Prevent select dropdown to open but allow its events to fire

Question

Is there any way I can trap html select events, and prevent the html select dropdown to open? (Disabling html select is ruled out since the events will be disabled too.)

Answer 1

I doubt this will actually prevent it from opening, but it will ensure that the DropDown will always maintain the same value:

<select name="theselect" onchange="this.selectedIndex = 1;">
    <option value="Red">Red</option>  
    <option value="Green" selected="selected">Green</option>  
    <option value="Blue">Blue</option> 
</select>

Answer 2

This doesn't disable the "dropdown to open", but if you don't want anything selectable, a trick I used was to make <optgroup> instead of option. However, I'm confused why you would want to disable the dropdown, but disabling it is not option...