Jerry LaRosa, a Philadelphia man given to wearing costumes so flamboyant that Liberace himself might wince, wanted to come to Raleigh next month to make a spectacle of himself. But LaRosa won't be coming, and he's miffed about it.

Dan Rockett, a Johnston County man who has a certain flamboyance of his own, wanted very much to observe this spectacle. In fact, Rockett was willing to pay $8,000 to see it. He's also disappointed, especially since he thought he was doing something nice for the annual Raleigh Christmas Parade.

Rockett says he would have paid to bring LaRosa's band to Raleigh for this year's parade, scheduled for Nov. 18. But the organizers declined his offer. They said the "parade was full."

Full? How does a parade become full? If there's anything that's infinitely expandable -- well, hang on. Before I go off on this, let me start at the beginning.

Rockett describes himself as a "purchasing and investment recovery consultant." Most folks would simply call him a junk collector. Until a year ago, his 16-acre property housed an astonishing collection of scrap metal, junked cars, railroad ties, telephone poles, etc. He'd been warned repeatedly to clean up the mess, and last November county officials did it on their own. Rockett is now selling most of the land to pay the cleanup bill. But there will be money left over, and Rockett decided to spend some of it on another odd fascination: Mummer parades.

A Mummer is basically a costumed merrymaker, and in some places -- most notably Philadelphia -- a Mardi Gras-like holiday festival is created around them. Every New Year's Day in Philly there is a fantastic parade featuring floats, performances and string bands. LaRosa is captain of one of those fabled bands, and when Rockett started looking around for a group to invite, he found LaRosa.

Not surprisingly, LaRosa liked the idea of bringing a couple of dozen of his band members to perform in the Raleigh parade. Why not? Rockett was picking up the tab, and their visit would be good for the local economy: "We'd be going out and spending our money in Raleigh," LaRosa says. (Just a hunch, but I'll bet that your average Mummer makes a Shriner look small-time when it comes to out-of-town partying.)

And Rockett thought the Christmas parade could use the help. "What you've got there is a bunch of jive high school bands, and that's about it."

OK, Rockett isn't exactly Mr. Diplomacy. But he's got a point. A Mummer string band would be an audience-pleasing addition to the parade. So why won't LaRosa and his merrymakers be marching in Raleigh next month?

Because it turns out that a parade can indeed become full.

Here's the deal, according to parade boss Melissa Snell of the Greater Raleigh Merchants Association: The parade, which will be televised on WRAL-TV, starts at 9:30 a.m. and has to end at noon -- which is when the UNC-NCSU football broadcast begins. Fifty years of trial and error have taught parade organizers how many bands they can accommodate, and the lineup had already been filled by the time Rockett got in touch three weeks ago.

Snell had three choices: She could (a) give one of the local high school bands the bum's rush to squeeze in the Mummers; (b) let the parade run long and infuriate local football fans; or (c) invite the Mummers to try for next year's parade. She picked (c).

I think she chose wisely. After all, if you have to make somebody unhappy, choose the people farthest away.