Halloween Horror

I was at home pondering the meaning of life when it occurred to me that I should ponder other things, such as:

Who is Quinn Perkins?

Who’s dead on NCIS?


Why does this man have his shirt off every other episode instead of every single one?


Why does chocolate have calories? Where did I put my salon hair products? How come Criminal Minds hasn’t been renamed Random Strangers Want to Kill You? Can I claim my house guest as a dependant? Why does Taco Bell think breakfast starts at 8 am? How come no one else thinks cookies and croutons are a balanced meal when they have the 4 Cs of chocolate, chewy, crunchy and carbs? Why don’t we have robots like on The Jetsons?

I was promised robots!

Since all of this was either fruitless or would be answered during season premiers (that would leave me even more puzzled), I went to the Halloween Store to find a costume.

I should have stayed home and pondered the origins of the universe.

First off, you walk into the competing sounds of screaming fake monsters, screaming real kids, and parents yelling, “Don’t cry! Let’s go to Pet Smart!” I honestly don’t know why kids need to be in the store when all you have to do is dress them as pumpkins and everyone goes, “Awwwwww!”

Elsie asked, “What’s your niece going to be for Halloween this year?” And I told her, “She’s going to be adorable.” Because kids can wear decorated paper bags and everyone will go, “How cute!” Plus kids don’t wonder, “Does this pumpkin make me look fat?” But adults can use Halloween help. After wandering around looking for something that didn’t make me look like I was working at, how shall I put it, “The Rabbit Farm,” I gave in and asked where I could find an outfit with more coverage.

I expected technical difficulty.

I didn’t expect laughter.

Halloween costume shopping while female is a real problem, one that won’t be addressed in a PSA.

Apparently after the first 8 million rows of minuscule costumes, the worker assured me the remaining 3 aisles had at least one covering costume.

One.

Because having two would have caused a hurricane in Florida.

Everything was tiny. Even the nun’s outfit was almost nonexistent. They might as well come with a warning from the surgeon general stating, “This costume may cause you to freeze your butt off, catch pneumonia, and possible forfeit your right to future employment when pictures of you in it are posted on Facebook.” All I could think is, “What’s next, will they start selling us bags of air?”

Probably.

Online was almost as bad. The outfits tended to be gorgeous and expensive or kind of sad and pathetic, such as the “Contestant” costume.

A rip off of the Hunger Games tribute outfit, this costume screams less “President Snow wants to kill me!” and more “I work at Target but they lent me this jacket so I can collect carts in the rain.”

I thought about being a replacement ref; however, since the strike is over that wouldn’t be nearly as funny. Someone suggested Effie, but that cost too much, and I know it’s Halloween, but she’s just too tacky, and the teens will take pictures and post them. So what is a woman to do?

---Put on pajamas, grab your blankie and bottle and be a baby.

---Grab your track suit, and be an Olympic gymnast. You can either put on a stoic face and wear a button that says, “McKayla is not impressed.” Though I'd personally be impressed with any medal, seeing as I lasted exactly 1 day on the high school gymnastics team and spent the rest of the week crawling and asking if someone, for the love of God, could take me to the hospital.

 
 (Nope.)

Or you can put on a big smile and a button that says, “Making Russian gymnasts cry since 2012.”

Seriously, the Russian team looked so sad I wanted to adopt them. Then I remembered how hard it is to get teenagers to move out of your house (though maybe he’ll get the hint if I throw all of his belongings on the front lawn…). Plus their coaching fees would bankrupt a small island country.

---Wear wings. I have a collection of wings from Clare’s and JoAnns. A few were so gorgeous I bought them without realizing their span is so large you can’t walk through the stacks without knocking over books or maiming children. Stick to smaller wings and color coordinate your clothes.

 ---Be something random. At ALA I picked up a few things, including a hockey mask. You can be Jason on the cheap!

 ---Deconstruct a T-shirt. You can go 80s and be a flash dancer with a head band and leg warmers over leggings. If you're like me, you might have these things in your garage already because you never donated them the first (or secon or third) time around.

Or shred a shirt and be a flapper.

Or a zombie.

Or a zombie flapper.

 

Or layer the T-shirts over one another and create a mob of zombie flapper flash dancers. If you go all out, please do us all a favor and post the pictures on Friday Finale and upload the video on YouTube. Because I, for one, would love to see that, yet I don't have enough volunteers to pull it off myself.

If all else fails, bring something cute with you. No one will notice you’re not wearing a costume if you’re holding a puppy AND a kitten. Though I'm not sure exactly where you can find both of two who like each other, plus there is that taking care of them for the next 15 years thing to consider. Perhaps you should simply grab a child. Go ahead and wear your baby on your front. Or borrow someone's baby. I'm sure someone you know is looking for a babysitter.

These prisoners ALMOST make jail look like a fun place to hang out. Kind of like when Martha Stewart finished her sentence, got out looking skinny and sporting highlights and skinny jeans and a poncho and a bunch of women said, "I want to go to jail!"

For me, I just wanted the poncho and the weight loss.