, how do I politely explain why not?

I wish she had not asked her friends to donate money for this venture; she should know that if I did support it, I could do so on my own. I’m not sure how to deal with my refusal to bend my principles for friendship’s sake.

GENTLE READER: You have already mastered a valuable and increasingly rare skill, in that you can be friends with someone whose beliefs do not exactly align with yours. You have only to extend the subjects on which you need not justify your position.

Miss Manners is aware that some, perhaps many, people contribute to charities to please the people who ask them. But this seems a waste of the opportunity to offer support where one believes it is truly needed.

In any case, and despite those who want their names on buildings, donations can be a private matter. You can merely commend your friend for her effort without getting out a pen to write a check. As she is apparently as discreet as you, that should be the end of it. But if more is necessary, you can say, “I have other causes I support.”

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is the proper way to eat pitted cherries? Cutting them up to remove the pits seems excessive, but just spitting out the pits into a napkin doesn’t seem proper, either. Should I pit them ahead of time before consuming or putting them out for guests?

GENTLE READER: Please don’t spit them into a napkin. You’ll never get out that red stain. Well, maybe you can (are we all searching the internet for this?), but Miss Manners would consider it a kindness to pit cherries before serving.

But you ask about being on the eating end, for perhaps less considerate hosts. Please do not spit it into their napkins, either. The correct way is to deposit it into your cupped hand with no accompanying sound effects, and then to transfer it to the edge of your plate when no one is looking.

(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 number of friends I regularly meet for meals out, as well as for friends’ birthdays. We’ve been friends for going on 40 years and first began socializing after college, when all of us were starting our careers, paying off loans and living on shoestring budgets.

Decades later, we still keep up the tradition of paying for our own meals, even on occasions such as birthdays. The group always covers the check of someone celebrating a birthday, but we don’t consider these gatherings to be occasions where a "host" pays. Someone will just send the group a text saying, "It’s Bob’s birthday on Tuesday, so where should we meet?"

If, for example, we celebrate with a cookout in someone’s yard, we all happily chip in for the groceries.

Are we violating any principles of etiquette by continuing to gather on these terms? We’re all still happy with the arrangements, and for us, it’s the company that matters rather than protocol around picking up the tab.

GENTLE READER: You have all been friends for 40 years, your system works, you’re having fun, everything is going fine -- so are you seriously asking Miss Manners to barge in and spoil it all?

Why would you want to do that?

Perhaps because you have been hearing of the prevalence of bait-and-switch entertaining, where people issue what seem to be hospitable invitations -- and then, after these are accepted, they spring the requirement that the guests must cater or pay. Yes, that is a dirty trick that Miss Manners has been trying to squelch.

But it is the deceit involved that makes it wrong. There is nothing bad about people deciding to go out together and pay their own way, or getting together for a cooperative meal, where each contributes food.

But there would be something mean about an outsider’s condemning their enjoyment.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it considered necessary to write notes of sympathy about a death on cards specially designed for the purpose? I have given up on finding cards that are acceptable and instead use cards with flowers printed on the front, writing my message inside.

I will be interested in your thoughts. I can even imagine that you may have a suggestion on how I could comfortably change my practice.

GENTLE READER: Not only comfortably, but while also saving money and effort.

Letters of condolence are serious letters that do not require printed embellishments of any kind. It is peculiar to think that a mass stamped expression -- “Sympathy,” or in the case of letters of thanks, “Thank you” -- is better than the personal, handwritten word. Rather, it looks a bit cheesy, as if one merely reached for the standard response instead of writing from the heart.

So Miss Manners suggests you save yourself a search for pre-printed matter, get out a plain piece of paper (or one with just your name and/or address), and express some personal sympathy to the bereaved.

(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.)