Chicken Nugget

October 31, 2010 will remain forever, my very last Halloween.

Since my venture into adulthood, I’ve lost interest in costume parties and drinking holidays. It’s become an increasing whip to have to dress up for a theme party or spend all day trying to maneuver a drinking holiday. Halloween is the pinnacle of this frenzy, combining the costume and drinking requirements, and I work very hard to have to “work late” or “not feel good” when All Hollow’s finally rolls around.

In 2010, a decision (based purely on nostalgia and football fever) was made that Kacie, Debra and I would dress up for Halloween and hit 6th Street in Austin after the Baylor game. This decision would eventually prove to be a worse one than starting Simms over Applewhite in the 2001 Big XII Championship. But I digress.

After a humiliating loss to Baylor at our home stadium, the three of us headed back to the hotel to suit up. Kacie was dressed as a sexy fireman, Debra donned a sexy waitress costume and I was…Girl Big Bird.

I was very proud of my Girl Big Bird costume. It had a feathery looking dress with a layered feathery skirt, cute pink and orange stockings and a Big Bird Head on a headband. I wore heavy blue eye-shadow and had even added a feather boa bustle in the back.

Then there were the feet.

Worry not about the feet, my child.

I looked for weeks for appropriate orange shoes to wear as feet, but knowing I’d be walking and standing all night, I just couldn’t settle. So I set out to make my own by crafting large big bird feet and toes out of orange foam board. I flopped them over a pair of comfy heels and secured them to my ankles with pretty pink ribbon. My feet were of much debate the week before Halloween. After texting her pictures of them, Kacie responded that she was “worried about [my] feet.” She and Debra eyed them dubiously as I strapped them on before leaving the hotel.  

When it was all put together…I looked like a Girl Big Bird. Cute, but not sexy.

This wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last time I was inappropriately matronly at an event, but my un-sexiness was exaggerated by the fact that most women wear underwear, stilettos and angel wings or bug ears to 6th Street Halloween.

We knew we had made a mistake as soon as we left the hotel. People were too disorganized, wandering aimlessly through the streets. They were too grabby. They were too drunk. And there were too freakin’ many of them.

It didn't help that we were so annoyed and frightenend that we couldn't muscle through the throngs.  At one point Debra turned to me and said "We're like the Longhorn offensive line: Timid, Scared..." I interrupted her.  "And indecisive."

We tried to keep out of the fray by claiming a table pretty early at a bar lining the block party. This became un-fun when we were immediately assaulted by the German Beer Drinking team from Beerfest. We had to get out of there. Most bars proved similar results, and the lines were only getting longer.

Here’s the thing about drunk people and Halloween. When you’re drunk, you see a costume and comprehend what it is, but you just can’t make the words come out of your head properly (re: me in Stillwater, Oklahoma). The first instance of brain-to-word confusion came when we were walking out through the lobby of the hotel. A guy dressed like Tony Romo with a broken arm noted aloud as I walked by “SpongeBob!” I did a double take, then asked Kacie and Debra “Do I look like SpongeBob? “ They were kind. “No, it’s just that you’re yellow.”

Unfortunately, the SpongeBob incident set the precedent for my night, and I became completely paranoid about my costume. Not only was I un-sexy, but also ambiguous.

The girls tried to talk me off the ledge by pointing out this was happening everywhere. Case in point, as we walked along a sidewalk, a homemade Buzz Light-year zoomed past. As we praised his costume someone behind us yelled out “Hey! Buzz Aldrin!”

Oh, so very close.

Eventually, the night got to a point where I had been called "duck" and "chicken”. Kacie had been groped by a few strangers and Debra had been stepped on twice. It was then that we decided to head a few blocks down to a private party hosted by a friend of ours with a tailgate we'll call "The JumboTron Whores". The walk was brutal and the people just as bad, so by time we got there all I could do was desperately say at the bouncer “we’re with The JumboTron Whores...jumbotron…whores….please…”

Once inside, we looked for the guy who had invited us.  We'll refer to him as "Units".  We had called him to let him know we were there, and found out that he was running late.

So happy to be indoors with people who weren’t intent on making us uncomfortable, we sat and ordered drinks. I poured over karaoke selections and we met someone who was possibly as upset by costume confusion as I was. While clever, the man with the chef’s hat and t-shirt bearing the elemental symbol “fe” was getting a lot of “steel chef” and “Swedish chef” comments that he didn’t care for.

"Neeber schneeber." That’s Swedish chefspeak for “I feel your pain, brother.”

After having a few drinks and witnessing some terrible karaoke we wandered into the main room of the party, eyes peeled for Units or some of the other people we knew.  While Units was still MIA, we did run into his girlfriend.  It just took one very uncomfortable moment for us to realize that Units wasn't picking up her calls...and she was quite unhappy he picked up ours.

By the time the night was over, we had gotten Units in deep water with his gal, sung karaoke and encountered Jabba the Hut. Luckily none of us had fallen down, and Kacie did not murder the very sexy (just ask her) Minnie Mouse.

We headed home. Exhausted and glad the very last Halloween was over.

Turns out, the most fear we felt all night was the moment we arrived back at the hotel. A party had just ended in one of the ballrooms and people were milling around waiting for cabs. Hundreds of people. They had diamonds for teeth, they were not in costume, many of them were throwing shoes, arguing and yelling obscenities. To add to the ambience, there were armed policemen in the lobby with their hands poised hovering over their guns.

All we wanted to do was get to our room. Alive.

Once in the room, I made them both apologize. The entire night, there had not been one single issue with my Girl-Big-Bird-homemade-feet.

They will never again doubt my feet.

So my very last Halloween (all things considered) was fun. The holiday went out of my life with a bang. As frustrated as we were at the time, we laugh hysterically now when we tell the stories.

Just recently, in fact, Kacie and Debra revealed to me a dark secret about that night. I had always thought there should be no secrets between friends, but in this case, I think they were wise to wait awhile to tell me.

As the story goes, a few weeks after the very last Halloween, Debra asked Kacie in a tentative tone “So, speaking of that night…Did you hear…um, in the lobby…on Halloween…that person called Beth – ?"

Kacie stopped her with a nod. Somehow in the midst of the fear of near death in the hotel lobby they had both seen a man point at me and heard him call me something. Knowing I was already on edge regarding costume confusion and that it had been a long night of walking, frustration and chaos, they said nothing about what they had witnessed. They didn’t even dare discuss it among themselves.

“Yeah, I heard it,” Kacie said, still nodding.

“Chicken Nugget”