• Possible disasters around a table and the tips that help us not to be shipwrecked
  • Are you invited to an event and have to repeat your outfit? It's okay, the royals do it all the time
  • Guest? Manual to be the joy of the party and not a nightmare for the hostess

You've organized an event at home, you've enjoyed the process, and the evening has been a success. All the guests are smiling thanks to the magic you have managed to create. But you, my friend, are killing your heels, that last Tequila Sunrise has given you burning, and you're paying for the stress of party preparations.

You don't want to be rude, but you'd be able to dishevele strand by strand of hair that friend who says, "I'm going to get another drink, if it's only four o'clock!" because your only desire is to get into bed, even without removing makeup. How do you make those recalcitrant guests disappear who refuse to abandon ship no matter how many murderous looks you throw at them? Here's a list of ideas, tested by professionals, so you don't need to turn on the sprinklers (or let the dogs loose).

A terrific accomplice

Little is said about the figure of the hostess's accomplice friend, to whom a monument should be erected. The one you can count on so that, when he sees you already with a worse face than those from 'The Walking Dead', he puts on a big smile, grabs his bag and addresses the audience with a savior: "Oh my God! But it's four o'clock in the morning. Come on, let's go, it's about time." The phrase admits many versions, but the goal is to trigger a domino effect according to which the rest of the guests realize that you can't handle your soul and that they are extending the duration of your invitation beyond the limit of good manners.

Quick Tip: Thank you call to accomplice friend the next morning. It's saved your life!

Diplomatic balances

In the absence of a great accomplice, or in case the aforementioned is absent-minded, you can be the one who initiates the desired domino effect that finally gets the guests to leave. Of course, the role of hostess is associated with the need for a more diplomatic attitude. Phrases like: "I didn't realize how late it is! You'll be so tired, I'm going to call you a taxi" will make you see those last guests parading through your front door before they realize what's going on.

Quick Tip: Don't offer to call the taxi, that can leave them with a window of hope to stay a while longer. Call the taxi and present it to them as a fait accompli.

Little White Lies

"That there is no good reason to stay is a good reason to leave," said the wise man.

It's not a matter of mistreating your guests to get them to leave, far from it, but it is a matter of boycotting the end of the evening so that it plummets, downhill and without brakes, and they feel like leaving. You can say you've run out of ice or gin when you really have enough supplies to take down the Irish rugby team, but what you've run out of is the will to live. If some clever person proposes a lightning trip to the 7-Eleven or to the gas station on duty, you can always lower the plumbing in your house and fake a blackout, the difficulty of buying emergency candles in the middle of the Friday morning discourages even the most rogue of the Rat Pack.

Quick Tip: It is essential that the lies are as small and white as possible. Choreography an attack of acute appendicitis is not a good idea, it is a bad person and, besides, you will be caught for sure!

Here you stay

This tip works only and exclusively when the guests who don't leave even with hot water are friends of those who are brothers rather than friends. Those people to whom you would leave without hesitation the keys to your new car or those to your brand new house, which is precisely what you are going to do. If they are more interested in the desire to continue the revelry than in love for their hostess, no matter how much of a friend-sister she may be, let their night flow while you go ahead with your plans to mummify yourself like Hatshepsut. "Guys, I don't give any more of myself. You're at home, there's ice in the freezer. Lock the door when you leave." Kisses in the air, you in bed and them so happy.

Quick Tip: We repeat that this advice is to be used only in case of extreme trust with those you leave in charge of your living room and your bar cabinet. Otherwise, tragedy is chewed up.

One last piece of advice: Never forget history so you don't repeat it. The next time you decide to set up a sarao in your humble abode, you know who should fall off the list.