#173 In which our hero participates in a group pagan ritual, enjoys himself thoroughly and eats many sandwiches.

So, Halloween.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve worked at a place that was loose/fun enough to encourage the employees to dress up. My current agency has those qualities in spades, so it’s no surprise that not only did people dress up, but there was a Halloween party with prizes for best costume.

Being that this is an advertising agency, I should have expected really good costumes. The contest was for best “funny costume,” best “scary costume” and best “group costume.” Walking in the door I felt pretty good, but when I saw some of the other costumes, my prize winning hopes plummeted.

Some of the best in the group category:

• The Scooby-Doo Gang: really spot-on casting. “Shaggy” left his goatee grow out for two weeks ahead of time. The capper? “Velma” owns a real, live Great Dane, who she brought in for judging. They looked great.
  
  
• The Red Hat Society: bunch of young women who dressed up as old woman. Kinda fun, but what really made it was the one man who put on a dress to participate. And I have to say, his hat was really quite lovely.
  
  
• The Shits: a group of people wearing brown costumes that looked like big turds… each with it’s own special attribute: one had flames painted on the side (“Hot Shit”), one had a halo and wings (“Holy Shit”), one had tattoos (“Tough Shit”)… and so on. A couple were a bit of a stretch (one wearing a small fan around her neck and boxing gloves? “When the shit hits the fan”) but pretty clever overall.
  
  
• The Bachelor: probably the best conceived “costume” of the bunch… matter of fact, not just costumes, really, but a full-blown event. One of the media guys is English, so he was “The Bachelor” (i.e., from the reality program of the same name) and there were eight suitors, each of a delightful stereotype: the weeping virgin, the slutty stalker, the beauty queen, and so on. There were audition videos to watch, three rose ceremonies throughout the day, and an agency-wide contest in which you could win $50 if you chose the winner. Well thought-out and orchestrated. However, not so amazing costume-wise… I mean, The Bachelor was just a guy in a suit, the stalker wore a low-cut dress... eh.
  
  
• The Clue Gang: You know, Mr. Green, Col. Mustard… Miss Scarlet was a cross-dressing man who, frankly, looked great in a dress. Each had a murder weapon, too… but in the end, much like the Bachelor crew, it was just people in dresses or suits.
  

The winner: The Shits. They were deserving, I guess, but it just wasn’t to my taste, really. Boy, that makes me sound snobby.

Some of the best in the funniest category:

• Giant piñata: probably my favorite… this woman wore a giant piñata, it had to be five feet tall, and only her legs stuck out the bottom. And the best part? When you whacked her with a stick, candy fell out the bottom. Hi-larious!
  
  
• The Bride: that is, Uma Thurman from “Kill Bill.” Her costume was amazing (she got it from eBay, and it was dead-on right down to the yellow shoes). She did a flip during the “agency costume parade,” which got her a lot of points, I think.
  
  
• Death row: There’s a woman in the office who’s in a wheelchair right now due to leg surgery… she decorated the chair to look like an electric chair, wore black and white prisoner stripes and had a tin-foil cap that lit up. I thought she was a shoo-in to win.
  
  
• Silent movie: this rather statuesque woman wore black and white and had a tile card pinned to her hip… making her a “silent movie.” Probably too conceptual, since most people didn’t get it (myself included).
  

The winner: a flyboy. WTF? I didn’t think this costume was that funny, really… it was a couple of guys in aviator goggles, and they had dressed up a shopping cart to look like a plane (that is to say, they duct-taped cardboard wings to it) and pushed each other around. Eh. I smell fix.

The scariest costumes:

There were maybe four people really trying to be scary… one dressed as IT, another guy with this crazy costume that was a black hood with a mask that somehow popped up and down… hard to explain. Another guy in ghoulish black and white makeup.

The IT guy won, and rightly so. This costume was only minimally affected by the brand name “BOZO” on his sleeves.

My costume?

Identities hidden to protect the innocent.
Here, Daphne considers a new line of work.

It’s kinda hard to read, but my bling says “COPY PIMP.” I thought this was hilarious. I’m a copywriter, see, so I’ll PIMP your COPY! No-one got it. I also made a crunk cup that read, “WORD,” which I also thought was hilarious. Still no takers.

Next year, less conceptual maybe. Probably the funniest thing of all was that Lily said I dressed up as a "pimple," which was so funny we never corrected her.

I’ve already given thought to next year’s costume. See, the agency doesn’t fool around with prizes… the funniest and scariest costumes each got a $1,000 travel voucher good for a year; and the group got a free night out (dinner and drinks) at a swanky place in downtown Akron.

Clearly, the way to go is scariest. There were probably 20 funny costumes in the contest, but only five scary. Next year, I’m going all out.

Or maybe I’ll just focus on dick n’ fart jokes.

OH! The sandwiches! Couple of weeks ago the agency sponsored a contest to create a new sandwich for a local deli. The grand prize was having your sandwich added to the menu, and a sandwich a week for a year. The food for the Halloween party was the sandwich finalists (which did not include yours truly). I ate of all the finalists, and have to say they were all better than the one I came up with. Again, next year!