Eitquette Boss: Week of January 3

YOUR BEST INVESTMENT: Etiquette for Children

Our youth are natural attention-seekers, but they have to be taught to choose positive over negative attention. Nothing attracts negative attention faster than being ‘dressed to the nines’ with poor social graces.

Boost their dining confidence by teaching them the correct way to eat a common finger food: French fries. French fries are only considered a finger food if paired with another finger food. Watch them show off their ‘savoir-faire’ as they learn that fries served with fish are eaten as the fish but fries served with a hot dog, as the hot dog.

They will not pick up an entire fry with a fork either, thus having to bite it twice while on the fork, but will first cut bite-sized pieces with the side of a fork if served a meal such as fish and chips. Of course, your ambassadors-in-training would never spray ketchup all over their fries, but dip from a pool at the side of the plate.

YOUR BEST APPEARANCE: Face Forward

Mae West has become one of my heroines. No Florence Nightingale was she, but what accounts for her elevated status is her ability to motivate ladies and gentlemen of “a certain age” to climb instead of slide.

“You are never too old to become younger,” she said. I like that word “never.” Consider my upper eyelashes which had disappeared along with the false ones that I had donned for a television appearance.

Months of watching and hoping they would grow were futile. Fast-forward to a little research and the willingness to experiment. Drumrollplease: luscious lashes and brows in just three months.

A small bottle of castor oil on my night stand did the trick. At night, I’d apply a little around the rim of my lashes. I’d read that it helps clear cataracts and also enhances vision, so I was not afraid of seepage. My lashes are now longer than in my twenties. Mae was right.

Phillipa Morrish is the president of Etiquette Training International.