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Halloween 2006
Oct. 31st, 2006 02:14 amI wasn't going to do anything for Halloween this year. Our friends who host the parties have this damnably irritating habit of waiting until a week before the event to admit that yes, there will be one this year. With the added hitch of having to work the kennels the night of the party, I had resigned myself to not bothering with a costume at all.
Then on Thursday Tery said Chris, host of the party and head vet tech, suggested I leave the hospital for a few hours, provided there were no hospitalized animals of course. So now I DID have a party to go to and two days to come up with a costume. Argh.
"Fuck it," I thought. I would just go as an ER nurse, since I'd be wearing scrubs already. Boring, yes, but really the simplest course of action. But when have I ever been known to take the simplest route in life? If you guessed "Never," you were right. It gnawed away at me all day Thursday until I realized that, somehow, I had to come up with a costume. I had two smashing ideas, both of which would incorporate my trademarks of a good costume, 1) using as many existing items from my closet as possible, and 2) the more obscure the character the better.
I desperately wanted to be Commander Wickstrom from the popular YouTube series "Chad Vader":
However, despite the massive popularity of Star Wars Halloween costumes, I realized tracking down just a Death Star soldier's helmet all by itself (read: not part of a $40 complete outfit) would require more time and resources than I had available to me. Poopie. Cuz that would have been AWESOME (probably to only me, but I don't care).
My second (and final) choice was Max Fischer from Rushmore, one of my top ten favorite movies:
Yankee Racers, Founder
Friday evening my first stop was a thrift store to find a cheap blazer and ideally a beret. Let me assure you, it was no mean feat finding a happy medium between my obsessive attention to detail and the very limited selection my local Goodwill offered. The first Goodwill was kind of new so didn't have that much stuff, but I found a green blazer that didn't fit very well but looked sufficiently prep school (but the wrong color). I decided to go to a second one I knew of just in case. On my way I stopped at an exclusive Halloween shop, in hopes of finding a nerdy pair of glasses and a beret. Stepping foot in there was akin to attempting to Christmas shop on Dec 24th. There was a mad, mad rush to snatch up anything that was left. Anything resembling a beret was a pipedream, and the closest glasses to what I was looking for were attached to a donkey nose and came with ears and a tail. Truly one of the stupidest, laziest costumes ever marketed to the public. Why on earth would a donkey wear big nerdy glasses?
Which was a sentiment evidently shared by the cashier. "You're really going out on a limb this year, huh?" she snorted.
"I just need the glasses," I explained, and silently added but you're hardly in a position to mock. Your store is selling the damn thing.
Still holding out hope for a beret, which I knew would be the pièce de résistance of the entire ensemble, I even stopped in a TJ Maxx and a Ross because they were in the same plaza, but apparently French headwear is even unpopular with the bargain basement crowd. (I did have mixed feelings about the state of the Ross, however. Everywhere I looked there were heaps of merchandise on the floor and sitting in shopping carts, easily 10 times worse than when we do inventory for them. And I always thought they never lifted a finger to prep for us.)
From there it was on to the second Goodwill, which sold no hats at all but did have a much larger selection of blazers. I found a navy blue one that fit better and would be more accurate, but I had already bought the green one. I also pawed through about 100 pairs of khakis to find a pair that matched my size except an inch shorter in length -- oh yeah. I AM that hardcore about my costumes.
It wasn't until I had gotten home, satisfied that at least half my costume was complete, when Tery called to tell me she DID have a beret in her huge hat collection after all. This reminded me of the Halloween when I combed the city for a bowtie before remembering that Tery owned 3 of them from various bartending jobs.
Saturday dawned with the realization that I had forgotten the necktie. GodDAMMIT. And the thought of that navy blue blazer still bothered me. So as soon as I finished my day job I headed back to that Goodwill. To my dismay, I saw they were having a sale, 50% off everything in the store, an event that can best be described with the words "feeding frenzy." The good news is I got my blazer at half off the thrift store price. The bad news is I had to wait in line for almost 20 minutes to pay for it. People were freakin' camped out on the floor waiting in line. It was crazy insane.
Last stop was Walmart for a tie. Of course they have nothing resembling the classic two-toned striped private school tie, so I settled on what you see in the picture because it was vaguely striped and a clip-on. Done!!
Cost of gas driving all over town on this scavenger hunt: $2 (my Honda is very fuel-efficient)
Total cost of costume: $20
Knowing I'd have the coolest costume at the party: Priceless
It WAS the coolest, if I say so myself. Tery insisted repeatedly that I was going to all this trouble and no one would recognize me, but I'm pleased to report that she was vastly underestimating the popularity of the movie. Only one couple had never heard of it, to whom I said, "You probably aren't impressed now, but one day you'll watch it and think of me and THEN you'll be awed, trust me."
Chris the host recycled his pirate costume from 2 years ago, which frankly I consider cheating:
In this pic I convinced him to do a L'Oreal move with his flowing black wig. He was just drunk enough to indulge me.
