Happy Halloween Yeh Scurvy Seadogs!

Ye lilly-livered landlubbers! Mangy dogs!  Soggy scoundrels!  Barbarous bilge rats!  Wrathful wenches!  Nasty knaves!  Ruthless readers!

One of Captain Z's many vessels.

          I'm not sure how many countries celebrate Halloween, but I do know that the end of summer and winter's approach is celebrated in different ways in many cultures.  Here in the United States we celebrate by dressing up in all sorts of costumes.  Kids go door to door saying "Trick or Treat" filling their bag or pillowcase with candy throughout the night.  Some really ambitious trick-or-treaters will fill their bag, go home to unload, and fill it again before the night is over.  Most places have a designated time for trick-or-treating and any houses that want to participate leave their outdoor house lights on to invite the kids to come get candy.

          For the kids, this night is all about dressing up, hanging out with their group, and getting candy.  For adults who participate in the holiday this is a time to see the variety of costumes, greet visiting neighbors, and spend time with whoever is with them passing out candy.

The 'ganger and I in 2009.

          When I get to pass out candy I like to turn on spooky music, get in my best costume, place a doppelganger on the porch, and stand perfectly still in the doorway like a dummy.  I watch, motionless, as my victims come strolling up the driveway.  Some of them notice me right away; some of them don't see me until they go to knock or ring the doorbell.  Those who do see me go through a variety of emotions that play clearly across their faces.  I love that moment.  They wonder: Is that real?  Is it alive?  Why isn't it moving?  Perhaps they are even wondering for a fleeting moment if it is safe to approach.

          Ding-Dong...

2007 window decoration?

          OF COURSE IT'S NOT SAFE TO APPROACH!  Who approaches the house of a creepy clown and thinks they will leave unchanged?!  I have made many cry, I have made many jump.  But my favorite experience was back in 2004 when I was dressed very much like this.

2005 Two-Faced Clown

          Some of my high school classmates thought they weren't too old to go trick-or-treating.  So, just like everyone else, they approached my house.  But lo, the arrogance of male teens, their cockiness and swaggering steps led them to my porch, and I watched, just as I always do, silent as a statue.  The alpha male goes to ring the bell without noticing me and it's too late!  My head swivels to follow his movements and that slight motion sends him stumbling backwards with fear.  Ha!  I scared the big bad football player.  His two buddies laugh at him, as I wordlessly pass out the candy.  The only break in my facade is a small smirk I can't contain.

          Even my one year old nephew didn't shy away from the bloodier version in 2006.  Instead he enjoyed grabbing the nose off of my face and putting it back on.  I wish he has left it off, no nose = no fall sniffles! Ba-da tsh!  Hey, I'm a clown.  I'm supposed to be funny and make bad jokes.

Honestly, what did you expect?

          Passing out candy on Halloween is one of my favorite things to do.  Apart from scaring older kids, I love seeing all the little kids and proving to them that I'm not nearly as scary as I look.  For some reason an unbelievably large number of people are very irrationally afraid of clowns.  I would like to break this misconception that all clowns want to lure you in with a balloon just to pull your arm off.  Why would I want your arm, anyway?

An extra arm would really throw off my symmetry.

          Don't get me wrong, I LOVE that so many people's hackles raise at the mere mention of a clown; it makes my job very easy.  And I did make scaring a job.  In 2008 I passed an advertisement for a  haunted house I'd never heard of and I checked out the website noting that they were looking for volunteers.  I had set a goal for myself to do something new independently, so how could I pass this up?

Welcome to my lair.  Enter at your own risk, and do stay for dinner.  I'm nearly finished with the last group.

          I experienced my first audition and discovered a dark side of me that  had been hiding all these years. He wanted the last scream ever heard from a dying girl- I screamed the scream of a girl who doesn't know how to scream.  He wanted a cannibalistic clown- I ate the flesh off of my victim and threw away the bone, starving for more.  That's what he was looking for.  Every weekend in October I resided in my small clown room with my fellow clowns, scaring people so badly that many actually peed their pants.  The chainsaw guy counted wet pants running toward cars each night and we monsters cheered loudly at the end of the night gatherings.  We truly were a family of minions and we loved our job.  The owner of the haunt has the right personality and responsible attitude that it's no wonder he's able to expand each year with more minions and more visitors and the property owners just keep giving him more freedoms and space to grow.

          I worked there two years in a row and tried again last year, but the hairspray, dust, and face paint fumes irritated my lungs too much.  I lost my voice and ended up quite sick the second year.  I came home after the preview night last year and blew brown dust out of my nose and could already feel my throat getting scratchy so I decided to hang up the wild striped jacket and just enjoy  haunted houses as fresh meat, instead.

          This year I celebrated Halloween with my friends on a weekend.  It was very fun, but it's not quite the same when you aren't enjoying nervous glances all night long.  Of course, had I gone in full costume I bet those glances would have come my way.  D and I were zombies in the early transition stage and since we'd just butchered ourselves a zombie, I got a little blood on my hands.

          Today I couldn't sit idly by and let everyone else celebrate my favorite holiday without me.  I do not have a costume at my apartment and I did not realize I was going to have a professor actually encourage us to dress up for class.  If I had known that I would have brought everything, just for his class.  He came dressed as an Imaginary Thing.  Similar to Dr. Seuss's Thing 1 and Thing 2 but instead he was Thing √-1.  I thought that was clever. I had an exam today that I've spent several days studying for so I knew I wouldn't have much time for getting dressed up. So I searched Pinterest for nail polish ideas and was lucky enough to find an idea that matched my available colors.

          The three coats of white took a long time since that's not a quick drying polish, but rolling up a strip of newspaper into a tube and using it to blow the red onto my nails was fun! It was very quick and made every nail look different.

          I was Dexter's girlfriend for Halloween. What were you?