The Essays
"It Was My Worst Halloween Ever, Charlie Brown!"
Ever since I was a little girl back in Chicago, Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. It's the one day of the year that I can forget about all of the depressing stuff in my life, and pretend to be someone completely different. Unfortunately, Halloween 2003 proved that even the best costumes can't always shield me from the real horror that is my personal life.
About three years ago I packed up my Midwest life and moved to southern California. Luckily, I had family out there already and was able to meet people through my cousin. I met Joe in September. We hit it off right away, and began seeing each other regularly. Knowing that there was going to be a killer party on Halloween, I wanted to have an amazing costume. I decided to dress up like my childhood hero, She-Ra the Princess of Power. I soon realized I would have to make the costume myself. For one thing, She-Ra wears gold boots, and those things are not easy to find! I ended up getting white ones and painting them. For the top part, I got a long line bra and painted her emblem on after tracing it from a homemade stencil. Oddly enough, the best way I found to do that was by putting the bra on a pumpkin like it was a mannequin! It took quite a long time to get everything right, but I made it work.
On Halloween night, I got stuck in two and a half hours of traffic due to the holiday, and the torrential downpour that always seems to occur on the day of tricks or treats. That night, She-Ra was escorted by Ronald McDonald. In a bloody butcher's apron. Carrying a butcher's knife. When we arrived, dripping wet at the party, we were greeted by a wide array of characters including three scantily clad Care Bears, and a slightly overweight Mark Spitz in all his Speedo and Olympic gold glory.
A few hours later, exhausted from the whole evening, we took in a fast food drive-thru binge, and headed back to his place. It was there, in Joe's dining room, where it all went down. Casually dipping my fries in hot mustard, I sensed there was something wrong, and voiced my concern to Joe. He looked away and put his head down. I knew what was coming next. As he slowly pulled the red curly wig off down the side of his face, he raised his head to reveal the rolling tears that had been welling in his big blue eyes. What came next was the traditional "I'm sorry", and the "It's not you, it's me," followed by the ever popular "Let's stay friends." I handled it gracefully, but then bawled my eyes out on my drive home. Not only had I been dumped, but I was dumped on my favorite holiday, in my fabulous homemade costume, by a sadistic Ronald McDonald, who by the way, was eating Jack in the Box at the time! It just seemed so wrong!
The following year, I opted to work on Halloween. Keeping in mind what happened the previous year, I decided to dress not like my childhood hero, but rather my adulthood hero; the one and only Charlie Brown!
Jenny Spear