My Trick-or-Treat Attempt

All week last week I'd been trying to find a sheet so I could be a ghost to go trick-or-treating. I figured this was the only way to do it without someone catching on that I'm really 24. I had no luck.

My brother, Andrew, suggested that I be a clown. I have a clown suit that my mom made for me when I was 14 (yikes, that was 10 years ago?!) and heading down to Mexico for a mission trip. Since then, that clown suit has been on 3 continents and in at least 3 countries, maybe 4. But it has never gone trick-or-treating.

I have this really awesome Raggedy Ann wig that goes with it, and I was super excited to go home and try to find it.

I dragged Henry into the Scary Room (Alex, it's that place off the furnace room where we keep the sleeping bags, air conditioners, and Christmas decorations when we're not using them) and he pretty much freaked out. But I wasn't about to go up there without protection from the big spiders so I told him he'd have to stay with me.

I found my clown suit, shoes, makeup and hair nylon, but no wig or powder sock. The loss of the wig was very disappointing, but I figured that since it was subzero outside I would just wear a stocking cap.

Back before I went to Mexico, my dad knew some people who were professional clowns and they taught me how to apply clown makeup. It's actually really fun. (The powder sock is for applying baby powder to the white base makeup. It keeps it from smearing.)

Anyway, the white base makeup was getting a little bit, um, hard. I wound up putting a whole lot more on my face than usual, simply because it was coming out in huge globs. I'd forgotten how creepy I look with just a white face. (Oh, I do actually have hair, it's just all stashed in the hair nylon.)


Then I added the red lips. Again, this would have worked better if I'd been able to powder the white base, but that was not possible. So they kind of look smeary.
Oh, I'm wearing my clown suit, it's got bright colored fish all over it (two kinds of patterns) and orange pom poms down the front. It's pretty sweet. I wasn't able to get a picture because I couldn't figure out how.

Last but not least, I added the black accent marks. I was a creepy looking clown and ready to go!
Poor Henry didn't have much of a costume, so I threw on of his shirts on him, grabbed a Fareway bag (for lack of anything better to deposit my candy in) and headed out the door.

It was so, so cold. The wind was, like a zillion miles an hour and Henry was loving it. He was prancing around everywhere like he was the king of trick-or-treat.

Earlier that evening I had scoped out a block that I decided seemed good for trick-or-treating. It had big houses and tons of them had their porch lights on. So Henry and I drove over there and began our adventure.

We went to the first house where I got a Snickers bar and Henry almost got mauled by a big fluffy black dog. Henry has no sense of danger, though, and thought the big black dog wanted to play.

We went to the next house where I got a creepy eyeball gum ball and Henry got nothing.

At this point I was hungry (hadn't eaten dinner yet, I'd had to clean house and grocery shop), cold, and felt like an idiot. My face was itching, too, since I hadn't been able to powder it. I was also getting tired of making my voice sound all high-pitched and 12-year-old. (I'm not sure that worked anyway.)

There's nothing weirder than beinge 24 but feeling like the nerdy kid who had no friends to go trick-or-treat with. This was the look I kept getting from the houses the "Ohh, poor little girl has no friends" look, and it was giving me the jibblies.

I decided to take a vote whether to stay or go. I voted to go home, Henry voted to stay (he was having a great time). Since my vote was worth 5 and his was worth -1, I won and we went home.

As I thought about trying to get off my oil-based white base pancake makeup, I felt a great sense of dread as I realized something. White base makeup doesn't come off without baby oil, and we don't have any baby oil.

This now meant that I was going to have to go to Wal-Mart with my face all painted up and buy some baby oil.

I considered trying my luck at home with soap and water, but I figured it would be a lot worse if I went to the store with wet, soggy, goopy makeup rather than fresh, creepy clown makeup.

Henry got dropped off at home and I went to Wal-Mart. I changed into sweats, Uggs, and a zip-up cardigan (didn't want to ruin it with my oil-based face!) and went out the door and drove to Wal-Mart. (I couldn't bring myself to face Target.)

In Wal-Mart, people were laughing at me as I walked by. Serious.

To be fair, I suppose I'd laugh if I saw some idiot wearing clown makeup walk by me and rush out carrying baby oil. (Because obviously it was stuck on their face, as in my circumstance.)

I went home and attempted to remove the makeup with soap and water. This was the result; permanent pink.
Fortunately with the baby oil, and about 10 cotton balls, I got my face back to its normal color.

All this to say, I probably won't be going trick-or-treating again. At least not by myself...it's really boring. And I got ripped off on candy (but that's probably because they could tell I'm really 24).