Worst. Costume. Ever.
Posted
October 30, 2006 at
11:51 pm by
Prescott
Given that inexpensive, highly-detailed injection molded latex masks and theater quality makeup is a rather recent technological advancement, I’m sure even the youngest of us here can remember the more “creative” ways our parents had to adorn us for the Halloweens of our youth. From the plastic poncho/mask getups (good lord, I think I remember the “Gabe Kaplan”) to the homemade atrocities — and if you’re a geezer like me, you’ll have a fond recollection of “Kooky Spooks” — there’s bound to be a deeply harbored embarrassing Halloween that only your therapist knows about. Until now.
Spill your guts and tell us about your worst Halloween memory ever in the comments below. The story that we will very arbitrarily decide (no whining) tomorrow is best scores an Imperfect Parent t-shirt, as well as the added benefit of unloading some emotional baggage. To get you in the spirit, I’ll start:
My most vivid Halloween costume memory is the year I was dressed as Peter Pan. And not some Ben Franklin version, we’re talking a homemade costume done entirely in green felt, with a feather in the hat, shoes, the whole nine yards. Which might have been cute on a toddler, but although I can’t remember the exact age I wore it, I was most certainly too old to be prancing around in green tights. I mean, seriously, I think this might have been third grade. The whole experience may explain why I enjoy shopping for clothes and have a penchant for high quality moisturizers.
I might have felt guilt for this revulsion towards the costume that my mom painstakingly made for me, except that she didn’t — IT WAS A HAND-ME-DOWN. From what other emotionally scarred kid I got it from, I don’t remember.
Your benchmark has been set.
(It should go without saying that if you wish to claim your prize, you need to provide your actual email address in the comment form.)
 |
6 Responses to “Worst. Costume. Ever.”
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Leave a comment
Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately in an effort to remove commercial messages, irrelevancies, excessive foul language, racist/sexist/hateful comments, spoofed/cloaked IPs and/or personal attacks and will be edited/deleted at our discretion. Thank you for your patience.
1. Cristina said:
October 31, 2006 @ 1:19 am
Please tell me that you have a picture of that Peter Pan outfit so you can upload it here! LOL
I can’t think of a really horrid Halloween memory to share, but on the topic of Halloween costumes, I must point you to Kevin Charnas’s website. He’s been posting pics of his Halloween costumes over the years. You can check ‘em out here. It’ll be worth the click: http://www.kevincharnas.com/ Be sure to scroll down the page to see them all.
2. anthromomma said:
October 31, 2006 @ 2:23 pm
I second the request for a picture.
When I was seven, I was determined to dress up as a fairy, despite the fact that it was well below freezing on Halloween night. My mom made me wear long underwear underneath my costume. My handed-down-from-my-big-brother-camouflage long underwear. Commando fairy is not a good look.
3. Rachael said:
October 31, 2006 @ 2:28 pm
My worst Halloweeen was my last. I was a late-developing 14 year old (I know, OLD to be trick or treating) and I stuffed my bra inside my costume (I was an inmate-ugh).. After the entire evening was over, I realized I’d been lopsided the entire time. One can never fully capture the humiliation of hte late-developing late-trick or treater with mere words.
My OTHER worst Halloween memory is happening now — we all have full-family-onslaught stomach flu.
Talk about horrors!
4. Mom in WA said:
October 31, 2006 @ 4:34 pm
My worst Halloween moment was when I was 14 and working weekends at an apple orchard. The owners always held a Halloween Festival as close to the Day as possible. Well, it was always my job at festival to walk around in rented costumes and wave to the customers in the fields picking apples. Now as humiliating as the Barney the Dinosaur, Cookie Monster, and Blue Ninja Turtle costumes of the previous years were, nothing compared to the year they rented the Red Power Ranger costume. (Those of you with boys know that the red ranger is a DUDE!) So the owner helped me into the costume and then asked me to “visit” her 7 year old and his friends at the house (they lived on the orchard property). So she takes me to her house, peeks inside and says “I have a special visitor for you boys”. Then I appear, and the boys go crazy, “Oh my God!” Then they suddenly pause all at once and say “Wait a minute! The Red Ranger don’t got BOOBS!” I was so emabarassed! Not only that, but the rest of the day I was waving to the customers and all of the moms said to their kids “Look. There’s Kimberly!” Kimberly was the girl Pink Ranger. They must have been thrown off by the whole boobs issue, too.
Embarrassing, huh? Yeah, I’m talking to Dr. Phil about it next week. HA!
5. medeanj said:
November 2, 2006 @ 3:09 pm
I was 16 at the time and decided I wanted to be a 200+ year-old druid. To do the aging process I used spirit gum, lightly batted cotton and liquid latex. Problem was I ran out of latex and only done 1/2 of my face. The only alternative I could find was liquid rubber cement from my mom’s photo studio so I used it on the other side of my face.
Shortly after finishing the job one side of my face is itching like crazy and shortly thereafter the other side of my face was burning!
I ran to the bathroom and was able to pull off the liquid latex with little problem; the rubber cement of the other hand I was not so lucky. I jumped in the shower thinking the hot water would loosen the cement up but to no avail. Finally it took some serious pulling and mineral oil, and a 1/2 hour of agony.
End result a very red, splotchy face that lasted for days and the discovery that I am allergic to latex. I was wondering why I was never able to wear pantyhose or tights w/o bitching about them within 5 minutes.
Oh, and what was left of my druid costume I looked like an insane ‘The End Is Nigh’ Prophetess-Religious-Freak.
6. Chris Guzman said:
November 29, 2006 @ 11:03 am
I know I’m late for the contest, but this is much cheaper than therapy. . . .after a solid month of begging in 1983 for my parents to buy me the ET costume I’d seen advertised on TV, and getting nowhere as far as convincing them ($65 in ‘82 was crazy for a costume. . .still is!). . . . my dad took me into the basement and, while I watched in horror, converted a foam mattress insert and a big cardboard box into a crazy “homemade” costume. He covered the box with foil, cut a big slot on the top (wide enough for an eight-yr-old’s head), cut the foam into an oddly familiar shape (with a hole in it for my head), took an old garden hose, a tin can, and two popsicle sticks. . . and made me a TOASTER COSTUME!!!! The foam, of course, was fashioned inot a slice of bread, and my head was sticking out of the hole in its center. The hose-can-sticks combo were my cord and plug. I had no arm holes, so my Dad had to hold my candy bag, I couldn’t scratch my nose (which obviously itches most when you can’t get to it), and my neighbor, in his ET costume, rode past on his bike (with an Elliot doll in the basket on front of his bike) laughed hysterically at me.
While it instilled the virtues of patience, thriftiness, and workmanship. . . the pains of utter embarrassment and being a social pariah (for the week) were more apparent.