_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Friday, October 31, 2008

Trick or Treat Fail

Attention Employees of Restaurants, Grocery Stores, Starbucks, and oh hell, well, everybody who dresses oddly all year around: If you're going to wear an actual costume on Halloween, you need to also wear a button or a sign that says,

"This is a costume, please compliment me on it. Thank you."

If you dress in such a manner that I can't tell the difference between your normal appearance and a costume, do not act offended when I fail to notice on Halloween.



If you normally wear makeup in unnatural colors that looks like somebody applied it to you with a paint-roller or an industrial caulking gun, if you normally decorate your face so that it looks like the south end of a northbound peacock, if your standard makeup scheme can best be defined as "David Bowman's psychedelic passage through the Star Gate Monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey" then don't be surprised when I don't notice that your Halloween costume is a mime, Bozo the Clown, Nancy Grace, The Joker from Batman, or a Japanese kabuki girl.

If you normally choose your wardrobe from the Salvation Army dumpster and your Halloween costume is a 60's go-go dancer, a homeless person, a Lehman Brothers investment fund manager, or Kurt Cobain, there's a pretty good chance I won't notice even if you pointedly ask me what I think of your outfit. The best you can hope for is that I'll say something noncommittal like, "It looks good on you."

If you wear camo pants or your dad's old Vietnam Army jacket every damned day of the year and your Halloween costume is a deer hunter, the Deer Hunter, The Master Chief, or a member of the Michigan Militia, well, I'm probably not going to notice just because you added a camo bandanna tied around your forehead and I'll probably be giving you a wide berth anyway.

If your face is pierced through every conceivable fold, flap, lobe, brow, lip, nostril, cheek, chin, and tongue and you've got more stainless steel embedded in your head than a kitchen supply store, don't be surprised when I don't notice that your Halloween costume is a blender, motherboard, cell phone tower, doberman pincher, The Terminator, or Dick Cheney's mechanical heart.

If you are an emo kid and your costume is Dark Matter, Darth Vader, Johnny Cash, Bono, a black hole, black body radiation, the Labrea Tar Pits, the personification of self-pitying angst, or Dick Cheney's black mechanical heart there's a pretty good chance I'll just laugh mockingly at you in my usual fashion unless you either smile or wear something pink, yellow, or generally uncorpse like. Also, try taking a shower.

If you are covered from head to toe in skull and spiderweb tattoes and your costume is a Hell's Angel, a member of the Aryan Nation, or a Folsom Penetentry Alumni out on parole, well, you just stay on your side of the room and I'll stay on mine. OK?

If you are a chimpanzee, bonobo, baboon, Bobo the Monkey Boy, or any other non-human member of the hominids and your costume is George W. Bush... dude, seriously, don't. It's demeaning to your species and it's too easy.

The following costumes are absolutely garenteed to make me kick your ass at least once on All Hallow's Eve: Osama Bin Laden in a 7-11 uniform, Sarah Palin complete with annoying faux Minny-sota accent oh yeh, Tina Fey costume under Sarah Palin costume complete with annoying faux Minny-sota accent oh yeh, a Texan, Sponge Bob Squarepants, Dick Cheney's black mechanical heart, Ted Stevens with his hand out, an Ewok, PeeWee Herman, a Postal Employee, or a Pirate costume complete with large belt-buckle mounted steering wheel so that when people ask about it you can respond with "Argh! It's drivin' me nuts!"

Thank you and please don't TP my house.

25 comments:

  1. sez the man with a mostly black cat running his shop...

    Good thing you don't live here in Atlanta, when Halloween falls on a Friday we get not one, but two nights of costumed delusionment. In some neighborhoods it's down right hard to tell the players without a score card.

    Matter of fact, I go to one party every year (costume optional, I usually opt no) just to see the costume changes from the neighborhood participants. Kids trick & treat party is until 8. After that, the parents (who were costumed for the kids event) rush home, dump the kids with the babysitter, change costumes and come back as something much more interesting.

    Hoping shop kitty can keep the evil ones from decorating your property. And relax, remember, they're the ones in the nut job costumes.

    Here, have Kit Kat...

    WendyB_09

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm sporting cat face paint today, and wearing polar fleece. Because that's a reasonable cat costume for up here.

    No, I'm not a secret furry. At least, I don't think I am...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Tania, you don't have tentacles do you?

    ReplyDelete
  4. More costumes guaren-fudking-teed to make me kick your ass six ways to Sunday:

    David Duke
    Jerry Falwell
    James Dobson
    Hell - any televangelist
    Pat O'Reilly
    Rush Limbaugh

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hrm. I dressed up as a Spongebob Squarepants character once. But it wasn't for Halloween, and it wasn't my idea!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm a Renaissance wench today, mainly because I had no time or money to put together a new costume and I already had the requisite items in my closet.

    Right now I'm in the "safe for work" mode, but once I leave here and get to Hollywood, the top is getting unlaced and the mondo cleavage shall be revealed for my after work activities.

