Halloween Out of Control

Halloween is beginning to piss me off.

Well, maybe not Halloween so much as people who come looking for costumes this late in the month.

Well, no...it's not even them, really. It's the people who come this late in the month with no earthly idea of what they want to be.

Actually, they're not the worst. The worst are the people who come this late with no earthly idea what they want to be and wind up wanting to try on everything in the shop.

We have five shows going on right now (and one of the directors just called asking if they could get their costumes early) (BWAHAHAHAHA!), so we mostly want to get the Halloween folks dressed and out as quickly as possible.

So, this lady comes in, and she doesn't know what she wants to be. After perusing our list, she thinks maybe a flapper....or Marie Antoinette. So, we pull a few flappers she likes and a couple of Marie Antoinette gowns. We tell her to try them on, and when she has chosen her favourite of the lot, to come out of the dressing room in it, and we will accessorize it for her. She comes out in a flapper dress. We find shoes, purse, headpiece, gloves, beads and fishnet hose for her and show her how to do her hair. By now, she's been in the shop for half an hour. She likes the costume, but she just can't make up her mind, so she comes out in one of the Louis XVI period gowns. We get her a wig, a hoop petticoat, shoes, panniers, a fan and jewels. She looks gorgeous. Then she remembers that she has to drive to the event she's dressing for, so Marie A is definitely O-U-T out. She goes back to the list. By now, we've been working with her for an hour, which is the usual time we allow for an individual costume. Of course, she wants to try on Little Bo Peep, a Viking and a Pirate Wench. By the time all's said and done, we have been over two hours with this one customer. She finally decides on the flapper (yup...the first costume she tried on), and we do the paperwork. She's out of here, but she's still looking over her shoulder in case she missed trying on something. An hour later, she calls. Could she trade her gloves for a different colour? She comes back in and it takes her a further half an hour to decide that the first pair (picked out by us) was the best pair after all.

Meanwhile, we still have five shows, and I've managed to alter one gown and only one gown, all day.

Sometimes, I think people take Halloween much too seriously. Unless the prize at the party she's attending is a Caribbean cruise, I just don't understand being that particular. Or, at least, being that particular, this late!

Oh...and a word of advice: DON'T BRING YOUR TODDLERS, PRE-SCHOOLERS and other miscellaneous RUG RATS. We are a warehouse/workshop, and in no way childproof. We don't have time to pick up and re-sort the trail of shoes your child has pulled down from one end of the shop to the other, and reorganize the stuff that was on the ironing board your little darling has knocked over.

We enjoy dressing individuals, but earlier in October we have more time to spend with them. By now, three days before Halloween, we want to find him or her a costume and shoo him or her out, not to be seen again until November 2nd.

Mmmkay thanks bye.