Halloween 2009; My Fancy Nancy with HER Fancy Nancy. I made this costume up, btw, using dress up clothes we had on hand.

Let’s just establish from the git-go that Halloween is my favorite holiday. Save the Turkeys, let Santa retire and put the Easter Bunny on permanent hiatus as far as I’m concerned….but don’t mess around with Halloween. I blame my mama for my ridiculous obsession with this holiday. She was a seamstress, and possessed a burning passion for creating garments for people to dress up in. Sure, she made normal clothes too….but DAMN….THAT WOMAN KNEW HOW TO PUT TOGETHER A COSTUME LIKE NOBODY’S BUSINESS. One year I was a clown (okay, I’m still a clown), then I was a hobo, the next I was Tweety Bird and when I was in junior high she really stepped up the game….by tea-dyeing about 5 yards of muslin, ripping it into strips and wrapping my entire body up ‘like a mummy”. Of course, I couldn’t piss for several hours, but the costume was effing fantastic. It wasn’t just my mother though. My brothers and sisters got into it too. Although I am the baby of the family by 12 years, they continued to carry on like complete wing nuts every Halloween, perhaps for my benefit, but I really suspect it was for their own enjoyment. One such year, when I was maybe 8 or so, my brother rented a studio grade gorilla costume, and teamed up with my sister, who worked for a local vet in town, known for his love of exotic pets. Dr. Young was also known for being a bit on the eccentric side, and subject to doing things most folks would not dare. Keep in mind, I grew up in a really small town. With that in mind, you can imagine how hilarious it was when my brother, dressed as King Kong decided it would be fun to have my sister and the other vet-tech she worked with drive him around town while he was standing up, appearing to be chained in the bed of Dr.Young’s pickup truck. They drove all over the freaking city…up around the courthouse square…through neighborhoods. EVERYWHERE. Each time they would approach a group of middle or high school aged trick-or-treaters (not little kids, mind you) they would slow down, and my brother would pound his chest and roar, then act like he was ‘breaking free from the chains’ and jump out of the truck into the group of kids. The kids would scream and scatter, understandably….probably wearing dirty underwear. Good times….for the times. Today, he would likely have been shot. Halloween was also a time to go TP yards, shoot random strangers with water guns filled with chocolate syrup, or worse….egg houses. I can remember participating in this kind of prankster activity when I was 6. I thought it was cool, because I was with my 18-year-old sister and her friends. Little did I know, it was also criminal. Thanks, Bug. Anyway, you get the point. These are my people, and Halloween is a big deal.  So it’s only fitting that I carry on family tradition, right? No…I don’t take my kids egging or TP’ing, but we do dress up….elaborately. The picture below is from last year, just before they left to beg for candy from our strangers neighbors:

a tiger, a witch and….a punk rocker?

Ironically though, as much as I LOVE dressing my kids up and going all out, that’s not my favorite part of Halloween anymore. Nope. My favorite part is Halloween season date night with The Man. Oh, get your mind out of the gutter. It doesn’t involve kinky sex or role-playing with costumes. We go to Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights every year….without The Beans. For obvious reasons: they are too young. Although, after this past summer, and our participation in the filming of the book trailer for the zombie novel “100 Days of Death”, they might enjoy it now….lol. But I digress. Last year’s annual Halloween Date Night was definitely one for the history books. Even better than the year we ate ‘herbal brownies’ before going in, and were totally paranoid the entire night, thinking the Texas Chainsaws were real. I mean what kind of asshats do THAT? Yeah, us. What can I say…it was our rookie year, and somebody else brought the treats. Anyway….back to Halloween 2011. It started out pretty normal. Except for the fact that we waited until the last-minute to buy our tickets, and missed out on the coveted ‘Front of the Line’ passes, which are worth every extra penny they cost, btw, which is why they SELL OUT. So, there was a fair amount of bitching at the beginning of the night. Still, we were excited, because one of the mazes was ‘Scream 4’ and The Man had just finished mixing the post-sound for it, and wore his crew t-shirt on our date. Very appropriate, attire I thought, although he paired it with some jeans that had a small hole near the pocket in the back. To be fair, I pointed out the hole before we left, and suggested he change his pants, but he ignored me, naturally. Turned out, the tee-shirt was a conversation piece that set the night in motion, and wearing those holey jeans happened to be a stellar decision as well. We were on the escalator going to the lower level, and happened to strike up a conversation with a couple of ladies in front of us, when they inquired about The Man’s shirt. See? Great wardrobe choice. As luck would have it, they were staff make-up artists going from maze to maze checking on the actors and doing touch-ups as needed. We remarked about missing out on the front of the line passes, and how brutally long the lines were, and they offered to take us with them through the maze they were headed for. They got to cut the line, because they worked there, and we just happened to be at the right place at the right time. Now, let me tell you….despite the fact that he works on movies for a living, and knows it’s all costumes, make-up and sound….the characters at HHN scare the crap out of The Man. Every effing year. Me…not so much, as I have nerves of steel. Nonetheless, we truck along with our new BFF’s, and head into ‘Alice Cooper’. Little did we know one of the girls was dating the guy who worked the door to the maze, and she called ahead and told him to have the actors pay special attention to us. And holy shit snacks, did they ever take those instructions seriously. Within the first few minutes of being in the maze, one of the characters jumped out practically on top of us, The Man fell back into me (because I always make him go in first & use him as a shield), scrambled to get away, almost ditched me and did his dead level best to run like hell through the remainder of the maze, with our 2 escorts laughing hysterically. I was laughing too, of course, because when my husband gets spooked, it’s the best show on Earth. But oh…the fun didn’t stop there. Once we got to ‘safety’ outside the maze, I noticed that in the scuffle, the tiny little hole in the back of The Man’s jeans had grown by epic proportions…..

yes. it’s exactly what it looks like

Yes, ladies and gentlemen….The Man busted the ass out of his jeans trying to get away from a ‘monster’. And I wet mine laughing at him. Best. Date Night. EVER. Universal Halloween Horror Nights 2011. Needless to say, the girls got such delight in watching The Man get the shit scared out of him in the first maze, they took us with them through every single one, even with The Man’s underwear showing. So we essentially got the Front of the Line Passes…..for free. Sometimes, we live a charmed life when it comes to shit like that. Hoping we get that lucky again this year 🙂

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