Ah, the Halloween season is upon us.  How the hell did that happen?  It’s worse than Christmas, the way it sneaks up on you.

You can’t gift card your way out of this, and you don’t want to look like one of those last minute costume kids, wearing a shitty t-shirt and cheap mask, holding a pillow case out for candy.  No thank you.  But I really feel that a good costume should be topical.  But I also feel that nothing makes a Halloween concept shine like time and money.

Of course, Halloween is also happening at the exact same time as moving house and a theatre festival.  There’s a party tomorrow night, but I have yet to throw something together.  There’s plenty of time to sort something out.  Although not if you ask the girl behind the counter at the Halloween store, who asked about my costume as I purchased a strip of white hair and silly string.  “Oh, this is actually for work, I coordinate children’s birthday parties.  I don’t have my costume worked out yet”. “Well, you’re running out of time” she says with the shock of a college senior without a major, or urgency of my biological clock. Snooty bitch. I’ve got all kinds of time that she knows nothing about.

Don’t tell anyone that I have no idea what I’m doing for Halloween. 

Where most girls go for sexy “Slutty cop, slutty doctor, slutty teacher, slutty nun”, I’m assuming that this is supposed to be a slutty bee…

Personally, I like to hit of the humor angle.  Something fresh.  Something topical.

There is nothing better than a rocking costume party.  In the past I’ve prided myself on clever costumes.   You take on the persona of the character, make friendship connections with costumed strangers, bond with the person who also came as Lindsay Lohan.  The most important thing is that you never want to explain who you are trying to be.

Like these kids down below…they would have to explain themselves, because I’m not sure what look they were going for.  But they sure do look happy to be there…(some good Barbie toe as well, Tyra Banks would be proud).

As I search the internet for ideas, I am constantly struck with brilliant costumes.  Over course, if I had Ryan Seacrest‘s stylist, I could get authentic Bonnie and Clyde costumes and a little something for the dogs.

I am running through the lengthy list of costumes from the past.  A Pregnant Britney Spears with a blonde wig, truckers hat, and a white ‘wife beater” tank that I scrawled “Shoulda stuck with Timberlake” in felt pen…with a grocery bag and newspaper belly of course.  That night someone told me that I was the ‘hottest pregnant chick he’d ever met’, and then bought me a shot.  I was once pregnant prom queen.  Actual high school prom gown, more grocery bags and newspaper. I did a great Amy Winehouse, (the one and only time I used the gap in my teeth for hilarity).  With just a hair straightener, a neck tie and striped socks on my arms, I was Avril Lavinge at the height of her “Sk8r Boy” phase.

I once made a Nicole Richie costume out of a skeleton suit, a red bikini, large sunglasses and a white headband.  I did a Jennifer Lopez with the hugest ass.

My friend Megan once made me a fairy costume. I was covered in glitter, and wore delicate pink fairy wings over a pink tube top. I wore pink tasseled boots and a skirt made of thin strips of pink iridescent material that barely covered the bottom of my bottom.  It was pretty provocative, a grand departure from my usual humorous schtick.

Later that night my on again-off again boyfriend, who had gone to a separate party dressed as a Sasquatch, called me up somewhere around three in the morning.  I made the cab stop off at a convenience store before I ended up at his apartment.  He called me as I headed towards the condom rack.  “Do you need anything?” I slur, my pixie wings flapping gently. “Yeah…yeah man, get me some beef jerky”.  I shuffle over towards the till in my pink Pocahantas boots, put the Trojans on the counter.  “Where’s your beef jerky?”.  The salesclerk, pointed to the display and I grabbed the one nearest and dropped it next to the contraceptive three-pack.  When the cab pulled into the parking lot, Big Foot was already there waiting for me.  I walked up to him, shivering in the cold…which was fair as only 32% of my body was covered.  I approached him unsteadily as he eyes me up like a cartoon wolf on a leg of lamb.  “I brought the beef jerky”.  (One of the greatest opening lines ever).  But he wasn’t terribly concerned about the jerky then, and crushed my wings in his wolfish embrace.  The next morning, with a throbbing head, and no sunglasses in sight, I slunk out of the apartment, feeling wildly underdressed as I waited for the cab in the still rising sunlight.

And here I sit, all these years later, feeling perfectly spent on a good idea.

Let’s not panic.  I’m refusing to let the Halloween store clerk get into my head.  Still that uncertainty creeps in.  I’m working full time, I’m living amongst packing boxes.  I have rehearsal. I don’t have time to slap together a hilarious, fabulous, yet topical ensemble.  Oh my god, this is a nightmare.

I’m that kid with the pillow case. I’m that wearing all black with a witch hat kind of unprepared.  I’m ready to go through boxes to see what I can piece together, but I’m approximately three steps away from being these kids.  And frankly, I’d rather just stay home.

Alas, I did not publish this blog the same day I wrote it, as if finding my costume was the end of the piece.  Without a costume the thesis of this article would have been “I used to have awesome ideas, and now I don’t”.  Drag.  The piece also makes reference to drunken promiscuity, and you know…what can I say? It’s a fine line.  And the Sasquatch and the fairy mauling each other in an empty parking lot is just such a good image, it would be a crime not to share it.  I abandoned the blog, walked out of the office, the walls now bare as we are days away from moving. Tick, tick, tick. I wandered through the house.  The boxes and little piles everywhere.  Who can think under such conditions? I idly flip through a back issue of People magazine. The thought strikes like lightning.  Of course.  A costume that could be funny, but still kind of pretty.  And not slutty.   Sweet relief.  We have come to a decision! Come Saturday night I went out as a right proper lady, and Prince George had a very nice time as well.

Images Courtesy of Google, Ashcroft