DEAR MISS MANNERS: I often have lunch at fast-food restaurants. I will get five or six packets of hot sauce from the self-serve area, and when I’m finished with lunch, I just return the unopened packets to where I got them. Sometimes I get bad looks from people for doing this.

What is the etiquette for this? Should I just trash any unopened sauce packets?

GENTLE READER: Either solution is acceptable to etiquette, but this is not one you are going to win, no matter what you do.

Half of the restaurant will lecture you about the waste of throwing away the unused packets -- never mind that the packets are tiny. The other half will lecture you about its being unsanitary to return them -- never mind that they are sealed, and that they were likely stored in far less sanitary circumstances in t

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