I’d rather wait in line to get my license renewed than go to a cocktail party.

At least at the DPS (as Texas calls its DMV), I can read a good book wearing comfortable clothing and shoes, even if sitting in a hard plastic chair.

Reconnecting with acquaintances and making new contacts has worth, I concede. Yet gussying up to stand in someone’s living room and talk about the weather or your last vacation or someone’s children’s latest accomplishments before meandering to someone else with whom you’ll have almost the exact same conversation induces dread, if not misery.

Do people truly enjoy these shindigs?

I need to find a private mental game to make these soirees more enticing:

• I could glue dead leaves from my front porch into a corsage or craft a chapeau with blood on its feathers. Even if no one inquires, I will explain that I gathered the leaves just that morning from my grandmother’s grave or that the peacock got what he deserved.

• To save the trouble of crafting, I could find a quirky response to the annoying how-are-you question: “Fantastic, since I finally stopped brushing my teeth! And how are you?”

• Of course, I could always go with the old standby of incorporating an off-kilter word (e.g., “gangrene” or “gastrointestinal”) into each conversation. But everyone does this one already, right?

Ideas?