As Visions of Pez Candies Danced Through My Head

In light of the this fine Halloween day today, I thought I’d retell the story of one of my favorite Halloweens yet- made great by two of my favorite people ever.

Several years ago- I think my sophomore year of high school- my friend, Tara, and I decided to get really ambitious and make our own Halloween costumes. I think both Tara and I would fall into the category of “over-achievers, primarily in regards to projects that others may find futile and, quite frankly, a waste of time”. This can be made evident by our endless note passing games that we passed the time in class with: the time we tried to write solely in Spanish to each other (for months), the time we tried to write solely with our non-dominant hands to each other (for months), the time we refused to write to each other in any thing other than an intricate and painstaking calligraphy-type font (for months). One may look at our overflowing notebook that is a product the above discipline and think it a profound waste of time. But what can I say… we can now write in shaky, calligraphy-style, poor Spanish with the best of 'em, and I say that is something to be proud of.

Wow, that was quite the tangent.

So anyway, this one October way back when and once upon a sophomore year, Tara and I decided to make our own costumes. After deliberating over the wide array of options before us, we finally decided on the perfect idea. Pez Dispensers. Life-size, walking, talking Pez Dispensers. We went to work, and probably spent a good solid month developing and executing our plan. Being only poor high school students, we were resourceful as possible and completed our project using only felt, poster board, glue, and a few wire hangers. I tried to find the actual photos of our finished masterpieces, but unfortunately came up empty handed. So, without further ado, I present to you my best rendering from memory…

I can’t remember if we wore them to school or not. Did we, Tara? I do, however, remember winning first place in our youth group’s costume contest. Yep, there’s my proudest achievement to-date.

For some reason Tara wasn’t able to go trick-or-treating with us that year, but I did get to go with my other favorite person, Annabel (yes, I went trick-or-treating my sophomore year of high school). Annabel didn’t have a costume prior to that day, so we had to come up with her spontaneous and impromptu attire. Apparently the creative juices just weren’t flowing with much intensity that night, because this is what we came up with…

She was a sleeping bag. Which we accomplished by wrapping her in a sleeping bag. And that is all.

We set off on our merry journey, but VERY quickly discovered the error of our way. You see, neither of our costumes allowed much room for the simple act of walking. So we waddled. Slowly. After an exhausting hour of work, we had only waddled the length of one street. And to make matters worse, people kept mistaking my Pez Dispenser for a mail box (which I still don’t see. I’ve included a head-on sketch of the mask, so you can judge for yourself), and throwing candy in my eye hole… at which point I would have to stop and shimmy it down and out my foot hole, so that Annabel could kindly pick it up for me.

Finally, we decided to give up and head home so we could change out of our cumbersome costumes. Neither of us were quite satisfied with our night’s earnings though, so we resolved to head back out. This time we dressed as ourselves and told people we were Christians. Lame cover, I know.

So… to Tara and Annabel- if you’re reading this- thanks for being so amazing. I think we should all three spend the next year planning an even better costume for Halloween ’09 :)