Here's how those nasty "Put it back on!" rumors got started. I was minding my own business, dancing with the lovely Acme, throwing in what little we remembered from the Frug, the Watusi and the Hully Gully when....
SPLAT!
.....I got hit with a water filled balloon thrown by a squidlet. Now the rest of them may have been throwing regular water balloons, but not Billy The Squid, the worst rapscallion of a scurvy bunch, had added a strong dose some of the worst dime store perfume imaginable, Eau d'Amitalle or something of the like, and I got told that I smelled like a French whore house by a few that looked like they'd know.
The bandleader called a waltz,
"It's WALTZ Time! TAKE IT, WALT!...."
....and dear sweet Acme was still game, but I was even yet still gamier to the point of being out of season, so she said "Game Over!" about halfway through and left at a run. I went into the locker room, stripped down and found an Out Of Order sign on the shower door, so I stepped back outside in only my Speedo trunks and seeing a group of squidlets, armed and ready, I asked whether their balloons were filled with plain water and when they nodded, I put my thumb to my nose, stuck out my tongue and said, "You mangy little octopi (the worst insult you can give to a squid) couldn't hit the broad side of a whale!"......
SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLAT!
Severn pirouetted so that he could get a thorough soaking, ducked back in the locker room and completely toweled himself off and finding fresh dry clothing except for clean shirts, reemerged dry but bare chested back into the party.
The rest you know, and now he lies comfortably on a big couch with Inger the Swede cuddled up next to him, thinking the New Year isn't all that bad......
He didn't suffer the worst of it, though. Billy had hit someone with a sepia filled balloon, but I don't know who, as they were rendered unrecognizable.
He'd also hit DeFrosty with one, changing his color completely. "How does it feel to be a Negro snowman?" asked Gnu. "No problem", replied DeFrosty. "People still come and talk, even if just out of curiosity. At least, it didn't make me look like an oriental. NOBODY, but NOBODY will go anywhere near YELLOW snow. So it coulda been worse, I guess....."
The policeman has found a long ladder and is ready to attempt to retrieve hit hat way up near the top of the tree......