    And no, I don't normally dress like this...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Spongebob must die. I hate that goddamned cartoon. I hate everything about it. I hate the theme song. I hate the shear mindless booger eating stupidity of the script. I hate the voices. I hate the shitty artwork. I hate it. It's like a brain sucking parasite on the heads of the current generation.

    Really, I fucking hate that damned stupid show.

    ReplyDelete
  8. mondo cleavage

    what? I stopped reading after that

    ReplyDelete
  9. Ewoks? EWOKS????

    What if it's a tall hairy man, pretending to be a Wookie?

    ReplyDelete
  10. "Also, try taking a shower."

    A freaking men.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I'm a Renaissance wench today.

    I'm sporting cat face paint today, and wearing polar fleece. Because that's a reasonable cat costume for up here.

    Pictures ladies. We want pictures!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Mondo Cleavage Pictures, to be precise.


    Oh what? Don't give me that look.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Sorry, I'm wearing a turtleneck, no fabulous cleavage shots today.

    Here's my lousy quality picture of this year's cat face, hurridly painted on at the office while working.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Ah, Halloween, an opportunity for women to dress as Sexy (Fill in the Blank) without being labeled a 'ho permanently. Myself included. :D Heck, it's the only time of the year "the girls" can really play. ;)

    Today I had no parties planned, so my outfit was for the office only. [sigh] I took the easy way out and wore my sari.

    ReplyDelete
  15. My eldest is dressed as the Joker. This allows him to channel his inner sociopath, which really is not a whole lot different than his normal behavior. :P

    I didn't dress up. The dogs in the home office would not have been impressed. Unless, of course, the costume had involved Yummy Chummies.

    Tania, I think a corseted cat would have been a nice touch. With pics, of course. And Carol Elaine - pics of your gear would be great, too!

    ReplyDelete
  16. I counted at least 50 cheerleaders out last night. While the little ones were admittedly cute, the teenagers, who in my opinion are too old to be trick-or-treating in the first place just looked...wrong.

    And Jim...you didn't spill what you dressed up as for Halloween?

    ReplyDelete
  17. I didn't dress up, unless you count being covered in wood chips and sawdust.

    My son was staying over at a friend's house - some kind of Halloween sleepover thing.

    My wife and I went down to the hotel in Palmer for dinner and then came home and watched a movie ("Signs" - funny, I don't remember it sucking so bad the first time I saw it).

    We never get any trick or treaters (it's amazing how few make it through the dogs and the minefields and the poison gas).

    No point in dressing up.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Jim, you didn't mention the moat.

    ReplyDelete
  19. you didn't mention the moat.

    Yeah, that's the trick part of trick or treat. The minefields and such are clearly labeled with warning signs - the moat is sort of a surprise. Weeds out the clever and persistent.


    Actually, where we live, we just don't get trick or treaters. It's cold here right now and the houses are far apart. Most folks take their kids to Halloween parties or such.

    ReplyDelete
  20. That's okay Jim, we never get any trick-or-treaters either. Haven't in the seven years we've lived her.

    I still pick up a small bag of peanut butter cups, just in case, but our streak remains unbroken.

    My parents get 3 to 5 trick or treaters, however, by friend Bob, who lives in a housing development about two miles from my parents gets hundreds of trick-or-treaters.

    For some reason parents would rather drive their kids of a development than have them trick-or-treat along a highway.

    Of course the fact my mom gave out pencils one year probably didn't help.

    ReplyDelete
  21. I also do not get trick or treaters, even though I live in "the city." Most houses in my neighborhood are on the north-south streets. Mine is around the corner, on an east-west street. Very inefficient for trick or treaters. I could probably lure kids to my house with decorations (letting them know "loot here") but honestly, I don't miss them. When I was growing up, we went to the school for a Halloween party (since trick or treating in the sticks is the ultimate in inefficient). As a Girl Scout, I gave out candy (each classroom was a "house"). It was fun, but I'm not willing to do the work to make it happen. Me lazy. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  22. Alas alack, there are photos of me available in my work-safe mode, but not the mondo cleavage mode, because my Halloween kinda sucked, so I didn't think to have a photo taken because I was being too busy being a big baby to ask CuteFilmNerd to immortalize me and my mondo cleavage. Seriously, I was an emotional mess, for a fairly silly reason. Who knew wenches were emo?

    Perhaps I can redon the costume later this week and ask CFN's assistance. Because nothing's too good for y'all.

    Tania = serious kitty is serious. But cute! And Jeri, I think the vest is a nice touch. Because nothing screams psychopath like a work vest!

    ReplyDelete

Comments on this blog are moderated. Each will be reviewed before being allowed to post. This may take a while. I don't allow personal attacks, trolling, or obnoxious stupidity. If you post anonymously and hide behind an IP blocker, I'm a lot more likely to consider you a troll. Be sure to read the commenting rules before you start typing. Really.