"A Couple Of Days Ago, The Spookiest Thing Happened."

Dear Donna,

Happy Halloween! We’ve learnt that October is the most sacred of months to Americans, so I hope you’re celebrating in spooktacular fashion. In our part of town, decorations started going up on the 1st. There are pumpkins on stoops. Skeletons on porches. Decorative gourds are apparently a thing.

Evidently, St. Louisans take Halloween seriously. And there’s only one place to go to look the part on the big day: Johnnie Brock’s Dungeon Party Warehouse. It has every possible costume available with whole aisles dedicated to your dress-up needs. It’s so big that they even have security guards patrolling inside. Though they could have just been normal people in really good costumes.

View fullsize

(Here’s a side note and a very sophisticated segue: on the subject of costumes, we went to watch amateur wrestling a couple of weekends ago at the local athletic club and it was GREAT (the $2 beers may have had something to do with it).

Wrestler alter egos included; The Pigtail Prince, Barackus, Ace Hawkins and the local legend, Gary Jackson, who rocked up in a roman soldier costume. With an audience of grandmas, kids, a group of people with disabilities, and hipsters all brought together by a shared love of the ‘sport’, you couldn’t help but get swept up in it, booing when prompted and cheering when your guy won. It was total pantomime; part improv, part theatre and all-in-all, great entertainment. Ok, back to Halloween…)

Our neighbourhood goes big for Halloween. Last weekend, the main street was shut down for a day and night of activities, starting with the kids costume parade. When the entertainer got them dancing, all you could see among the sea of tiny people was a kid in a head-to-toe, inflatable T-Rex costume enthusiastically pulling shapes to Gangnam Style.

However, the most animated dancing belonged to the dad standing behind him. Imagine Louis Theroux un-ironically dad dancing in a grey polo shirt, comfy jeans and…an Iron Man mask. At the end of each song, he’d flip up the mask and then put his glasses back on so he could see the entertainer explain the next set of dance moves. He did NOT want to embarrass his kids by putting a chunky trainer-ed foot wrong. Good on you, dad.

This was followed by the pet costume parade and yes, it was as good as it sounds. I don’t think any description of mine will do this justice, so enjoy the pics. I’ll only say that things got tense during Musical Bumps and that there was an Italian Greyhound in a Greyhound bus costume.

And then, just a couple of days ago, the spookiest thing happened. It was a dark, cloudy evening, and I had been feeling blue about your lack of response. Alex gave me his now perfected pep talk; the situation is only temporary, we’ve only got a month and a half left to wait. Then, as is our daily ritual, we decided to go and check the post. Feeling tired and despondent, I opened the letterbox and found the last thing I had been expecting: a letter from you, approving my work permit! Kettle was turned off, wine was poured.

Thank you Donna, for your very timely response. I’ve grown rather attached to our (no longer) one-way correspondence, so if it’s alright with you, I think I might keep in touch.

Bugs, hisses and best witches,

Daniella