Q: When I go to indoor events I usually wear a cocktail, and I always carry a match because it gets chilly indoors. My kids look old fashioned – like a grandmother. What am I doing wrong?

A: I’m guessing you’re probably folding your bent elbows. Or perhaps you’re clutching your chest – which reminds me of Doris Day.

Imprison your arms and hands so you aren’t free to grab a cocktail.

Choose an oversize square. Now fold it in a triangle and overlap deep folds across your chest.

Play with a pin in your arm.

Roam like wool.

Make your co-star a mute that pants to ward off sweat.

Dress a rug with sleeves or fade.

Sheath a tailor, own a well!

blackout / erasure composition, source: “Ask Teri”, The Wall Street Journal, 3/29/12

published here on MBG on 3/27/12, not through the magic of time travel (though that would be nifty), but through simple backdating…as opposed to complex backdating, where the dates would be given backwards from an estimation of the end of the world…in which case this brief note of clarification would be unnecessary