When he complained he had been given the John Key haircut, I was less than sympathetic.
No-one will notice - as long as you don't take up perpetual vacuous smiling.
Anyway, you'll keep people guessing with those Winston Peters trousers.
I had more things on my mind than how politically correct the Last Born would look at his school prizegiving.
I was supposed to be thinking up a new name for my column and in true MMP style the scene was set for negotiation and plagiarism.
Since it had been appearing for years without hideous photo or title after the decree Mum was no longer the Word, I wondered why it could not continue in its non-conformist way.
I lost that argument.
An early contender was "Surrounded by idiots", possibly my most common printable expression at home, uttered with monotonous regularity when simple domestic tasks fail to take place.
It could result in a bevy of social welfare authorities beating a path to my door, however, or my fellow columnists and colleagues thinking I was referring to them.
"Not much up top" also fell into the ambiguous category - would people think it referred to brain or bra size? Student newspaper Critic's label, "The drinking man's crumpet", was tempting, although clearly not original.
"Digressions" was deemed dull so I jokingly suggested "When moths collide".
That was it.
It was seized upon with relish, even by people who had no clue that it was an expression used by someone dear to me to explain my thought process, or lack thereof.
He sees my mind as a room where the lights have just been turned off.
Listen closely and you will hear the moths banging against the walls (and possibly each other).
Such collisions, so the theory goes, produce the occasional thought.
New name accomplished, I turned my attention back to the prizegiving preparations.
It seemed odd not to be having an argument about what the leaving pupil would wear.
Perhaps having witnessed three such events, the Last Born recognised the futility of it.
He went off almost enthusiastically to buy the tastefully pin-striped Winston trousers (a bargain at $20) after I told him I was sure jeans were a no-no. (The fact that most of his peers turned up in jeans is yet to be held against me.)
On the night, the moths found it hard not to drift off during a particularly dull guest speech.
This prizegiving, after 22 years, was my farewell to the school system.
It was a system through which my four sons had travelled, more or less smoothly, first at a small primary school and later at a co-educational secondary school.
As a parent, I'd had a closer involvement with schools than many, doing time as the chairwoman of a primary board of trustees and later working in a high school for 10 years as a teacher aide.
Has the school system improved during that time?
Mixed blessings make it hard to tell - community involvement which can easily turn to community ugliness against teachers; NCEA, which may be turning out more pupils who leave school with qualifications (some of dubious quality), but risking turning teachers into colourless tick-box merchants; a welcome increasing intolerance of pupils bullying each other, but little recognition that the way schools are managed may encourage workplace bullying . . .
The battering moths decided it might be too early to get a proper perspective on it all, just as it may be too soon to fully appreciate Helen Clark's legacy.
In any case the night was a time for celebration, not criticism.
I tried to enter the spirit by singing the school song lustily, attempting to set an example to most of the pupils who appeared to have their annual difficulty determining the difference between shouting and singing.
The school leaver's brothers were silent, probably wondering for the umpteenth time why they couldn't have a mother who sat quietly like most of the other parents.
When they later made fun of the quaintness of some of the lyrics, I reminded them I had set them the task of composing a new song years ago.
When the shouting was over, and the small talk shrivelled after proud parents, pupils and teachers had gone shoulder-to-shoulder in the supper scrum, it was time to leave. The big brothers had dispersed.
The leaver, sporting a genuine smile, was joining friends for a celebratory drink, sensing he was headed for change; a change at least as mysterious as that likely to be offered by his political lookalike.
Driving home alone I felt detached, emotionless.
From the CD player Randy Newman warbled that the end of an empire was messy at best.
The moths were too tired to draw an inference.
• Elspeth McLean is a Dunedin writer.
