Halloweaning

As you’ve probably heard me babble about if you know me at all (or have read the back-entries of this blog), I used to work at a costume shop. Two years out from my last Halloween there, I’m starting to not hate the holiday any more. To commemorate this, I give you:

My Top Ten Halloween Season Memories.

10. De-thonging the costumes, and inserting a sheet explaining that thongs can be picked up after purchase, and that these costumes were not returnable.

9. Hey! Let’s let people try on packaged costumes with 17 accessories, which they will then dump on the dressing room floor and leave there. Also, who leaves an empty, half-crushed Diet Coke can hanging from one of the pegs that hold striped tights?

8. Do we have pint blood? Gallon blood? Little blood packets? Gel blood? Thick blood? Blood in medical-style bags? How about the 17 varieties of vampire teeth, ranging in price from $.49 to $49.99?

7. My desk was overlooked by a 12’ tall animatronic monkey (with a huge Santa hat for the holidays), and I knew where the actual human skeleton was in the store. And also, how to knock down the pirate section to escape the basement in the case of a fire.

6. Sometimes, my boss would just drop by my desk to stick a nail up his nose and say hi.

5. I am fine with transvestites. I am significantly less fine with crazy chatty people who happen to be transvestites, and I am really rather not cool at all with crazy chatty people who happen to be transvestites and corner me in the fake breast section of the store for twenty minutes about who hit on them at what bar and when they want to get their surgery, until a coworker notices I’m trapped and pages me over the intercom to the front desk. This person is also the reason I can utter the inquiry, “Have I told you the prosthetic vagina story?” and be serious.

4. Having an office on the second floor directly above the women’s dressing room, and thus being able to yell “THREE COSTUME LIMIT” in my deity voice at the sorority girls who tried to bring in half the store.

3. CAKE MACHETE. (Okay, not Halloween, but I don’t care. CAKE MACHETE.)

2. Ordering from this catalog. Also, locking this catalog in my desk because, while Heather and I were the only people who put together orders from Leg Ave, it was shockingly popular with the menfolk.

1. It’s November 1st. Time to order Santa suits, guys.