Our office’s building management company attempted to encourage all of us to wear costumes to work on Halloween, but it turns out that none of us at my own place of employment “do” the whole costume thing unless forced against our will, so we all bailed. (There are many reasons that I like my coworkers, but this may rank up at the top, as I hate wearing costumes more than anyone you have ever met, and to find an entire office full of similarly inclined people makes me happy.)
On the morning of Halloween, my coworkers & I were all hard at work at our office – located in a small, semi-suburban office complex – when a fire drill was announced throughout the building; everyone was required to leave their desks, file down the stairs in an orderly fashion, and gather in the parking lot until the fire drill was over.
I was somewhat irritated that I had to do this, as I was kind of busy that day, but I did as I was told, and went out to the hall and into the stairwell. As I began my descent, I heard an odd rustling noise behind me. I turned around and let out an involuntary squeak of terror as I beheld THIS coming down the stairs behind me.
It turns out that not everyone in our office building was averse to the whole “adults wearing costumes to work” thing, and now I was trapped in a stairwell with some of them.
I ran down the stairs as quickly as I could, hoping to escape the Dick Cheney masks and Playboy bunny outfits behind me. I was sure that once I caught up to my (uncostumed) coworkers in the parking lot, all would be well. But I was wrong; once I hit the sidewalk outside, disturbingly attired administrative assistants and middle managers were coming at me from all directions, traveling in packs like some kind of nightmarish mash-up of “Office Space” and “Shaun of the Dead.”
While some of their costumes were recognizable, like the “Naughty Intern” and “Ye Olde Milkmaid” (it’s possible that the intern wasn’t actually in costume; I’m still debating that), others were more difficult to get my head around.
Like these folks, below. I honestly have no idea what I am looking at, costume-wise. However, I don’t have to know all the answers to remain steadfast in my anti-costumes-at-work stance. After the terrifying Halloween office complex fire drill of 2009, I am now completely sure that no good can come of it.
NOTE: Everyone in these photos gave me verbal permission to take their photos and publish them on my blog. Thanks to them for their good natured sense of fun about the whole thing. And Happy (belated) Halloween!
8 Responses to “This is why MY Halloween was way scarier than YOUR Halloween”
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Katie,
I am a great admirer of yours and my husband even refers to you as my “virtual best friend” because we have a lot in common and I am always reading him something from your blog. But on this point, we stand at polar opposites. I love Halloween. I love costumes. I can’t understand why anyone would give up the opportunity to change your persona for a whole day. In fact, this last halloween I put my costume on even before my kids put on theirs! (My husband dressed up too.)
It probably doesn’t hurt that Halloween is my birthday, but I still stand by my steadfast support of everyone in costume on halloween.
BTW, the gourd-o-lanterns didn’t offend my sensibilities at all. I love halloween, but who doesn’t love a little creativity in the pumpkin carving? Especially when it was born out of desperation!
This seems kind of mean, Katie. People just wanted to dress up and have a little fun. You don’t have to be condescending and demeaning.
Fire drills are important practice, you know, in case there is actually a fire.
You’d get your point across much better if you didn’t always have typos and misspellings in your posts as well.
Laura – I am not anti-firedrill; I am anti-scary-costumes-in-the-stairwell-during-a-firedrill.
Sorry for any misspellings and typos that appear in my posts to such a degree that you have been unable to get my point(s) (although in this case, my only point was to say that I don’t like wearing costumes to work…or at all…) I’ll endeavor to up the ante with my on-the-fly copyediting when I blog here.
Best,
Katie
I think the chef thing is the Stay Puffed guy from Ghostbusters. The guy in the wig is I don’t know what but he is definitely scary!!
Nah, she’s the Pillsbury Dough Boy! You should have given her a belly poke.
I thought the one guy was the pillsbury dough boy. I am anti-costume as well and really just not a big fan of Halloween. This year some kid dressed as a zombie jumped out at my oldest and chased her off his porch. She fell and broke her wrist. The emergency room on Halloween, now that is a scary sight.
I think what Laura was referring to was you said the fire drill irritated you somewhat because you were kind of busy that day.
I think the costume next to the Doughboy is Goth Pippi Longstocking.