Yup, that’s exactly how my adult celebration of this holiday started last year. Now stop right here because if you’re thinking, “oh this is going to be funny.” It’s not. You are gravely, undead deadly wrong. Our nightmare reality did not end well. It was just like the punch line to all these ‘walk into a bar’ jokes….ALL BAD. By the way, where the heck did all those bad jokes come from? Who started that mayhem? Any hoo, still with me? Ok, but proceed with caution.
Some friends and I decided last year that we would join in on the adult Halloween fun, costumes and all. Early in the month we started shopping for costumes. Between the three of us we all ended up going with costumes that would show “yeah, we think we still got it” but also covered up what should always be covered. I was mostly doing it all for fun and thought this will at least give me a cute pic to send to my husband in Afghanistan. We were even sure to pre-purchase our $30 ticket for the event we were certain would be the best one in town that night. Now, most nights out we have a good dinner at a restaurant before we continue on to the dancing and drinks. Being that we could not very well see ourselves all costumed up for dinner, sitting right next to families, we opted for the drive-thru and a drink at the house before heading out. We were definitely going to have some good, safe fun with our very own cop and even a personal security guard, the cop’s husband also in costume.
There were plenty of drinks available, people to gawk at (girls who would give Miley a run for her money) and ambiance to invoke a good time. So we did enjoy some drinks, when we were able to force our way through the hoard of feathered, furry, bloodied or scantily dressed costumed others. Rest assured, we also, did some gawking. Without a doubt I realized last year that Halloween was just another reason for the clothing impaired to flaunt their stuff as if it was just another day at the beach. Seriously, I don’t think I could have seen more skin if I was Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs yelling down the hole, “IT RUBS THE LOTION ON ITS SKIN.” And ambiance? There definitely was a lot of music going on that night but I think the DJ forgot the purpose of the music was to get us dancing. Maybe the DJ thought with all the dressing up it was meant to be a zombie crawl? All I know is the music was more trance inducing than anything, and for the few times we did hit the dance floor we usually had to fight off the hats and props making their way into our orifices. Plus, nobody wants another sweaty/bloodied/theatrical made-up stranger all up in their personal space.
And then it happened, we were joined by our purrty cat friend, her sexy vampire friend and said vampire’s husband. The night was finally turning! Or was it? We had a couple good laughs and turns out on the dance floor. YES! But…meh that was short lived. Call it getting old, trying too hard or amping it up too early, whatever it was, that night fell flat and did not meet our expectations. An overcrowded bar, a societal okay to wear whatever you want and bad music was just that, bad, and not in the cool bad a$$ kind of way.
As one who turns to friends and fun nights out to get through deployments and separations from my husband I was disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, I still adore my cop and Robyn and I have lost count of all the fun nights we have had. Nights we come home and still have one or two texts left to top that night off. Mornings I have woken up with a croaky voice because I know all the words to songs I should have forgotten a long time ago. Just the other day we were laughing at last year’s sorry attempt to a night out to celebrate the not really a holiday, holiday. Can you guess what we decided? To try again of course. Why the hell not? We will be out and about the weekend before Halloween to see what kind of trouble we can brew up this year. With my husband back he has the bright idea to be Giorgio from Ancient Aliens and I his loyal groupie. You can read about that obsession here. I seriously just think that show is so funny to him he can’t resist. Maybe I can convince him instead to be Rick from The Walking Dead and I the ghostly Lori. With less than two weeks to go to Halloween I’m looking forward to a last minute couple costume and a random night out that we don’t pre-purchase tickets for or order costumes online with enough delivery time to get to us. Cheers to flying by the edge of your broom and allowing your adult self a little fun during the one time of the year you could still play dress-up!