H is for Halloween

Since I decided to give NaBloPoMo a try again this year, I thought I would bring back the Encyclopedia of Dee Em again. It's fitting that I go with Halloween, considering it was a few days ago.


I used to subscribe to Writer's Digest and every once in awhile will visit their writer's prompt area for something to kick start my imagination. This was the first one on the list: Thinking back to your childhood and the many Halloween costumes you wore, which costume was your favorite and why?

H is for Halloween

Halloween has been my 2nd favorite holiday for years. I remember a couple of my costumes, there is one where I am a hobo and am wearing an old jacket of my dad's, along with some black makeup for coal (apparently I was riding the rails). One year my next door neighbor, Linda, Kari and I decided to dress like ghosts from different eras. Linda was from the 1950's and looked like a dead pin up girl. Kari and I went for earlier time frames - I was from the 1750's and Kari was from the 1850's. Well, as close as we could get since we really didn't have a lot of money to put into it. Pretty much we all wore a lot of white paint and blush along with whatever we could come up with for our dresses.

One thing I do remember about this night was Linda and I were harassed by some jerk for being too old to trick or treat. I think we were 15 and Kari was 13. Um, yeah, how is that too old? Plus, are we supposed to let my 13 year old sister wander around by herself?

Years later, my friend Becky and I went to a Halloween party and she was dressed like a cat and I went as a gypsy. I have the picture somewhere, I'll have to see if I can dig it out. Lots of layers, huge gold hoop earrings (it was the 80's after all) and my tarot cards for that touch of authenticity (I was never very good at them but it was fun to try).


When I was working at the Dark Side Bank, I worked with a guy named Otis. When I started, I thought the office needed a Milo. One day I was at the store in our building and I saw this ball that had a smiley face on it. Smiley face = Milo. The office embraced Milo and that began my collection of smiley faces. By the time I ended up quitting, I had at least 50 (most of them were gifts from co-workers (which is where most of my frog collection at NABANA has come from)).


For the 3 Halloweens that I worked there, each year I did a different costume. I'm not sure of the order but each year I was Milo dressed as something. One year it was Milo dressed as a pumpkin. The costume was incredibly simple. A shirt the color of whatever I wanted (orange for pumpkin) and electrical tape. I made a smiley face out of the electrical tape and attached it to my shirt.

The next year I bought a witch's hat and said Milo and I were arguing over what we were going to be. I wanted to be a witch and he wanted to be a cat. I had a small stuffed black cat and Milo was created on a yellow shirt with whiskers.

The last year I was there I went simple and just said Milo was a ghost. I had lost my enthusiam for my job about that time and I would leave in 2 months. My last day was December 31st, 1999 and I started at NABABNA on January 10th, 2000. Best decision I ever made.


In 2001, I was over at Keem's apartment (this was before we became roommates) and she was showing me her old prom dress and a wizard's outfit she had made as a Halloween costume. She offered to let me wear her prom dress as a costume. I decided to go as a princess (long before I became Queen of the Universe (I was still Queen of the Dorks then)). The dress was extremely low cut and at one point, one of my co-workers was walking by when I had leaned over to plug my monitor cord back in (my boss liked to unplug it as a joke. Once he did it while I was in an escalated call. I was not laughing). All of a sudden his eyes got hilariously huge because he got an extreme shot of Dana cleavage.

I was feeling a bit uncomfortable after that so I put on my coat and a pair of sunglasses and I became Incognito Princess.

My favorite costume was the Queen of the Universe outfit that I did a couple of Halloweens in a row.



Those are glow in the dark stars. They are attached by velcro. The word you're looking for is awesome.

If I can get the picture of my costume for Friday to work, I'll show it to you. I tried to go as a cat disguised as a pumpkin carved as a cat. But the electrical tape didn't work. Instead I ended up as a very cheap, white trash version of Hello Kitty.

Apparently Keem overheard two of my co-workers talking about my costume. The big problems they had was that I didn't look like Hello Kitty. Um, hello. I was a cat. I was waving. And it was a freaking joke!

What did you do for Halloween?