EPIC

When I was 19, my aunt, my cousin, and I planned and hosted an awesome Halloween party.  My aunt and I worked together at the same factory, so our lunch times were spent planning and designing costumes, deciding on foods and decorations and the most important part—“games”.

We got a large oblong box from the shipping department and an empty cardboard roll from the fabric from the cutting room.  We shaped and painted the box into a coffin and painted the roll gold and attached it as a handle. (We planned to put this on the coffee table and fill it with tubs of ice and drinks.)

Next, I made a life sized, stuffed dummy and a black hooded robe.  For a face, I pulled a rubber skeleton mask over the head, then pulled the hood up.  We sat the dummy—nicknamed Mr. Bones—in a chair behind the wet bar in my aunt’s basement.  We planned to place him next to the stereo system and every time I changed the cassette (yup, that long ago!) I would playfully smack him and say, “Hey Mr. Bones!”

The night of the party, the basement was appropriately filled with cobwebs and flickering lights, hands crawling out from under the chairs and a cauldron in the corner with dry ice creating a little swirling mist.  Our guests did not disappoint with their costumes! One of my cousins was a Lipton tea bag…

Another was a classic nerd…

We also had cheerleaders, nurses, werewolves and vampires.

The height of the party was a scavenger hunt outside, with prizes for the top three scores.  The hunt, however, was just an excuse to get everyone out of the house, so we could pull a switch.  My boyfriend, who supposedly couldn’t make it to the party, waited till he saw everyone scatter outside with their flashlights.  He then snuck in the house.  We took the mask and robe off the dummy and he put them on.  Then he took Mr. Bones’ place behind the bar and waited.

Since we had a 30-minute time limit on the scavenger hunt he didn’t have to wait too long. We were amazed at the items the scavengers toted with them.  One had the neighbor’s welcome mat, another had a Beware of the Dog sign, and one even brought a High School sign with him.  (Which was amazing, since the clue was for a “sign” and we had over a DOZEN Happy Halloween signs in the front yard just for that reason.)

While we were tallying the scores to determine the winner of the scavenger hunt, I asked one of my friends to change the music behind the bar, so we could dance.  When she started to go around the bar, I said, “don’t forget to say hi to Mr. Bones!”  She tapped him playfully as I had done and said, “What’s up Mr. B?”

My boyfriend opened his eyes and hissed, “Happy Halloween Linda!”

She screamed and scrambled over the bar.  The rest of the group stood stunned, while my aunt, my cousin, my boyfriend and I cracked up.

It was EPIC.