Serious business from December 5, 1997:

Dear Breakup Girl,
I jokingly told a girl that I would go with her to our school’s formal winter ball. She thought I was being serious and now she wants to go with me. How should I tell her no, in a way that we will still have the same friendship as before?
— Clueless

Dear Clueless,
There are three things you never joke about: (1) carrying a bomb in your suitcase, (2) famine, and (3) taking someone to a winter formal.

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