2002-10-31 - 9:14 p.m.
All hallows eve... a potentially fun holiday that I am never quite up for, although I'm not exactly sure why. I like the season, I like the idea of celebrating a pagan holiday, I like spookiness and costumes and candy. But Halloween never lives up to its reputation. At least not when you work in an office and have to suffer the whims of a group of adults making a lame effort to behave like kids while still doing their work. It is kind of surreal.
The front desk clerk, who is short and rotund with a Lucille-Ball-esque head of puffy red hair and too much lipstick (on a normal day) today is dressed in an outfit that seems to be a cross between a princess and some kind of wizard: a purple satin dress, with a pointed hat decorated with stars and spouting an immense net veil. This is her second week on the job, and I must say, I am in awe of her self esteem.
The woman with no teeth who works in registration came to work wearing ratty short pants, flip-flops, and sporting two stuffed monkeys tied around her neck.
"You are...someone with a monkey on her back?....a drug addict?" I guessed, when forced to comment on the costume.
"No... " She seemed a bit incensed. "I'm a castaway."
I was formulating a theory of costume choice in my idle moments this afternoon. You can really tell who is heavily invested in their looks. Some people always choose a costume that makes them look sexy and/or cute. One of my coworkers dresses up every year as "Cinderella" or a "fairy" etc. as an excuse to wear something strapless, backless or skimpy to work. Today she was dressed as a baby, in shortie pajamas, hair in two pigtails.
And of course the girl with the perfect figure in our office is celebrating Halloween by wearing an orange sweater, flattering as everything is on her, slipping up as everything does, to show an inch of flawless skin at the waist. No goofy costume for her. Every body wishes they looked like her every day. The orange sweater is enough.
Most of us don't dress up though. I can't imagine sitting in my cubicle all day in a funny outfit. Mostly I can't imagine having some kind of serious conversation with a student dressed as a witch or a baby or a fairy. When someone remarks on my lack of a costume, I say I am dressed as a disgruntled office worker.
And then just to be really whiney and petty, I will tell you this: Halloween at work is always tainted by the fact that another department always has a "Halloween Chili Party" every year, and invites our department. And the terms of the invitation are as follows, including the implications: "You are invited to a party. Bring all your own food. We will provide the location, ignore you, and treat you like you are unwelcome party crashers." And every year, people fall for it, which means that we can't have our own party because we are going to take part in this one. And we bring food, and they are not nice, and it isn't fun. This year I didn't even bother to go.
That's enough of that.
Today, since I couldn't get any work done, I was thinking about Halloweens past. We always had creative, sometimes prize-winning costumes when I was a kid. Mom was a master at pulling something together, usually scavenged form the boxes of hand-me-downs and household discards,sewing, dying, painting and gluing. I always felt sorry for the kids with flimsy store-bought costumes and masks. But, like many little girls, I saw Halloween as a chance to live out my glamourous fantasies. The year I was in the third grade, I was going to be a ballerina. I daydreamed...no, this is me... I obsessed about my costume, about what a beauty I was going to be, about how my classmates would be in awe. My mother made me a tutu out of some kind of netting, and attached satin ribbons to my shoes. I adamantly refused to wear a mask. I didn't want to look funny, I wanted to look beautiful, really beautiful. I'm sure I was not able to articulate any of this, but I wasn't just seeing this occasion as a chance to dress up for trick-or-treating. No, this was going to be a life changing experience.
My mother mentioned that she had seen blond wigs for sale at the drugstore. If I didn't want a mask, did I want to wear a wig? Oh, yes! A blond wig would be perfect. Since my parents shared a car, she called my dad and asked him to stop and pick up the wig on his way home. I was ecstatic. I envisioned the beautiful, long flowing blond hair I had always wanted. Why.... this didn't have to end with Halloween. I could get my school picture taken in it.... people would forget that I had bushy, chopped off brown hair. In fact, I could not believe my good fortune, that my parents were actually going along with something not unlike one of my wild schemes.
My Dad was late coming home from work that night, and I had to go on to bed. All I could think about, as I lay wide awake, was the wig. At last I heard the door open and the crinkle of bags as Dad came in with the groceries. I couldn't possibly wait until morning to see my beautiful wig. I jumped up and ran downstairs.
"Did you get it?"
"Get what?" he says in mock seriousness.
"The wig! My blond wig!"
"Oh, I forgot all about that..." he said. But seeing my crushed expression, he quickly reversed the joke.
"I got it. Here it is."
He handed me a small bag and inside was an oddly flat box, with a window in the top. I knew instantly. The soap bubble of my dream popped without a trace.
The wig was an ugly, bright yellow, made of some kind of matted scratchy material, attached to a burlap backing. It was a comic wig, and maybe if I had been dressing as a hillbilly or a clown... but not for my beautiful ballerina. I took it out of the box and tried it on. I remember trying to act as though I liked it.... feeling foolish....recognizing instantly that I was wrong, that a cheap wig intended for a kid's Halloween costume was not supposed to be beautiful. I wanted to be grateful to my dad for buying it, so I put it on and said thank-you. At least that what I remember. But maybe they saw it differently. Because I know I didn't actually wear the awful wig with my ballerina costume. I prefered my own hair, drab and ordinary though it was, to looking funny.
That memory always makes me think about how fragile kid's dreams can be. Even though I had a completely unrealistic idea about something that essentially wasn't even important.... it was still a bit painful to let go and accept that next dose of reality.
We have had twelve little trick-or-treaters at our door so far tonight. They look so cute in their costumes. I try to make a big fuss over them, and give out good candy. I hope all the little ballerinas and cowboys and ghosts and pirates feel as beautiful or as brave or as scary as they want to be tonight. It is, after all, their night.
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