Too cute for words and absolutely necessary to include here was Avi, my friend's 1-year-old, as Pepe le Pew:
I hung out until 1 a.m. or so, then returned to the kennels. But that is the subject of another post, as this one is already quite long. Always leave 'em wanting more, something I probably rarely succeed in doing. Happy Halloween, you fiends.
Then on Thursday Tery said Chris, host of the party and head vet tech, suggested I leave the hospital for a few hours, provided there were no hospitalized animals of course. So now I DID have a party to go to and two days to come up with a costume. Argh.
"Fuck it," I thought. I would just go as an ER nurse, since I'd be wearing scrubs already. Boring, yes, but really the simplest course of action. But when have I ever been known to take the simplest route in life? If you guessed "Never," you were right. It gnawed away at me all day Thursday until I realized that, somehow, I had to come up with a costume. I had two smashing ideas, both of which would incorporate my trademarks of a good costume, 1) using as many existing items from my closet as possible, and 2) the more obscure the character the better.
I desperately wanted to be Commander Wickstrom from the popular YouTube series "Chad Vader":
However, despite the massive popularity of Star Wars Halloween costumes, I realized tracking down just a Death Star soldier's helmet all by itself (read: not part of a $40 complete outfit) would require more time and resources than I had available to me. Poopie. Cuz that would have been AWESOME (probably to only me, but I don't care).
My second (and final) choice was Max Fischer from Rushmore, one of my top ten favorite movies:
Yankee Racers, Founder
Friday evening my first stop was a thrift store to find a cheap blazer and ideally a beret. Let me assure you, it was no mean feat finding a happy medium between my obsessive attention to detail and the very limited selection my local Goodwill offered. The first Goodwill was kind of new so didn't have that much stuff, but I found a green blazer that didn't fit very well but looked sufficiently prep school (but the wrong color). I decided to go to a second one I knew of just in case. On my way I stopped at an exclusive Halloween shop, in hopes of finding a nerdy pair of glasses and a beret. Stepping foot in there was akin to attempting to Christmas shop on Dec 24th. There was a mad, mad rush to snatch up anything that was left. Anything resembling a beret was a pipedream, and the closest glasses to what I was looking for were attached to a donkey nose and came with ears and a tail. Truly one of the stupidest, laziest costumes ever marketed to the public. Why on earth would a donkey wear big nerdy glasses?
Which was a sentiment evidently shared by the cashier. "You're really going out on a limb this year, huh?" she snorted.
"I just need the glasses," I explained, and silently added but you're hardly in a position to mock. Your store is selling the damn thing.
Still holding out hope for a beret, which I knew would be the pièce de résistance of the entire ensemble, I even stopped in a TJ Maxx and a Ross because they were in the same plaza, but apparently French headwear is even unpopular with the bargain basement crowd. (I did have mixed feelings about the state of the Ross, however. Everywhere I looked there were heaps of merchandise on the floor and sitting in shopping carts, easily 10 times worse than when we do inventory for them. And I always thought they never lifted a finger to prep for us.)
From there it was on to the second Goodwill, which sold no hats at all but did have a much larger selection of blazers. I found a navy blue one that fit better and would be more accurate, but I had already bought the green one. I also pawed through about 100 pairs of khakis to find a pair that matched my size except an inch shorter in length -- oh yeah. I AM that hardcore about my costumes.
It wasn't until I had gotten home, satisfied that at least half my costume was complete, when Tery called to tell me she DID have a beret in her huge hat collection after all. This reminded me of the Halloween when I combed the city for a bowtie before remembering that Tery owned 3 of them from various bartending jobs.
Saturday dawned with the realization that I had forgotten the necktie. GodDAMMIT. And the thought of that navy blue blazer still bothered me. So as soon as I finished my day job I headed back to that Goodwill. To my dismay, I saw they were having a sale, 50% off everything in the store, an event that can best be described with the words "feeding frenzy." The good news is I got my blazer at half off the thrift store price. The bad news is I had to wait in line for almost 20 minutes to pay for it. People were freakin' camped out on the floor waiting in line. It was crazy insane.
Last stop was Walmart for a tie. Of course they have nothing resembling the classic two-toned striped private school tie, so I settled on what you see in the picture because it was vaguely striped and a clip-on. Done!!
Cost of gas driving all over town on this scavenger hunt: $2 (my Honda is very fuel-efficient)
Total cost of costume: $20
Knowing I'd have the coolest costume at the party: Priceless
It WAS the coolest, if I say so myself. Tery insisted repeatedly that I was going to all this trouble and no one would recognize me, but I'm pleased to report that she was vastly underestimating the popularity of the movie. Only one couple had never heard of it, to whom I said, "You probably aren't impressed now, but one day you'll watch it and think of me and THEN you'll be awed, trust me."
Chris the host recycled his pirate costume from 2 years ago, which frankly I consider cheating:
In this pic I convinced him to do a L'Oreal move with his flowing black wig. He was just drunk enough to indulge me.
Too cute for words and absolutely necessary to include here was Avi, my friend's 1-year-old, as Pepe le Pew:
I hung out until 1 a.m. or so, then returned to the kennels. But that is the subject of another post, as this one is already quite long. Always leave 'em wanting more, something I probably rarely succeed in doing. Happy Halloween, you fiends.
