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.

ALA 2012 Wrap Up: Awkward Moment Edition

If you left ALA annual not totally in pain you did it wrong and have to do it over. Every part of me was burning to the point that I’m pretty sure I asked, “Where’s the eyewash?” My pupils were on fire. Fire!

Very little sleep should have occurred. My brother says sleep when you’re dead, but since I have an inkling we’ll be in a post-life work release program my mantra was “NO SLEEP TILL TUESDAY!”

(Tuesday was a lot more doable than 2072, when a family member discovers I've passed in my sleep in one of my luxury mansions and decides to hide this fact to avoid reenstated estate taxes.) 

Unless you’re a student, you get points deducted for commuting in. The rest of us stayed in hotels that wanted $14 to use their gym and printed instructions on their “deluxe” shower caps (in case you mistook one for an iPad 2) and either spent 6 uncomfortable hours crammed in a Mini Cooper with 2 co-workers and 14 boxes of swag, or got patted down extra special by the TSA.

I “chose” the pat down.

When asked by a glove-wearing body-gropping agent, “What’s in your jeans?” I stopped myself from saying, “Fat. That’s my butt.  I like to loaf around in yoga pants while eating brownies and watching Grey’s Anatomy.  Now you owe me dinner, or to explain on my behalf to the online community that Shondra Rhimes didn’t kill off Lexie because she has a personal vendetta against them, and why I went from hating Kepner to really liking her."

(BTW Kepner, God was ready to give you a fist bump for hooking up with Avery, but then you upset Him by booting Avery out of bed. Had you not done this, you would have passed your boards.)

 

 

In preparation for the return flight, four plus hours should have been spent cramming 3000 pounds of swag into your carryon while saying, “Miracles can happen. Don’t people see Jesus on food all the time?” As a last resort, you dumped swag outside the closing session ballroom.

At at least one event you should have felt overdressed and socially uncomfortable. Like at the ALA Dance Party. I knew it would be in an unusual place---they always are. What I didn’t know was the Saloon was a country line dancing spot.

I don’t think anyone had a clue.

Who knew you needed a choreographer to have a good time? Since we paid $10 to get in, my friends and I made the best of it. When they asked for two-steppers, we did the tango.

Badly.

While laughing hysterically.

The only line dances I knew that they did were the Cupid Shuffle and the Wobble.  Yes, the floor was packed with skinny dancers in cowboy boots line dancing rap music.

And I just loved it when the Saloon regular I danced with asked me about my favorite books. He said, (I kid you not):

“I’ve never heard of the Color Purple.”

Please guess which response I used:

a)      “How cool is it that you live under a rock! Awesome!”

b)      “You’re a drunk guy in a bar.”

c)       “It’s like the Shawshank Redemption for women.”

     
    d)      “It’s a movie.”

Hint: I went on to list The Hunger Games and Stephen King novels.

But at least Am and I had fun.

(For those of you who don't know, my full name is Tabin Am Rain Crume, so imagine my shock at meeting someone named Am? Score!)

You should have experienced at least one awkward moment. Pick which ones happened to me and which belonged to colleagues (or you):

a)      Running into a former ALA president in a swimsuit cover-up because someone put all their meetings on the same floor as the pool. (Thanks a lot!)

b)      Not recognizing an author you talked to the day before.

c)       Having someone lie about being drunk so they can claim not to remember what they said.

d)      Trying to avoid weird non-ALA people who insist on joining your group.

e)      Having to publically clip your nails as you break them one by one while “bowling.”

f)       Telling people, “I’m awesome! I rock! I’m worth millions of dollars! Why doesn’t this menu have prices on it? Hey, waiter, can you tell me how much this stuff costs?”

g)      Trying to explain a personal philosophy called “Don’t be in an orange jump suit” to an author.

h)      Explaining how it is easier to get a job when you’re not crazy-in-a-bad-way.

i)     Asking someone if they had a designated driver and it turning out they weren't drunk, they were just a "questionable" dancer.

j)    Dancing to misogynistic rap music while saing, "This song is sooooo feminist!" 

k)    Lying to get into something you don't have a ticket for.

l)    Sitting alone at an offsite ALA event for 45 minutes because no one wants to wear their badge and admit they are a librarian there for an ALA event. 

You should have also dealt with lots of shushing. I had to explain to someone, “I don’t  shush. I call security.”

Inspired by a truly awkward moment (that I really wish I had witnessed because it would have made my year) a friend and I decided every time something awkward happens during a conference you should say, “This moment was brought to you by ALA.”

Does anyone have anything they want to add to this?

Who were you in the hot tub with?

And was Warren G really at Fire and Ice?

LH Has Left the Building!!!!!

This is for LH. I can’t believe she’s escaped deserted us! Because she’s a great worker with the organizational skills of a 4-star general, she’ll most likely be replaced with a person who is one step away from an amoeba and couldn’t make chocolate soy pudding to save his or her life.

LH said her old town frowns on dancing---while it’s not a sign you’ll burn for eternity, Satan was reserving you a spot. I find this sad because dancing was one of my pastimes and it keeps teens out of trouble. After dance rehearsals even if you could muster the strength to rob a 7-11, you stunk so bad they could smell you a mile off.


At one time my friends and I all knew this complete dance. It is my greatest hope that by the time LH finishes her library degree and returns to Central (this is not an option---you have to return!!!) she will have learned this whole dance and can perform it for us at Training Day. The rest of you, feel free to join in.