Halloween is a holiday that gets slighted by many people. Most holidays seem to involve purchasing lots of gifts and/or a mish-mash of Christian concepts and pagan rituals, but Halloween is pretty simple: dress up and eat candy. I don't know how people can fail to see the elegance and, after recognizing it fail to participate.
Now that I think about it, most people do participate, but it's like a karaoke bar.
When I started going out and singing karaoke, I assumed that people went there to sing. It seemed reasonable, right? As it turns out, while there are plenty of singers, most people go there to listen to others (friends/family/strangers) sing. (Actually... most people go there to drink, but that's beside the point.) Halloween then, at first glance, seems to be an opportunity to dress up and get candy. The thing is, though, that (like the karaoke listeners) there is an opportunity for people to participate by giving candy.
I remember as a kid dressing up in various costumes with plastic masks that never quite fit right--you know, the kind with the rubber band that fastens the plastic to the front of one's face? I also remember going to my grandparents' store and seeing, every Halloween, the display of the masks he sold. It's possible that there were displays for other holidays, but nothing sticks in my memory like the few dozen masks elevated, attached to a string near the ceiling, colorful and full of possibility.
For some reason, my Halloween ardor faded for more than a decade. I rarely dressed up, and when I did it was half-hearted and lacking in focus.
Halloween four years ago I had the least-pleasant conversation of my life and everything changed. The next year I was on my own for the first time in a LONG time and I got a costume and went out... I was a vampire and it was fun, although I couldn't get the stupid fangs to stick to my teeth for longer than 20 minutes at a time.
In 2007, I took it up a notch. I bought a Musketeer costume and I bought a wig and I applied guyliner. I went out in the same costume three nights in a row, and I was ... popular with women. It was awesome. Here are some sample statements I heard from chicks:
Woman One: I am so attracted to you right now.
Woman Two: Leave the wig on.
Woman Three: Where's your sword? Oh, there it is!
OK... so only two of those are actual quotes. But, still... two of those are actual quotes! Current Ed O is a little jealous of Past Ed O right now.
Last year, 2008 of the Common Era, I went in a different direction. Force of Nature and I dressed up in an undead motif the first night: he was magnificent as a zombie, and I leveraged 2006's costume, added some white face makeup and going as a vampire (the teeth still didn't stay in!) Unfortunately for us, we were two of the about five people who had dressed up on a weeknight, and it was sort of lame and I looked sort of like a crappy Joker from the Dark Knight.
The second night, though, was when I was breaking out the big guns: I was going to be a creepy jester. I bought a colorful jester outfit (with hat and shoe-covers with bells attached!) and I bought black and white makeup... you know, to be creepy.
Force of Nature helped apply the makeup, and we succeeded. We succeeded as I'd hoped.
But... you know that saying, "Be careful of what you wish for... you just might get it"? Well... I got it, and I did not get it. If you know what I mean.
Women did NOT want to talk to me. By that I don't mean that they were not falling over themselves to complement me (as in 2007)... I mean they wanted nothing to do with me. They wanted at least a meter of personal space. They wanted to remove me from the premises and/or punch me right in my creepy jester face.
At least that's what I intuited. They really weren't telling me what they were thinking. I don't have two "top quotes" to intermingle with a fake one because, well, I don't think I had two sentences said to me by women all night.
This year? My current plan is to be a celebrity that's a little bit famous and a little bit gay. OK. A lot gay. But he's a little bit famous.
Someone tell me: why am I going to be Adam Lambert again? I guess we'll wait and see if it's more "Fourth Musketeer" or "Creepy Jester".
2 comments:
Halloween was invented by and for dentists.
YAY! i love that I am 'woman one'!! :)
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