Joe Vampire

POST 9



Halloweener



Every year at work we have this totally cheesy Halloween costume contest. And every year, I’m stunned at how many adults dress up and parade themselves around like they’re in some sort of Tim Burton fashion show for really tall second graders. On several occasions, I’ve even stunned myself by joining in the mayhem.

What can I say? I’m a second grader at heart.

Some of these folks really take their Halloween shit seriously. They all too eagerly tell you how much time and money they’ve spent putting their get-up together, welding things to wear and practicing a special walk. These people would send Lady Gaga off crying into her meat dress. I know a guy who paid over a thousand dollars for a replica of the sword that Aragorn carried in Return of the King so his Lord of the Rings attire would be nothing less than authentic. He also hand-sewed his tunic from a pattern he made by studying the Blu-Rays, stitching it together with thread he’d spun himself – and he took classes in leather craft so he could make the boots to ensure no detail was left ungeeked. Leather-freaking-craft. I was surprised he didn’t spring for Lasik so he could ditch the horned rims to make the illusion a little more complete.

Some people just don’t know how to commit.

We also have the Gang Bangers, teams of folks in costume that come with a skit or song or some other way-too-rehearsed performance that you know took the better part of the year to coordinate. It’s happened so many times that it’s expected now, like a flash mob that everyone already knows about. You can feel the steamy sigh of disappointment seethe through the office if, for some reason, it doesn’t happen. They’re pretty high concept with it, too. One year everyone in the group dressed as decoy Waldos and hid themselves among the crowd while a shill went looking for the real Waldo. It was quite imaginative. And it would’ve been even cooler if Waldo had actually been in the crowd. But he wasn’t. Turns out he’d slipped in the bathroom stall and knocked himself out while changing into his costume. So no one figured out where Waldo really was until way past lunchtime. And even then, it was the janitor who found him, pants around his ankles and lying among a small fortune in loose change.

But I digress.

Seems like even more than Christmas, Halloween really brings the goofy kid out in everyone around this place. A perfect opportunity to put on your own meat dress or Aragorn boots of finely hand-crafted leather. Or what have you. And yeah, it’s kind of stupid.

But it’s kind of fun, too.

At least, it was fun. Before This.

When I do participate, I am not one of the hardcore Halloweeners who drop huge chunks of cash for a costume. Nor am I one of the Bangers of Gang; I prefer to costume solo. And almost always at the last minute, too. I’m with those who choose to phone it in on their way out the door, even though we’ve had three hundred and sixty-four days since the last time it happened to think about it. There’s always the lady wearing last year’s six-sizes-too-small red satin gown and Mardi Gras mask, shaking her saucy hooch for candy like she’s starring in “The Devil Wears Lane Bryant”, and the guy who dons a fake mustache, glued-on chest hair and shoves a summer sausage down his pants and passes himself off as Ron Jeremy – every time. They make you wish there was some sort of Purell for your eyes. My costumes aren’t that visually provocative, but I do try to be creative… which means I’ll be hot-Googling the internet the morning of, pillaging You Tube for other people’s ideas, in search of something with a smart-ass flair that only seems original if you haven’t been hot-Googling the internet recently. It also requires that no new purchases be made, since I wouldn’t have time for shopping at that point. Only items readily found on or about the home premises are allowed – but everything there is fair game. Once I fashioned a half-assed bedroom side table out of a washing machine box I found in alley, strapped an old lampshade on my head, and went as a one night stand.

It might take a second for the words to create the image.

Take your time. I’ll wait.

This year, I had enough things taking up my energy. I didn’t feel like using the last five minutes before I left for work to steal someone else’s cheap idea for a costume. Besides, when you live Halloween every day, it tends to lose its sheen. Maybe I’ll be back in the swing of things next year, and I’ll come up with something mind-blowing that someone else has already thought of. This year, I sat it out – no costume, no parade. No thanks.

Damned if those ‘Weeners I work with didn’t call my bluff.

As soon as I was in the door, every foam-rubber Spongebob, every latex-headed Freddy Krueger, every lousy Scream-faced, clown-nosed, rainbow-wigged fool I passed called out Sweet costume! or You really outdid yourself this time, Joe!

Outdid myself?

What?

I checked my reflection in my monitor as I hit my desk, just to make sure I didn’t have something stuck to my forehead that might somehow make me look like a participant. There was nothing out of the ordinary. A chill ran through me as I put the pieces together. I turned to my cubie, shuffling about in a see-thru Hefty sack full of balloons, to test my theory. “Bag of jelly beans, right?" I asked. "Clever.” And then she said it:

“Thanks! Love your vampire costume… so authentic.”

F*ck me slowly with a chainsaw.

You mean to tell me that I’ve been an actual vampire for nearly a third of the year, and the only time anyone bothers to pay attention to it is on a day when they think I’m wearing a costume?

Glad I didn’t waste my time scouring the internet.

And it didn’t end at work. I stopped off at the convenience store on the corner to pick up a few bags of candy since I was definitely going to be at home, and the clerk complimented me as well – and the bag boy! Seriously? I’m in here every morning picking up the paper and a cinnamon mocha latte and I always look like this! Why is it suddenly noticeable now that it’s Halloween? And what do you say to something like that, anyway? “Thanks, but I don’t just look like a vampire; I am a vampire?” Not gonna happen. It’s one of those awkward sucker punch moments when people don’t mean to insult you; they just don’t seem to realize that their comment might not fit the situation. Or maybe it hits too close to home. Sort of like when you ask a woman when her baby’s due only to find out she’s just packing a righteous gut. How do you unring that bell?

You don’t, generally.

You just smile and back away slowly from the large angry lady making a fist in front of you.

I don’t want to make people feel weird about my looking weird, even if it takes a holiday devoted to devils and demons to get them to notice that there’s a difference. It’s my problem, not theirs. So I just said thanks, grabbed my three pounds of Kit Kat and went home. And later when the kids started knocking, I didn’t even bother trying to hide it. I just dropped the loot in the bag like they asked me to, chiming in with a "Happy Halloween" for all comers the whole night while they talked me up as the spooky vampire with the thin spot where his peak should be. That’s what I am, after all. Why should I let it bother me? At least I had the excuse of Halloween to get by with. Still, it got a little old after a while. So when the last gaggle of kids came and shook their buckets for candy, I sucked it up and opened the door. And when they asked me what I was supposed to be, I said, “Isn’t it obvious?” They discussed in depth until they agreed I was Charlie Sheen during his last season on Two and a Half Men.

"Not a vampire, huh?” I asked.

“Not even close,” they said.

So I gave them whatever was left in the bowl, and then I opened another bag and dumped it into their buckets until they were full. I threw them each a ten dollar bill, too. Bless their little hearts.

Thanks much, kids.

Way to make an undead soul feel human again.