Are my guests exempt from cooking duties?

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I love cooking and setting a beautiful table, and my partner and I often invite several couples to dinner.

After the meal, I find myself faced with a problem: I don’t feel comfortable clearing the table for able-bodied adults of the same status as me.

In the past, I helped clean my family members’ dishes as a sign of respect to my in-laws or parents who hosted me, and I always scrape and rinse my own plate at friends’ houses. I just don’t want to take our friends’ plates while they’re sitting there with their behinds glued to their chairs.

Something is wrong if I’m supposed to be the waiter or the cleaning crew. I just wish everyone (or one member of each couple, male or female) would scrape off their plates, rinse them briefly, and stack them near the sink.

GENTLE READER: What’s wrong, Miss Manners remarks, is your definition of a host. You clear the table when you are the host. Reciprocity comes when your friends entertain you.

Help from volunteers is a bonus, and not all hosts want it.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: After leaving university ten years ago, I returned to the city where my mother lives.

It was great to see the local community again, including many of my mother’s friends. I remember all their faces, but I don’t always remember their names.

Lately I’ve been put in the awkward position of being asked, “Do you remember me?” afterward I already said hello to them and even hugged them as a greeting! Responding with “I don’t remember your name” seems awkward and rude.

I resorted to saying “Of course I do!” — because I know their faces! – but this certainly seems disingenuous, and I am unable to back it up with their real name.

What is the most polite way to answer this?

GENTLE READER: Remembering a face is surely enough to answer in the affirmative and in good conscience. If you’re expecting to be questioned, Miss Manners will have your mother by your side, so she can interject and say, “Of course she remembers you, Mabel!”

DEAR MISS MANNERS: As a young person, I learned that when you make a phone call, you introduce yourself and then politely ask to speak to the person you are trying to contact. This is a very effective way to start a phone conversation off on the right foot.

Today it seems that no one practices this. Caller ID doesn’t always provide a name or place of business, so I often have no idea who is calling. I’m having trouble finding a way to politely respond to callers who start with “Is this Wendy?” »

Currently, I ask them to please identify themselves, but I find it difficult not to be abrupt. It’s not just telemarketers, but also my doctor’s office, dishwasher repairman, furniture delivery guy, etc.

What do you recommend I say when I pick up the phone and am asked if I am who I am?

GENTLE READER: “Who asks, please?”

Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to his email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or by postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.