The Devil Went Down To Pizza Hut

At around 4:00 yesterday afternoon, I decided to put on a Halloween face. I pulled out my Halloween prop box from under our bed, and went through my stuff. I then spent about 45 minutes trimming, gluing on, and touching up some bone-colored horns. I added blood to make it look like the horns erupted from my flesh, and to conceal the edges of the prosthetic; I let the blood run down my face in a few places. Some dark make-up under my eyes and under my cheek bones to give me a gaunt look, completed the work. The effect was pretty good for a quick job.

My 6 year old thought it was cool, my 3 year old was unsure. I talked with him and he understood that it was all make-up and pretend. “You know who I am, right?” I asked him.

“A monster,” he answered.

“I mean, who am I really?”

“My daddy.”

He got over the my weirdness within a few minutes.

My wife called Pizza Hut to order a pizza, and our 6 year old and I went to pick it up. I wanted to get out of the house in my make-up; what fun is it to get all freaked up and then just stay home? My 6 year old warned me, “Dad, I’m not sure what people are going to think when they see you. You might scare some people.”

“It’s alright,” I said, “people know it’s Halloween, so they expect to see people dressed up scary today.”

When we walked in the restaurant, the waitress made a big deal out of my look. “Whoa! I forgot it was Halloween!” she nearly shouted. Making a big deal out of it is fine. I’m used to, and expect, and want people to notice when I put on the whole freak face, but she just was a little more excited than I expected.

It seems that everyone in town orders pizza on Halloween night. There were nearly ten people waiting for their take out orders, and a couple tables of people eating in. I was the only one showing any evidence of the evening being Halloween. A couple people waiting for take out stared at me (again, I got no problem with it), and one woman asked me how I got the horns to stick on.

Later in the evening, while out trick-or-treating, I had many people comment on how real the horns and blood looked. All in all, the comments made me feel good about my Halloween make-up skills. I usually shun the spotlight, but on Halloween, when I’ve got my freak on, it’s fun to get attention.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com