Thursday, October 16, 2003

Halloween Costumes

I think I can actually fit my Life History of Halloween costumes within the 2500 characters they give us.  When I was a kid, we went to Colonial Williamsburg on a vacation once.  My mom got a pattern for real live colonial dresses.  She made matching ones for me and my older sister.  (Purple.  With a green apron-like thing.  Gotta love the 70s.)  I wore mine for Halloween for years, and when I outgrew it, got saddled with my sister's.  I musta been a Purple Pilgrim for the better part of a decade of Halloweens.

Which is just as well.  When I finally got free license to make whatever Halloween costumes I wanted, I always came up with something too bizarre for anyone to understand.  Like, when I was about 12, a friend and I decided to dress up like little kids playing dress up.  We wore oversized adult dresses and makeup all over our faces.  And when anyone asked us, "What are you dressed as?" we responded, "Mommies!"  Confused a lot of people that year.  Got a lot of pity candy.  It's all good.

Finally, I went to a Sweet 16 party that had a 1950s theme.  Mom made me a poodle skirt.  A few years later, mom made herself a Minnie Mouse costume.  From then on, mom and I sorta traded off between the poodle skirt and the Minnie Mouse any time one of us needed a costume -- Halloween or any masquerade occasion.  Seriously.  I'd get phone calls years later, "Do you have the poodle skirt?"  It ran away a few years ago -- I think my sister borrowed it.  :P

Well, this year, I need a Halloween costume.  (Well, I don't need one.  But free drinks have been promised.)  The poodle skirt is lost and mom has Minnie a coupla States away.  I figured I'd go out and actually buy one for the first time -- after all those Pilgrim years, I think life owes me a decent Halloween costume.  But if I'm going to spend hard-earned cash for it, it has to be perfect, ya know.  And I just haven't found the perfect one.  I mean, yeah, sure, I could fork out major bucks for the "Trinity" costume, but unless it comes with Carrie-Anne Moss's body, it's really just turning myself into a vinyl sausage -- and that's no good for anyone.

Well, I've just got a lead on a good one.  I'll keep you posted.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

We did the little girls dressed up as floozies, too. Must've had an inch of mascara on our eyes. I still remember the way it itched . . . and I've still got the picture, too.

I'll have to post it when I write my woogie-woogie Halloween entry.


Anonymous said...

Heh. We weren't floozies, we were "mommies." We were even pushing baby carriages (although, for some strange reason, I think mine was a plastic junior-sized shopping cart). I really think some neighbors thought we were mentally challenged.