Halloween '09

Halloween. Ugh. It’s like New Year’s Eve. An overrated holiday where the preparation process causes so much stress that it usually outweighs the fun of the actual night. Even with that prior knowledge, we still made a go of it.

Six of us dressed up as the red and blue teams from “Double Dare”, a popular Nickelodeon family game show from our childhood. We ironed Double Dare logos onto red and blue sweatsuits that we ordered off of the Internet. Surprisingly, Manhattan stores and boutiques don’t keep oversized elastic solid colored sweatsuits in stock. I can’t imagine why such form-enhancing outfits would not be popular in the fashion capitol of the world.

We topped off our outfits with matching helmets, and elbow and kneepads. We were quite a sight next to the hordes of scantily clad firemen, French maids, and genies. But, as we had hoped (and prayed and betted), our costumes were a hit with the targeted audience. It took gumption to be seen in the streets of New York City with such clever and, at the same time, unattractive outfits.

We bought tickets to attend a highly anticipated Halloween extravaganza at the famed Tavern on the Green restaurant in Central Park. The event turned more into a disaster than an extravangza. We, along with an oversold crowd of around 1,000 to 2,0000 partygoers waited in a long line and light drizzle for the doors to open. They never did.

The motley crowd made of sunken treasure chests, Legos, sultans, Disney princesses, football players, celebrity look-a-likes, and cowboys turned ugly pretty quickly. Chants of “Rip the tent down!” and “Flip the (catering) truck!” surged from the crowd. Finally, after TWO hours of waiting, the NYC police arrived and told THOUSANDS of costumed New Yorkers that the party was being shut down.

Bummer.

But, that small setback didn’t stop us! We hopped on the subway and headed to another party in Chelsea, which was awesome until a resident on the third floor locked himself out of his apartment and used a fire extinguisher to bust down his door. The exploded extinguisher left an inch of dust on the stairwell and prompted the NYC fire department to respond. Forced to leave yet another party.

But, like the first contestants of “Double Dare”, we did not take defeat easy. We just moved the party to our place and called it a night with a delivery of chicken fingers and cheese sticks from the diner down the street. We made the night memorable, not too hard with fun teammates.

And, most importantly, we were comfortable in our super cool sweatsuits.