Darling, when things go wrong in life, you lift your chin, put on a ravishing smile, mix yourself a little cocktail...

The line captures a deliberately glamorous, slightly tongue-in-cheek philosophy of coping: when life becomes chaotic, perform composure. “Lift your chin” and “put on a ravishing smile” frame resilience as an outward posture—an act of self-styling that can precede genuine recovery. The cocktail functions as both comic relief and a symbol of small, immediate comforts that restore a sense of control. In Kinsella’s comic-romantic mode, the advice also satirizes a certain aspirational femininity—suggesting that confidence can be manufactured, even if only temporarily, through ritual and presentation.