Seductively, she whispered sweet nothings in his ear and after a long embrace lured him to the garden. Just before midnight, when everyone was to unmask, the woman slipped away and returned home. Her husband didn't arrive until 3 A.M.

"How was the party?" she asked.

"Dull, he said."

"Did you dance much?"

"To tell the truth," her husband replied, when I got there I saw that Pete, Bill and Fred were stag, too, we went into the den and played poker."

"You played cards all night?" she shrieked.

"Yeah," he told her. "I gave my costume to Charlie. He said he had the time of his life."

Fact or Fiction?: Debatable. This story originally was seen in a 1965 joke book. In their version of the story, a headachy wife leaves a costume party, switches outfits at home, then returns to the country club dance where she'd left her husband. She finds who she thinks is her husband, does some dancing and after a little moonlight romancing the two head to the back seat of a parked car. They part, and as it is in all the other versions as well, she makes it home before he does. When she asks her husband how his night was, his description of the evening has him trading places with the bartender, a guy who complained he never got a chance to get in on the fun.

However, on the confessions page of a 1998 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, a 24 year old woman named Gabrielle claimed something similar happened to her. "One night, my date and I were at a costume party. He dressed up as the Phantom of the Opera, and I went as a devil. During the party, I saw him go to the bedroom with another woman. When I saw him leave the bedroom to go to the bathroom, I went to the bedroom, told the woman my situation, and took her place. Since the room was dark, my date was not aware of the change, and we ended up having sex. While we were having sex, he started screaming the other woman's name. When I heard this, I smacked him. After he flipped on the lights, I found out that I had been with the wrong Phantom!"

So, in conclusion, it is hard to determine if anyone has actually been foolish enough to have this happen to them. One thing is certain though, it is a great version of the classic mistaken identity tale!

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