Halloween

Brig and I had a heck of a day a couple weeks before Halloween. We were going to go apple picking with a mutual friend but she was running late. We got on the road and followed the GPS to where it said the apple orchard was. It wasn't. Since it was already late afternoon we decided to go to a local mall where our friend said they had a costume shop. We looked at the directory but couldn't find it. Of course, we figured that was because it's a seasonal store. So we went to the information desk and the woman told us that no, they do not have a Halloween shop at the mall. Back to square one.

On the way home Brig remembered a place near us called Spirit that had just set up shop. I went in looking for ideas while Brig went in looking for Monterey Jack. What we ended up with were two joint costumes: Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head and Buzz Lightyear & Jessie. This worked out perfectly because 1) Everyone loves couples who dress thematically similar and 2) We had two Halloween events on our social calendar.

The first was a house party in Shrewsbury with my college friends. We went as the Potato Heads and definitely won the (non-existent) costume contest. We did some pumpkin pie shots, played beirut and had a eat-a-donut-off-a-string race (which Brig and I finished 1-2 in).

The second was the Halloween Bar Crawl around Faneuil Hall. You may remember last year's. This year was very different. First, our non-apple picking, non-Halloween store knowing friend bailed and then I realized too late that Buzz would have been better at the house party. The first time I tried to walk up to the bar my wings were smacking everyone I tried to get by. They were inflatable and I'm sure nobody really cared but I was so annoyed by it.

The best part, as always, was commenting on other people's costumes. Our other friend showed up with a guy who claimed to be Mario but was so clearly Fred Flintstone. Brig berated the Monopoly Man for not having a mustache. And then there was Psy. No one really noticed he was there until Gangnam Style came on; then he was the king of the dance floor. Everyone encircled him as he did the dance moves from the video. As soon as it ended he was off to another bar, waiting for his next chance to do it all again.

A Hazy Halloween

Steve Jobs, a giraffe and a biker chick walk into a bar. It’s not the setup to a joke, it’s a Halloween bar crawl!

Saturday we went out in the pouring rain to a bar crawl around Faneuil Hall. We started at The Place which was absolutely packed. I saw a couple Indiana Jones’ (which was my costume last year), 3 different groups of Legends of the Hidden Temple players and a surprising number of Santas. We met up with our friends Michael Jackson and ramen noodles for some beers and jungle juice.

Our next stop was to everyone’s favorite spot, Hong Kong. They weren’t doing karaoke so we went upstairs to the dance floor. I ended up running into an old friend from high school as well as a group of former coworkers (Frogger, '20s gangster, flapper). We grabbed some scorpion bowls and went to town. Then my girlfriend’s friend showed up (construction worker) and we decided to head next door to Trinity.

Trinity is a bar that I have never seen really busy. It’s on a corner with Hong Kong, Sissy K’s and The Black Rose and it is definitely the black sheep of the group. Even on Saturday, as an official member of the bar crawl, it was not even close to capacity. We did a shot and went upstairs where most of the people were congregating. We danced for a little bit, took a picture of 3 blind mice and decided to leave the crawl to head to a house party.

Steve Jobs, a giraffe, a biker chick, Michael Jackson, ramen noodles and a construction worker try to hail a cab. Well it wasn’t hailing but the rain had turned into snow, which is never as fun as it was when you were a kid. Anyway, we got 2 cabs and ended up in Allston/Brighton. We pretty much doubled the amount of people who were there and literally brought the party. We were there maybe 5 minutes and my girlfriend was already putting together a signup sheet for beer pong. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to us, her construction worker friend drank a little beyond his means and was not doing any favors to our host’s bathroom. He came out and it was clear that he had to go home. That and if anyone saw that he had vomited in the sink we probably would have been asked to leave anyway. So four of us turned right around and got another cab.* We managed to get home with only minor issues – not more puke thankfully but those damn taxi credit card machines.

All in all, it was a relatively successful and undeniably memorable Halloween.


*It was MJ and ramen noodles’ friend’s place so they stayed and dealt with the consequences.