Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Halloween Hijinks!

This Halloween, I decided to put my craft skills to the test. Aided by the lovely Brandy's tips, I fashioned myself after everyone's favourite Fairy Tale anti-heroine, The Paper Bag Princess.



So I bought myself a glue gun, cut up some paper bags, and set to pasting them to an old dress used for a fairy costume in years past. Although there were a few glue gun related debacles, I managed not to scald any body parts, nor to glue myself to something particularly inconvenient, and thus, the evening of my first celebration, I had myself a lovely paper bag dress.
I decided to try it on before headed to a friend's house for drinks and official preparation.

It was only when I was partially encased in said dress, with it covering my head, my arms sticking out above me, and my lower half decidedly exposed, that I realized that paperbags don't have a lot of give, and I was verging dangerously upon being stuck into my glorious creation. Images of a blinded Princess frantically darting about her apartment while swathed in what looked eerily like a toilet paper tube flashed before me.

Thankfully, I managed to wriggled my way out (and keep my shoulder in its socket!). I then called my friend whose apartment I was soon due at, and informed her that she was about to get very familiar with me. All in the name of Halloween.

It took her yanking underneath my dress, my other friend yanking above my dress, and me alternating not breathing and doing some strange version of interpretative dance to get me into my gown. Turns out that, even though the dress upon which the paper bags were glued fit me very well, without any potential for the fabric to move when, say, sliding over one's chest (okay, I was just happy my boobs blocked anything!), dressing becomes difficult. As does walking, sitting down, etc, until the paperbags have been bent a certain number of times (round two of the dress was subsequently a lot easier due to the wear and tear from round one).

However, paperbags in place, I set to messing my hair, smearing myself in dirt-like makeup, and finally, crowning myself. The final product actually wasn't too bad-- thankfully, compensatory packing tape didn't look tremendous out of place on this particular costume.

**Sorry folks, but I am getting too many local search hits for "paper bag princess costume" for me to feel comfortable keeping my photo up here, even if my face is gone.***

So a group of us set off to Party #1, which was to be a smaller gathering with other students from my program. Imagine my surprise when I strolled in, not only to discover another Paper Bag Princess... but one accompanied by that foul Prince Ronald, tennis racket and all.

*gasp*

Turns out that I had inadvertently inspired their costumes. In one of my classes, we had been talking about gender roles in contemporary media, and, with the Paper Bag Princess extra salient for me given my planned costume, I had brought the story up as a counter example. A classmate had seized on that example, and brought the costume idea home to his wife, assuring her that no one else would come up with such an idea. Even more ironically, closer to the party, I had asked him what he was dressing up as. He smirked and told me he wasn't telling, so, being the spiteful princess that I am, I informed him that I wasn't revealing mine, either. Oops.

Night #2....

I actually began Night #2 exceedingly frustrated, having invited a few friends to what has become an annual tradition of attending a giant houseparty put on by an old friend and his three brothers. These friends subsequently spent what seemed like the entire morning calling me to see if more and more people could come with them, leaving me in a difficult spot, as I didn't want to be the gatekeeper to this party, but also felt awkward about showing up with ten extra friends, and having to play chaperone because they knew no one.

What cheered me up?

The Duke shaving his beard into one hella sexy handlebar 'stache to fit with his police costume.
(which was arguably a little Village People-esque... particularly when you saw the guy wield a nightstick).

The second party was quite the gong show. The hosts are quite the creative types, having started their own animation company, and thus associate with other such artistic folk. As such, they go all out for Halloween-- there are no cat ears or witch hat costumes here, but rather obscure movie roles (one year a whole group of them went as the cast from The Life Aquatic) and elaborate costumes. For instance, this year there was a giant milk carton with a Missing Person's ad on the side, with a cutout for the person's face, Pinhead-- complete with pins (actually, toothpicks) protruding from his head, and, reminiscient of Ultra Toast's club excursions, two fellows in full out Transformer gear. One of them actually had the theme song playing somewhere in their costume.



The odd thing about this particular party that differed from years past was the lingering sense of a meat market. While a male friend of mine did emerge from a bathroom rendezvouz with a milkmaid wearing his afro wig, generally, there was a wee bit of desperation in the air with some of the menfolk.

An example:
Creepy guy in hockey jersey: Are you Jon-Benet Ramsey?
My inner voice: Wow, 6-year old murdered beauty queen as a starting point. Nice one.
My outer voice: Afraid not.
Creepy guy: I'm a slutty hockey player.

