Bring Out the Freak

Over the last several years, GF and I have gotten together with some friends to celebrate Halloween. What this generally entails is us dressing up and going to a high-class restaurant to flaunt ourselves. Last year we went to Zengo, and even though we had reservations, they made us wait almost 2 hours until they seated us. I’m not sure they appreciated our costumes.

We were pissed, so when they did finally seat us, we made sure we were even more raucous then we might have normally been.

So, Zengo? Fuck you – we ain’t coming back in 2008.

No, this year we decided to go to Mama Ayesha’s. If you haven’t been, it’s a great little middle eastern joint in the Woodley Park area. It’s been one of my favorite restaurants in the area for a while, because of its funky and laid back atmosphere. The food is always excellent and very well priced.

Here’s the rub though – if we had problems last year because of the way we looked…. welllllll our plan was to out do ourselves this year…. and ohhhh did we succeed. I’m not going to post a picture, but lets just say we used this as the basis for our costumes:

We looked so much scarier though, and in case you were wondering, yes, we even incorporated the dog collar/leash.

So, here we go again… right? We knew we looked like complete freaks. So much so, that as we walked through Adams Morgan on our way to Mama Ayesha’s, people were clearing out of our way (and you know how many freaks hang out there!). We were pretty worried that the people at the restaurant wouldn’t appreciate our costumes, and they wouldn’t serve us – especially considering my buddy was going as Lt Dangle from Reno 911

Seriously, his shorts were so tight that I my pretty sure the astronauts on the Space Station could see his ball sack without having to look too hard.

But you know what? Mama Ayesha’s is totally awesome. The staff immediately embraced our kookiness and put us at a great table in view of everyone. Our waiters were fantastic, and at the end of the evening, they even bought us a round of drinks on the house! THIS is what great customer service should be like. Yes, we might have looked like freaks, but you know what? By not being like the pretentious pricks at Zengo, they totally won over a whole new group of clients. Even the other customers who were at the restaurant had fun with us.

So Mama Ayesha’s? Thanks for helping a bunch of closet DC freaks have a really fun evening!

Hollow Weiners

I am to scary as the Smurfs are to porn. 

The Smurfs are kid friendly and aren’t sexy at all, except to a small freakish segment of society who get off imagining Papa Smurf and Handy Smurf double teaming Smurfette.

 

To most of the known universe, I’m just about as unscary as possible.  In fact, when I try to even look mean or scary – people laugh.  In many ways, I’m the anti-bad boy.  That’s not to say I’m boring…. far from it.  I just look very innocent. 

I’m ok with this though, because I have a secret. 

I’m good at looking freakish. 

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When it comes to Halloween, I’m a bit of a traditionalist.  I don’t mean traditionalist in the Charlie Brown-sheet-over-head-stupid-ghost kind of way….. I like creativity.

You see, I’m tired of the mega-halloween stores that sell costumes in a bag.  It’s pointless and completely non-creative.  I think it defeats the purpose of Halloween. 

When I was a kid, I always built my costumes from the bottom up.  Being that I had veritably no artistic ability whatsoever, I had to really work hard at it. 

When I was about 8, I remember finding a huge box in the basement and deciding that I was going to be a robot.  So I decorated the whole box with black construction paper, some shiny material I found, and any sort of bobble or electronicy looking thing I could find in the basement.  I cut holes in the sides for my arms, and on the top for my head.  I even made a fairly intricate helmet.

I’m pretty sure I thought I was going to look like this:

 

 

I was going to have the coolest costume EVER…..until I discovered 1 major problem:

My arms weren’t long enough to fit out the sides. 

Not me, but most likely what I looked like

Being that I was 8 years old, I hadn’t had the forethought to measure the box to see if it was too big for me. 

It was devastating.

Why?  Because if I couldn’t get my arms out the side holes, I wouldn’t be able to collect any halloween candy.

FUCK!

I went crying to my dad, who was the only person qualified to address such a global crisis.

So after some ingenious use of duct tape, my jack-o-lantern bucket was attached to the front of the box, and my arm holes became vents.

Problem solved! 

Well… right up until I realized that, since I didn’t have any arm holes, I had no way to keep my candy safe from the other kids…. 

Just imagine seeing an oversized silver box, with a bucket duct-taped to the front, sprinting down the street with a bunch of midget GI Joes chasing after it. 

Yeah, that was me.

But I digress…

So, now that I’m all grown up, what do you get when you combine To Blog Or and a holiday that involves dressing up? 

Usually a restraining order and a ticket for public indecency.

I’m that good. 

So, all you out-of-the-bag Sexy Ms Muffets and Capt Jack Sparrows out there…. watch out….. because I’m bringing it tonight.

I am going to be a true Halloweener….. not a hollow weiner.