Costume Contest

I love Halloween. It's my favorite holiday. Any festivities that are centered around dressing up in costume, trying to scare the crap out of people, and eating too much chocolate are tops on my list.

I'm really looking forward to this year All Hallow's celebrations, but I'm stuck for a costume. And I have a costume ball to go to next Friday, so the clock's a-tickin'.

It's not that I don't have any ideas. It's more a matter of actually deciding on something that I won't have to spend the whole night explaining. (Well, that and money....) For the past few years, I've come up with costumes that I think are blatantly obvious, and at least ten people will ask me what I'm supposed to be.

Halloween was the busiest night of the year at the bar I used to work at, and most years we would try to have a theme. One year it was Dead Celebrities. I decided against going as Edie Sedgewick (which I could have pulled off with my hair) because it was too obscure, and decided to go as Andy Warhol. White wig, glasses, Campbell's Soup can, dazed expression...the works. I walked around mumbling about my diaries, and one person got it. Hell, more people got Rosencrantz's Bettie Page costume. And Bettie Page is still alive.

The next year we had kicked around a cartoon theme, so I went to work on what I figured would be a ridiculously obvious costume: Velma from Scooby Doo. For crying out loud, everyone grew up on that show! Even if you hated it, you'd know who I was supposed to be! I let my hair grow to the proper length, wore the black plastic nerd glasses and the baggy orange sweater and the brown skirt and the god-awful matching socks (which took me a solid week of shopping to find), and even carried a Scooby Doo purse that night. I peppered my bartending banter with "Jinkies!" Lots of confused looks ensued.

And here it is, a little more than a week before The Witches Ball and I have a list of goofy ideas that I can't afford to pull off, or are inside jokes that no one will get. JohnnyB suggested I go as Blossom from The Powerpuff Girls, but she's my least favorite (I'm more of the Buttercup type) and that costume would only make sense if I could get two other people to dress up with me (or if I can convince JohnnyB to be Mojo Jojo...heh). After seeing X Men the other night, I decided I wanted a leather jumpsuit, but where I'm going to find one in my price range is a definite problem. Well, that and I'd want to be Storm, and I'm just a bit too light skinned to play her. Still want her cape, though.

Then there's the running inside joke...due to my love/obsession/addiction for all things caffeinated, I have been known as either Jitters the caffeinated elf (it was Christmas) and Vibrating Girl (my super-hero persona). The Vibrating Girl costume has actually been designed in theory - it's silver, with a cape (again!) and bicycle streamers in my hair. However, the only people who would know what the hell I was supposed to be would be JohnnyB (who came up with the idea) and Nash (who I related the story to during a happy hour at Spy Club). And Nash isn't going. Things aren't looking good for this costume....

The absolute worst was the Laura Palmer (Twin Peaks) costume, though. I was dead, wrapped in plastic. It was during the woeful second season, the "who killed Laura" arc had long since been abandoned, and my boyfriend and I were the only Peaksters in the group. That, and plastic dropclothes DO NOT BREATHE. I was dying after about five minutes.

So fine. I'll go for the generic. A vampire. Oooh, now that's original. It would be a cost cutter, though. All I'd have to do is open my closet, pick a random black goth-chick dress, and buy some white makeup and pointy teeth. Or...here's a good one! I could go as a witch! Same dress, add a pointy hat, and I'm good to go!

Oh, wait. Wearing an archaic and outdated witch's costume probably wouldn't go over very well at a party sponsored by The Occult Shop. Every Wiccan in the room would kick my butt.

I don't want to wear my costume from last year (black widow spider, including extra arms, spiderweb tights, and a black netted hat that I covered in little plastic arachnids), and I don't think my Dorothy (Wizard of Oz) costume fits (which is really too bad, since I do have a stuffed Toto). But I'm running out of options here. I almost want to cut two holes in a bedsheet and go as a ghost. Boo, baby.

So if anyone has any ideas, please send them my way. Otherwise, I'm taking the scissors to a flat queen size sheet.