When I announced I was off on a reverse Undie, colleagues were baffled.
"Does that mean you will wear your undies outside your clothes?" two of them said, frighteningly almost in unison.
I sighed. These were people used to dotted i's and crossed t's and the use of brackets (not parentheses) when things were not spelled out.
"I'm talking about a reverse Undie 500 [you idiots]," I said. I did not explain it was only half an Undie 500 as I would be flying to Christchurch and returning by car. Since they were already referring to my underwear I could not imagine what conclusions they might reach over half-donning such attire.
Despite my penchant for swearing, they did not seem to see me as any threat to public order.
Little did they realise my companion, who is even more distant from the first flush of youth than I am, was still bruised and battered by her Undie 500 weekend antics. She may not have been drinking or throwing bottles at police or anywhere near Castle St, but let's just say bricks were involved (along with the demolition of a car, a fence and a garden).
It seemed like the sort of cred we might need for the mean streets of Christchurch.
In the first few hours of our visit we caught up with an old friend and enjoyed a delicious lunch at a café without attracting the attention of the authorities.
My one U-turn and lack of abuse of my co-driver by the time we arrived at the Westpac Arena were much more impressive than my behaviour on any previous Christchurch visit.
There was a slight hiccup over our seats, which had been reallocated, but a helpful usher soon sorted that out.
It was an all-ages audience. In the two rows immediately in front of us were about 10 women who appeared to be together. Some of them had dressed in Abba-like attire for the occasion and were already in high spirits. It was hard to tell what their ages might be, but they possibly ranged from 20s to about 50.
One of them suggested that if she didn't have another drink during the show, she would be sober again.
"Two hours!" she said as if she had been sentenced to a lifetime of bread and water.
One of their number was dispatched to purchase extra drinks, drawing applause on her return.
The women coped with the first half of the show without causing us concern. At half-time they replenished their drinks and did some seat changing which meant the two noisiest among them were placed immediately in front of us.
They couldn't sit still, giggled and talked and ruined the couple of moving moments (I know, it is hard to believe any musical based on Abba songs could have them).
One of the group said, not remotely sotto voce, "Be quiet, you are spoiling the moment!", which was so hilarious they all had to laugh.
Having taken umbrage at their behaviour, I was not sure where to put it.
I fantasised about leaning forward and, like a staccato snake, hissing in their silly ears, "Shut the [expletive deleted] up!", taking the back of their seats and giving them a good shove, pulling their long hair, or hitting them over the head with the overpriced programme.
But I didn't. I could see the headline - "Children Distressed by Dunedin Mum's Mayhem at Mamma Mia! Matinee".
I sat silently with my murderous thoughts and endured the churlishness because there were children behind me who knew all the words of the songs who were trying to enjoy the occasion. I could not run the risk of inflaming the situation.
I regret not asking the man sitting beside me to capture me on camera. It would have depicted an awesome study of restraint and would have been legal, which is more than can be said for the rest of his sneaky filming.
The chance to catch up with the women afterwards was lost because we left earlier than they did.
I'd like to have told them that if I wanted to be irritated by drunken boorishness, I could have saved my money and easily located examples closer to home.
Instead, we got out of town, bound for Geraldine.
Sipping wine while we waited for our meal at a bar there, our faith in human nature was restored.
Several men of a certain age, who had clearly been drinking, snuck in shirts-out from some more formal do to have a look at the footy, and all considerately made sure they weren't blocking our view of the telly.
We wanted to sing "Gimme, gimme, gimme a man after midnight" . . . but there had been enough inappropriate behaviour for one day.
- Elspeth McLean is a Dunedin writer.
