On Saturday, I attended a Halloween party at my friend Matthew Feeney’s house. (I’m always torn between his party and a Mensa gathering in Chicago called “HalloweeM”, but given my current lack of disposable income, it made my decision a little easier this year.) Matthew sends an invitation to a couple hundred people and averages about 150 visitors who drop by during the course of the night. The invite always states that costumes are encouraged, but not necessary. Thank God for that, because anyone who’s seen me at one of his parties knows the only “costume” I might wear is dressing up as a Geek.
This year, one of the other attendees was putting a little pressure on me to find a costume—she even offered to bring an extra that I could use that night—but I politely turned her down several times over. If I was really interested in dressing up, I’m sure I could think of something interesting. It was about eight years ago when I put together an outfit with a black shirt, a black tie, a black suit (alas, no fedora) and dyed my brown hair completely blond: I was dressed as a member of the Swedish Mafia.
So after said attendee kept needling me about wearing a costume, I told her that I could show up to the party as a Hollywood celebrity. It would have been pretty easy, really: all I’d have to do is dress up in whatever clothes I wanted and bring along a sense of entitlement. The only problem might have been that some people like to take pictures of the most creative costumes and I wouldn’t want to get into a fistfight with the paparazzi, so it’s probably best that I stuck with “costume not necessary” again this year.
