Halloween did not go off as planned this year. And it was all because of Superstorm Sandy, the Frankenstorm that frakked Halloween but good.
(Note that complaining done here while people are freezing, starving, drowning, decomposing and otherwise traumatized further north is done strictly tongue in cheek – I am very glad the storm did not hit Maryland worse than it did. Now, back to the whiny complaining of a frustrated set designer.)
As you may know, with the exception of CapClave, October was Halloween Prep month for me. Weekends, weeknights, I even took off Halloween day to get everything in place. There was measuring, hammering, sawing, painting, stapling and cutting and pasting:
Then came Sandy. Last weekend was supposed to be the ‘clean out the garage and prep it for Halloween’ time. Instead, it was ‘pack every item that could blow away or get damaged into the garage.’ With the government closed two days, in theory I had five straight days to get ready for Halloween with my biggest garage-decoration ever.
But the power went out Monday afternoon. And stayed out Tuesday.
Next step: decoration triage. I concentrated on making the costume. Without power, the garage was a no-go. With temperatures ranging from the 30s to 50s, the house grew colder too, making it hard to work with precision.
All day on Halloween, I watched the number of customers out in my county drop and then stop. It was like they stopped fixing stuff. If only the power came on by 3pm, I thought, I could whip the garage into shape.
My wife came home way after 3 and felt so bad about the situation that she suggested I set up shop where there was power and hand out candy in costume. I said that the worst thing that could happen was that the power goes on right before trick-or-treating and then I look like I didn’t do anything with the garage. I have a reputation in the community to uphold, you understand.
As night began to fall, we dragged a card table up the street where the lights were on. Right after we got set up, at 6:05pm, the power came back on.
We ran everything back down to our driveway, plugged some lights into outlets and I did Halloween there:
I told everyone who came by to come back in 2013 to see the full spread in the garage. Halloween 2012 turned into a trailer for Halloween 2013.
You must be logged in to post a comment.