Fancy dress parties. I keep hoping they will die on the vine like military conscription and Winston Peters.
But no, they are still here.
Last Saturday night, it was a Spanish dinner.
Dress in costume.
The command to wear something different stings my very being to the core.
As I wear only black at night, I look to wear only black in fancy dress parties.
Indoors, hoping nobody will visit, I prefer track pants, or, as they are called in the designer fashion houses, slob clobber.
Nothing lightens the wearying load of being Man better than track pants, the perfect clothing for padding around the house looking useless.
For a Spanish dinner, you assume all the men will come as matadors.
I scorned this idea because I am well-read and know there are other occupations in Spain.
To no avail.
Toreador clothing was duly produced. The cape was outrageous, black, yes, but with red.
Red! The colours of Canterbury.
I threw myself to the ground and banged my fists into the floor.
You will be able to twirl as you whirl, I was told. But I do not twirl or whirl. I type.
I offered to colour the red in with a black felt pen and go as El Noir.
Or even El Ye Olde Faithfull.
As in when I went as Johnny Cash, The Man In Black, to a W theme party.
I was Wealth, as in Cash. Nobody got it.
I suggested track pants.
A top Spanish footballer, I said, Messi or Villa.
Actually, definitely Messi.
But the cape held sway. I was set to be the only four-eyed dwarf matador south of Madrid.
At fancy dress parties, people try to be either terrifically glamorous or side-splittingly funny.
I do neither of these well, so have constantly fallen into the wide crack that lies between.
A couple of months ago, the theme was 1959.
I wore all black and went as Nordmeyer's Black Budget, a small label explaining my costume.
But the light was low, nobody saw the label.
For the fancy dress party before that, Bollywood, I reluctantly agreed to wear a long stiff cloak made of unfathomable fabric, possibly carpet.
In an attempt to rescue the outfit from derision and relentless mock, I whanged on a black wig and moustache, confident I would be hailed as a Bollywood Star the minute I walked into the Southern Boardriders' Clubrooms.
All night people asked me what on earth Groucho Marx had to do with India.
For retro parties, I exhume the brown velvet suit I was married in, the suit with cuffs so floppingly flared they gather up small children as I walk.
Partygoers scratch their heads and ask why on earth I am wearing a brown velvet suit with flopping flares.
I tell them proudly I got married in this suit, it cost me a packet.
They ask me why I got married in a brown velvet suit with flopping flares.
This Bollywood party celebrated 60 years for local television cameraman Pat O'Neill, who co-incidentally hosted the first fancy dress party I remember attending back in the early '70s.
It was a Rolling Stones Song Title party.
I chose the most obscure Stones song title I could muster - The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man - and sewed concert tickets, photos, and bounced cheques all over a denim suit.
O'Neill, the host, the man whose job it was to make everyone else feel good, chose the very same song.
And looked light years better.
On Saturday night I was the only matador at a table of 10.
We even had a George Orwell, which shows just how deep the intellectual vein can run at these things.
I sat there quietly, an outer El Toro, with El Stamp Collector on the inside.
But I didn't care.
I had track pants to go home to.
- Roy Colbert is a Dunedin writer.
