Halloween Haunts

Friday November 2, 2007 | 17 comments (now closed)

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Trick or Treat. 

This is just a quick little post aimed at bringing y’all up to speed on this year’s Halloween Hauntings in the Humpries Household. I swear, if Mr. Travelini (my 9th Grade English Teacher) ever performs a Vanity Google on himself and stumbles across this site and my alarming attachment to alliteration, I am so seriously screwed. 

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First the Trick.

This was going to be THE YEAR. The one where I finally embraced the great gift thrust upon me and used my freakish cabeza and animated looks to draw Homer Simpson to vibrant life.

I had it all planned out. The uniform is the easy part. First, a white polo and some blinding blue pants – not Jeans – just generic blue pants. Ya’ know, what the Greatest Generation would call ‘slacks’. Yup, all I needed was a clean white short sleave ‘Jersey’ and some neatly pressed ‘Slacks’ coupled with some non-descript black shoes. With the head already shaved, a little yellow theatrical make-up with a black Sharpie (to etch that jagged line that runs along Homie’s neck seam) would cover the complexion. Then I was going to use makeup to draw on that oval of perma-stubble our main man is always sporting and finally cut a ping-pong ball in half, draw two big black dots on them for pupils and plant those bug-eyes over my peepers with some cleverly concealed string. The icing on the cake was homemade Duff Beer wrappers which would transform my Sam Adams Octoberfest into Springfield’s finest bubbly.

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Then, Andi let me know of a party we were invited to where her cadre of cronies (sorry, Mr. T.) and their husbands were planning on dressing in costume. Perfect, I thought. Now I had a venue to steer my internal Simpson to.

Ahh, but there was a catch. Apparently, two of these bald dudes had caught wind of my recent deforestation and had requested that I join them in their planned Blue Man Group revue. No problem. I’d go blue this year and turn yella’ next. As for my hopes of being a Magic Eight-Ball in ’08? Outlook not so good.

Being a Blue Man seemed an easier proposition. All I needed to do was drape myself in black and paint my head blue. After the party, I could go interview at Hot Topic. And, as a side bonus, I got all the marshmallows I could jam down my pie hole – so dinner was now taken care of.

Then comes the trick. Two days before the big party, Andi receives word that everyone attending this party with us (a group of close to 16 people) had decided to go sans costume. What?!?!? A costume party without costumes is like a Festivus without The Airing of Grievances. And that’s no good. How am I gonna’ bitch about not getting to wear a costume?

So, with disappointment in hand, I made my peace with the decision and looked forward to celebrating this party dressed as myself. Hey, now that I think about it, I guess I was going to play Homer after all.

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But the tricks weren’t done. On the evening of the party, just a scant hour before we were to leave, the phone rings. On the other end is one of Andi’s friends who kindly informs me that costumes are back on however Blue Man Group is off as the baldies got cold feet and were afraid that if they applied blue latex to their heads they’d somehow end up on the next episode of HBO’s Real Sex. So, here I was, an hour before party time without a costume to wear.

I debated throwing on Colin’s dragon garb. I toyed with being a princess. I scoured high and low for my ‘safety’ costume – the Castaway look – but couldn’t find my old friend, Wilson. If I didn’t have Wilson with me, who was I going to talk to? Finally, with mere minutes left on the clock, I went as the only thing I could cobble together.

A random, generic Red Sox player. I didn’t even have time enough to grow the grullet and go as Youk. I was just Bench Player #6. As lame as you could get.

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But there was a bright side to all of this. When we arrived at the bar, we went to pay our cover charge. The hostess took one look at me and said “All Sox players get in free“. With another cool benjamin in my pocket, I smiled. Yup, that’s more beer for me.

Finally, I got my Treat.

Anyway, before closing, I just wanted to drop a few notes about our first foray as a family (man – I need HELP!!!!) Trick or Treating. These are the moments you dream of when you are awake at Four in the Morning nursing a sick child to sleep or getting someone a drink of water or chasing the boogeyman back into the night. Walking door to door with your brave little dragon on one side and your beautiful princess on the other – their white knight saving the day by escorting them across the busy street to reach the next candy cubbard – that’s being a Dad.

And that’s the sweetest treat of all.

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