As we all know, it's just not Halloween around here unless there is some sort of costume drama, no matter how minor. So here's this year's story.
Back in August we popped into DI for a little while to kill some time before catching a movie. At which point the brilliant idea occurred to me - hey, school is starting soon, and when school starts it's practically Halloween and I need an awesome Halloween costume and stuff at DI is cheap so I should totally look for a costume here and now.
So I did. And on the rack of white dresses I found this great one - part of the '70s retro pioneer-ish looking style era. (and can I just take a moment to ask the people who were around then - what was up with that fashion trend? was it just because Little House on the Prairie was so popular or what?)
Anyway. Just as I found it, we had to leave in order to catch the movie on time, so I just figured I come back quickly and check it out. I'm sure you all know where this is going . . . yeah, it was totally gone. But there were a couple of others, while not quite as awesome and perfect, that would do quite well.
They didn't fit. Too small.
So I tried on a couple of the cute, cheap wedding dresses (because if I'm'a spend seventy bucks on a Halloween costume I'm getting an actual Halloween costume, you know?).
Too small.
So I tried on some '80s-tastic-ish looking formal dresses.
TOO FREAKING SMALL.
At this point, allow to mention that not only have I apparently developed the shoulders of a football player on steroids somehow over the last four-ish years - I have also apparently developed the hips of an ancient fertility goddess statue somewhere along the line as well. Seriously, when did that happen? HOW did that happen?!?! I thought that sort of thing was supposed to stop when you hit, like, 20 or whatever. GAH!!!!
(specifically not mentioning: how I recently emptied out literally half of my wardrobe, some of it because I just don't wear it any more but most of it because I'm finally being honest with myself and admitting I'm never going to fit into it again. and then Plato's Closet wouldn't take a thing. I very nearly cried and considered eating several pounds of chocolate because I felt so very fat.)
Now to clarify, all these clothes-trying-on incidents were not all on the same day. By this point it was the end of September and I was feeling the whispers of last year's "oh crap" mode. So DI became the place with the motto of "abandon hope all ye who enter here" which was kind of sad seeing as it's provided some key costume pieces the last couple of years (well, only so far as one considers "pants" or "a shirt" key, lol). And just to prove how desperate I was suddenly feeling, we actually went to check out the Halloween City store. Yeah, having no idea even of what to do I was feeling slightly frantic. But we went, and it is a fun store to wander around in. Even if it is long on Slut-oween costumes and short on school-kosher/Mormon-kosher costumes. There were a few, and even some I really kind of liked . . . but I was a bit hesitant to drop fifty buck on a costume even though Luke was willing to splurge.
Then . . . the miracle happened. At least that's what it seemed like. See, we went in on one of the first days after they opened, so most of the stuff they had out was leftover inventory from last year because they hadn't gotten a lot of the new stuff yet. And in the hat/accessory aisle there just happened to be one brown, perfect fedora. And having just come from Hastings (since it's right next door) I had my awesome, brilliant, huge hit of an idea.
So we snatch up the fedora, and Hastings has the t-shirt with Perry's face on it but we go back and check and it's a decidedly blue colored shirt and Perry is decidedly turquoise in color so I decide to look online for a truly, accurately, tinted tunic.
You may have noticed the shirt I wore today is decidedly blue.
A couple of things I've learned this month:
1: this exact shirt, when sold in a child's size is accurately colored. There does not exist a correctly colored version in adult sizes. Anywhere.
2: the amazon seller from which I ordered mine probably put up a picture of a child's shirt because depicted a turquoise colored shirt in both picture and verbal description. I? Am kind of heartbroken.
At this point we're talking about, like, ten days ago on our little time line, so I do my best to make a lemonade or whatever. (but really, couldn't life give you limes once in a while? I really rather prefer limeade.) Having already planned on wearing the pants you see here - because let's face it, the odds of finding pants in the right color are slim to none and I'd really rather continue to believe that such a pair of pants doesn't actually exist - I decided to go with the costume "Perry the Slightly Off-Color Platypus." At least in my head.
Anyway. As I mentioned, I was a hit. Again. :-)
I hadn't even been in the building five minutes before I heard whispers coming from the kindergartners lining up to go down to the spook alley. Perry! Perry the Platypus! It's Perry! Look, she's Perry the Platypus!
It's always nice to have your day made the moment it starts.
Also - did I mention that I have three second graders that all have Perry shirts? (one of whom has my exact shirt except IN THE RIGHT COLOR! GRRRRRR!) It just so happens that all their names start with a letter that rhymes with P so when one of them wears his shirt I call them Agent D/G/T and they get a huge kick out of it. I got the impression that I may have made their lives today, lol.
It was a great day. Even the older kids new who I was and thought I was pretty awesome. I spent the morning scaring kids as a pair of disembodied hands reaching for them. Then the fog machine fumes gave me a bit of a migraine (can you tell from the pictures? I look almost as bad as I did in the Yellowstone pics! Gah!) so after lunch I switched out and escorted just in time to have a bunch of second and third graders clinging to me and making it hard to walk. So, you know, business as usual. Right down to the second grade boys who act all tough every day in class but only moved through the whole thing because I pretty much did the walking for them. But once we got out of course, one of them was all "that wasn't even scary" while the other one was still talking about how he wanted his mom while he was in there. (I will admit these were two of my favorites even before this, but seriously they are two cuties!) And then there was the third grade girl who only got about a dozen steps in before she was holding my hand and had her face buried in my side so I had to put my other arm around her just to keep her walking in the right direction. That was a new one . . . I feel kind of bad.
Fun story with that trip: the spook alley starts by going down stairs to the basement, and it's not uncommon for kids to get to the bottom of the stairs and then bail and run back up and out. Which happened with another girl who was holding my hand, which is how I had a free hand to guide the other girl the rest of the way through. Anyway, we get to the end and get out and one of the other girls is like "hey, where's (the girl who bailed)?" but I was the only one who knew she's bailed because we were at the back so the other two adults didn't know where she was and for, like, a split second I didn't know because I haven't worked with any of the third graders since they were in first grade so it took me a second to connect the name to the face of the girl who went back. So Mary and Katie are just looking at me and it was one of those moments that feels like it lasts for years but was really not even a full second and then I'm all, "oh, she went back at the stairs" and we had our little "oh no, I thought the Garbage Monster might have gotten her" moment. And it was amusing.
So it was fun. And now it's over. And sometime in the next couple of days I'm going to hit up Halloween City again and snatch up one of those kosher costumes for half price or (hopefully) more and then with any luck there won't be any costume dramas next year (other than, like Downton Abbey or something). Unless my shoulders and hips manage to double in size again in the next 364 days. Which I'm beginning to think is not impossible. :-(
P. ost S. cript
Best Halloween movie ever, or Absolute Best Halloween movie ever? We watched it Monday . . . hadn't seen it in years, and I'd forgotten how much I love it. Either way, this is definitely my favorite part of Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party.
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