Creepy guy then pulls his short-shorts even shorter, and proceeds to start grinding and riding his hockey stick right in front of me... Um, no thanks.

Although at least he was a little more creative then 70s journalist, who first asked my female Ninja Turtle friends if they would be using their weapons on him while displaying a suggestive eyebrow raise, and then randomly came up to me...
Him: Will you stop acting like that?
Me: Like what?
Him: That.
Inner voice: I don't even know what kind of inneuendo you are going for! At least be more direct in your smarmyness!
Me: Uhh.... *backing away slowly*

And one last Halloween related tidbit:
For the first time in pretty much ever, I have a readily accessible front door. As a kid, I lived down a kilometre long driveway. As a teenager, I lived down a backlane that hardly anyone knew existed. Since moving out, I've primarily resided in apartment buildings and basement suites. The bad thing about having a visible front door is Mormons knocking early Saturday mornings. The good thing is that I am set to give out candy to trick-or-treaters for the first time ever!

Except that I am scheduled to see a client on Wednesday night.
And something tells me it isn't terribly professional to cancel someone's therapy session to hand out candy.

17 comments:

Mim said...

I love actual creative Halloween costumes. My sister in law taped some family photos and a bunch of twigs to herself and was a "family tree" not the most expensive costume but certainly creative!

eric1313 said...

Men like the hockey slut and the 70's journalist ruin everything for the decent guys.

You could have said this to either one:
"If you're trying to be scary, it's working." (then back away)

That would have made the girls and the rest of their friends laugh at them, thus reigning in their abhorrent behavior through cleverly applied social pressures.

As well as being the truth.

Sounds like your parties were a lot of fun. Glad to hear it.

eric1313 said...

I take that back--smarmy pricks only sometimes ruin it for decent folk, other times, they make it a lot easier on us!

Airam said...

It's only fit that a princess would be a princess for Halloween!

:)

Anonymous said...

The stretching! The stretching! I forgot to mention how important the moving around in the costume was because you are right- paper bags do NOT give and working it around the house for a while does make it easier to wear later on. But from what I can tell, it looked good and it sounds like you had fun so that's what matters.

Oh and 'slutty hockey player'?? I would marry the man who showed up at a Halloween party as the 'wise hockey player', or the 'hockey player with yoda like skills'. Sluts are out.

Unknown said...

I'm not even going to tell you about some of the costumes I wore as a young lad. Suffice it to say some of them were gross.

Ant said...

*sigh*

Your descriptions of halloween-related hijinks make me pine for my student days of crap-but-creative costume parties (The Undie-Taker and The Tony-Blair Witch Project were a couple of my finer efforts...) Alas, this year is getting missed again.

However, it might be really good therapy for your client to be handing out candy perhaps?

Lisa said...

I wish we celebrated Halloween here the way you guys do. And boy, do I want to see a picture of that. :p

P.S. Thanks for the last comment. I adore you too. Very much so.

Sheila said...

It's a shame there are so many creepy people out there, I would love to have seen your costume.

As for the creepy/weird people at the parties -
people feel some sort of anonymity when they are wearing a costume. At least now, if you ever recognize them in normal clothes, you will know how weird they really are!

Anonymous said...

The parties sound like fun! I hope you get a chance to hand out some candy to some straglers left behind!

Unknown said...

sounds like you had a blast at the parties! but the creepy guys? i swear the fact they are in costumes deems it ok in their minds to act...uhhh...creepy.

happy halloween! (and p.s. your last sentence had me laughing out loud.)

Eve said...

Handing out candy IS therapy!

And that's an awesome costume! It's up there with a tar and feathers dress a friend made. But less smelly, I imagine.

Michelle and the City said...

what a creative costume PP! i wish we could have seen the final product after all that hard work!

i hope you got to pass out candy at least for a little bit!

Jocelyn said...

I LOVE Bob Munsch, so kudos to you on that costume, even though you were trumped by some idea stealers!

Does it mean I have a sad life if I'd be happy to read your Halloween musings for hours?

captain corky said...

Screw your client, people like Max and I need candy, and lots of it. ;) I hope you had a good one Princess.

Anonymous said...

hahaha transformers! genius. and i love that story so so much. sounds like a sweeeet costume!

Anonymous said...

hahaha transformers! genius. and i love that story so so much. sounds like a sweeeet costume!