Question: What’s the ideal costume for a Halloween benefit ball wherein you’ll be spending the first half of your evening playing with the swing band (requiring you to wear black and white) and the second half drunkenly womanizing in usual style?

Answer: Tuxedo + Martini Glass + Toy Gun = James Bond. Clearly the fastest route to Pussy Galore. (My apologies for perhaps the worst double entendre in the history of this site.)

The problem, however, seems to be that, post 9/11, toy guns are in rather short supply in NYC. So, having exhausted my neighborhood options, tomorrow I’ll be swinging by the Mecca of all red-blooded children – the worlds largest Toys R’ Us, in Times Square (the place is so big, it has room for an indoor ferris wheel; had I visited at the age of seven, I’d doubtless have fallen to my knees and kissed the ground upon entering) – in search of the perfect pistol (one that says, “please take this costume as a playful endorsement of martinis and baccarat rather than of right-wing, NRA nut-job gun ownership ideals and secret-agency-driven subversion of peaceful, productive, legislatively-driven foreign policy”).

Oh, and I’ve got to pick up my good bow-tie from the cleaners. The key to pulling off Bond is a hand-tied bow-tie, which you can leave undone towards the end of the evening for a rakish tilt that women, inexplicably but universally, dig.