Just when I thought it was safe to venture outdoors in lime green, the good and the great who determine things rugby throw a spanner in the works.
I am trying to be charitable. That committee which made the decision to change the Highlanders' ensemble did so in innocence of my situation, no doubt.
It would have been great to have been at that meeting. I picture those present being revved up by some slick PR presentation complete with wanton use of a laser pointer, loud dramatic music and possibly live modelling of the new duds by some rippling-chested being with little resemblance to any body I have come to know and love.
Did anyone, carried away by the wizz-bangery, spontaneously cry "Let us free ourselves from the tyranny of tradition!" to a rousing chorus of "Hear! Hear!" by others who might have been frightened of being seen as sticks in the mud.
While all this was going on, what has been happening behind the scenes at the New Zealand Rugby Football Union HQ?
After all, the Rugby World Cup All Blacks strip is not to be unveiled until July 31.
Following the February Christchurch earthquake there was a suggestion, scorned by Colin Meads at the time, that the jersey's silver fern should go red for the international tournament.
What next? There could be a few possibilities to be considered for the alternative strip. Presumably the old grey (some optimistically liked to call it silver) number worn for the ignominious defeat at the 2007 RWC quarter finals is unlikely to be resurrected.
The alternative strip returned to white in 2009, but I wonder if that's a bit boring, darling.
I'm thinking pink! Brown! Yellow! All at once! And if we must have a reason for those colours, couldn't they recognise our breast, bowel and prostate cancer charities ?
Sadly, such stylish thinking is at odds with the colours already chosen by the bowel and prostate cancer charities - green and blue respectively. Hmmmm, those colours sound familiar. But I digress. It's really all about me.
My attraction to the lime green colour came in the late '60s, when I was at boarding school.
We had many uniforms and many rules to go with them. As someone whose lifelong style, that of the unmade bed, had already shambled out of the chrysalis, I was never to be one of the cool wearers of the uniform. Those girls wore dangling hip sashes on their gym frocks and managed to flout the rule for hemlines no higher than 2.5 inches above the ground when kneeling.
My gym frock with its blunt pleats, dandruff-laden shoulders and greasy marks down the front was held in place by a boring buttoned belt at my ever-burgeoning waist. Cool it was not.
Out of uniform, the story was little better. There were trendy colours, fabrics and styles and an unwritten expectation we would conform. Fail to do so and you risked ridicule.
While bottle green was OK , lime green was a colour scoffed at by those roost-ruling wannabe fashionistas ( or should that be fascistnistas?) who would no more be seen wearing it than they would the much maligned chiffon scarf. No matter that since they were generally slim, pimple-free and rich, they could afford to wear anything and look good.
Secretly, I loved lime green. I knew it would suit me as I then had very dark hair.
I never wore it during my school years. It was cowardly, I know, but I was young and possibly more stupid than I am now. Although I knew I would never be part of the in-crowd, I had no desire to attract any unnecessary opprobrium.
It was some years after leaving school before I wore any light green and then I felt self-conscious.
My love of all light greens endures, however. Recently, I resurrected some old garments in those hues from my wardrobe following the purchase of pale green boots.
Wearing a rather loud and large lime green top with the said boots, my old insecurity about colour returned at a weekend charity event I was covering. (Clare Curran's old Highlanders jersey must have been in the wash as she was in boring brown.) My paranoia was provoked by several well-received disparaging references by one speaker to the Highlanders' jersey colour change.
Would the predominantly black-clad crowd turn on me and question my colour choice? Or would I be safe from a frog-marching out of the building because frogs are also mostly unacceptably green?
Breathing deeply, I thought about the dangers of being fanatical and prejudiced about colour, whether it relates to something as insignificant as an item of clothing or the shade of someone's skin.
I will be seen in green and I don't need to justify it.
• Elspeth McLean is a Dunedin writer.
