Dining woe: Lipstick vs. cloth napkins

DEAR MISS MANNERS: When my husband and I invite one of our out-of-town friends for dinner, which we do two or three times a year, we always use cloth napkins that go with the tablecloth. Our friend always arrives wearing a thick layer of very bright red lipstick. By the end of dinner, her napkin is covered in lipstick, which is hard to clean. Should we give everyone at the table paper napkins, buy black napkins, or just accept the time spent scrubbing out the lipstick?

GENTLE READER: There is a reason that restaurants and catering businesses generally use white cloth napkins: They are easier to clean and sanitize with bleach.

Paper napkins are flimsy, and black napkins would look strange in contrast to a light-colored tablecloth. They also betray your obvious contempt for a brightly colored lip.

It is far better form to accept the loss of the napkin over that of the friend.

DEAR MISS MANNERS:

A friend calls at odd hours when I’m not home (but she thinks I am) and does not leave a message. She knows that I can look at my caller ID and see that she called.

When I don’t call her back, she is offended, and thinks I was at home and just didn’t answer her call. I think that since she did not leave a message, then that means she did not need or want to be called back. Am I in the wrong, or should she be leaving a message?

GENTLE READER:

Your friend’s method has a one-sided efficiency: requesting a callback without the bothersome task of stating why.

Both parties must agree to this system for it to be effective. In negotiating this agreement, Miss Manners recommends that you warn your friend that without a message, you will not be able to determine the relative urgency of her calls.

DEAR MISS MANNERS:

I have two very dear friends who do not know each other, but they both have the very annoying habit of correcting my “mistakes,” such as how I pronounce the name of a foreign city, official or other word.

Neither is the kind of person who does this to undermine or to show off, but I am annoyed and offended by their compulsion to correct me.

Do you have a polite and inoffensive way I could convey my displeasure with their behavior without “correcting” them?

GENTLE READER: Blame a third party. “Funny, I have never heard it pronounced bru-shetta, but I am sure you must be right. Let’s have our waiter settle it. He’s Italian.”

Submit your etiquette questions to Miss Manners at dearmissmanners@gmail. com.