On The Bright Side, I Still Don't Qualify To Go As A Ghost

Today is the day we celebrate Halloween at work. Oh, we don't say we're celebrating Halloween, presumably due to a long debate on our in-house forum from a few years ago where a disgrunted religious person complained about the decorating (which Hermie personally takes offense to, but since he's not technically an employee, I explained that he cannot formally lodge a discrimination complaint). Anyway, there are donuts and candy and decorations and people are dressed up, all for the "Harvest Festival".



I myself am not dressed up this year. I was planning on it, but my costume budget went to other things. This means that if I wanted to dress up, I would have to either wear an old costume (which were all kind of situation specific), or wear one of the uniforms from my previous careers.

The latter always seems like a good option until I actually get into the outfit. At that point, I kind of regress into the person I was when that was my chosen profession. This tends to lead to uncomfortable situations for me.

As an example, there was the year I put on my ninja uniform. Everyone thought it was a pretty cool "costume", and I thought I had done well. The problem was that I recognized a target from one of the forums I still haunted (it's so hard to let go sometimes). Let me tell you, throwing a shuriken into someone's chest and then disappearing in a puff of smoke is pretty much a solid guarantee that you're not getting invited again next year.

Then there was the year I wore my winged vigilante outfit. Again, big hit for the most part. Thing is that I forgot to clean out my utility belt completely, and some of my defensive measures were still live. One minute I'm in the middle of a raucous game of Twister and then next thing I know, I've inadvertantly gassed an entire party (similar thing happened at a chili cook off incedentally, but we can discuss that another time). Fortunately I still had my breathing apparatus, so I escaped unscathed, and the gas that was released sort of "softened" everyone's memory, so for the most part no one could remember what had happened. Actually, that's how most of our parties ended back then, so I guess it wasn't a total wash.

Let's not even discuss the exotic dancer thing, beyond saying that it's not a good idea at the workplace. In my defense though, what are the odds that someone would play "You Can Leave Your Hat On" at an office part? Dude, totally awkward.

So yeah, this year I put in the spider earring, flipped over my watch to expose the Jolly Roger on the other side, and called it good. Maybe next year I'll buy a costume. For now, this will have to do. I might still break something out for Halloween night though. I mean, I still have my old lab coat and steel briefcase from my stint in biological research.

Besides, what are the odds that the zombie virus would still be active after all of these years?