DEAR MISS MANNERS: Do you eat mashed potatoes with a fork or a spoon?

GENTLE READER: A fork. If you need a spoon, the food you are eating is potato-flavored butter. Miss Manners does not recommend that.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a singer and performer, young and female. Many times after a show, people -- especially men -- will come up and tell me how much they liked my performance. They also hint that they would like to be "better acquainted" with me.

Sometimes they'll start becoming regular fans, only to stop attending after two or three shows, once it is clear that I will not reciprocate their affections.

This confusion extends not only to fans, but to colleagues. The music world is not like an office, with a clear hierarchy -- success means weaving your way through a web of fellow musicians, engineers, bookers, etc. More than once, I've had someone tell me they were really interested in co-writing with me, booking me, etc., but once we're alone it's clear the motives were otherwise.

How can I be professional and friendly in this world, get things done, be taken seriously as a musician, not alienate fans or colleagues -- but not feel like I'm running a gantlet all the time? It's completely exhausting.

GENTLE READER: Although Miss Manners cannot change your colleagues' behavior, she can help you manage it with one word: homework.

Treat the requests as genuine, while limiting your interactions to the unflinchingly professional. If a colleague offers to co-write, ask him to send you samples of his own work. A would-be agent can be told you would be thrilled to discuss any offers and would like to look over the details before meeting to discuss them. Fans should be added to the mailing list, not the backstage admittance list. Better to be thought clueless than to be bullied.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My wife and I purchased our first home last September, a beautiful house on a corner lot.

Well, then we had an unwelcome surprise. Almost every week, we have a new sign in our yard advertising for someone's garage sale.

I have not had one person ask my wife or me if they could place a sign in our yard; they just do it as if this is acceptable. I would never dream of placing anything in someone's yard without their consent. Whenever I see a new sign, I take it and throw it in the trash. Am I obligated to advertise other people's garage sales just because I have a corner lot?

GENTLE READER: You are under no such obligation, but barring the appearance of a sign- and mallet-wielding neighbor while you are out watering the petunias, some method of remote education is clearly necessary. This unfortunately means a sign of your own.

Miss Manners prefers the polite ("Please do not post signs on the lawn") to the peremptory ("Private Property. No Advertising"). And yes, she appreciates the irony.

(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 have a shared living room/dining space, and a separate breakfast table off my kitchen. However, my formal dining table is always set, but rarely used.

I was always taught to never seat yourselves at a formal set table if the meal is not being served there. Every Christmas, I elaborately decorate this table with fancy china, glassware and fragile decorations, only to have guests pull out a chair and put down their libations, keys, etc.

Is it proper for guests to sit there?

GENTLE READER: Are you under the impression that it is proper to set your table and then sneer at your guests for not realizing that you don't consider them important enough to sit there? What on earth is this display supposed to be for?

Now why they feel it necessary to put their keys on the table is another question. Miss Manners supposes that your inhospitable attitude is sufficiently apparent that they want to be able to make a quick getaway. Merry Christmas.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am attending an alumni event for a debate society that has a dress code requiring men to at least wear a suit and tie of some sort. My wife and a fellow alumni friend say I will be overdressed in a tuxedo.

I say this is a formal anniversary alumni meeting, and while a tuxedo is not required, it is not overdressed. When is wearing a tuxedo a breach of etiquette in a setting where suits are the norm?

GENTLE READER: Violating the dress code is a breach of etiquette, whether you do so with royal robes, pajamas or something in between. If anything, Miss Manners considers overdressing worse than underdressing, as the latter may have the excuse of not having the proper clothes.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Every Christmas I get cards that are decorated with glitter from some of my friends. The amount ranges from a little to a lot, but whatever the amount, some of it always gets on the table where I open the cards, on objects on the table, on my clothing, on the carpet, and of course on my hands. I try to clean it up as well as I can, but weeks later I still find little bits of glitter here and there in my apartment.

It annoys me so much that I wish it were discouraged by a rule of etiquette and generally thought to be inconsiderate to send someone a card covered with glitter.

I know that's wishful thinking, and I can imagine people exclaiming, "Nobody's going to tell me what kind of cards I can send," but maybe they can be gently encouraged to consider the effects on the recipients of cards with glitter when they're making their choices in the card shop.

GENTLE READER: Yes, it is annoying, but not to the point where Miss Manners accepts your pugilistic hypothetical attitude on the part of the sender ("Nobody is going to tell ME ..."). Rather she imagines their thinking, "Oh. I thought it was pretty."

So while she is happy to pass on your complaint, she is resigned to associating the season with extra duty for the vacuum cleaner.

(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'm a single mother of two wonderful daughters. As I go to school full time and work full time at a "just until I get through school" job, money is exceptionally tight.

When purchasing food at the grocery store, my thoughts are always, "How many meals can I get out of this?" Usually I purchase food that I can prepare relatively cheaply with enough to have leftovers and meals to take to work or for my daughters' school lunches. Things like potato chips and cookies are for "filler days" when we take sandwiches to work/school.

My daughters know this and are very judicial when they snack. They might only have a handful of chips or one cookie, when they might actually want half the bag of chips or five or six cookies, because they know it goes for our lunches for the week.

The problem that I'm having is when my kids have friends over to spend the night. I make a dinner, and they'll take large portions, but not finish them. I watch them throw food away and think, "That could have been my lunch for Monday." Or they will ask for a snack and take large portions, much more than necessary. Sometimes a whole package of cookies is eaten in a night, and we're stuck for the rest of the week without sweets.

We have bottled water to take with our lunches, and I constantly find the friends will want a bottle of water, drink half of it, and then throw it away, or worse, drink only half a bottle, leave it somewhere and get another. As my daughters and I always refill the bottles, not only are they wasting the water, they are wasting a bottle I might have refilled two or three times at work.

How do I address this behavior with my daughters' friends? Am I going beyond my limits as an adult to stop a child from taking larger portions of food if I know they won't eat it all? How do I address another person's child when I ask them to only eat one cookie or tell them they can only have one bottle of water?

I don't want to be the "food police," but every time I see my daughters' friends wasting food, I can't help but feel a little upset. I know that they probably don't know they're doing it, and many of their parents make much more money than I do, so I'm not sure it's my place to correct their behavior.

GENTLE READER: Dole out the portions for your young guests, telling them that they are welcome to seconds if they finish. Put cookies in bowls and water in glasses instead of leaving out packages.

Miss Manners is pleased to say that this solution not only solves your problem -- but is also correct (and has the added bonus of quieting naysayers who are opposed to the extra step of dirtying dishes). Food and drink packaging should never be seen outside of the kitchen.

Now you have a practical reason to overcome your very legitimate fear of being inhospitable to guests and offensive to their parents.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it rude to get up from the dinner table and ask for the check at a restaurant?

GENTLE READER: If it is for the purpose of paying for guests who might otherwise have felt responsible for doing so, Miss Manners imagines you will be forgiven.

(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.)