Being the organized and on-top-of-it individual that I am, I’m still deciding on my Halloween costume. I have a week to figure it out. Actually, given my work schedule, I only have this weekend to figure it out. So, what better way to spend my down time at work than surfing the internet for costume ideas? (My psychiatrist said to use my free time to learn a foreign language or better myself intellectually somehow, but what the hell does he know?)
Google “Women’s Halloween costumes.” G’head. I dare you.
Witchs, pirates, cops, ladybugs, NUNS– They’ve found a way to make everything hyper-sexy. Yet, the men’s costumes are pretty tame. Priest, psycho butcher, Batman, Julius Caesar. How come, if a girl wants to dress up for Halloween, she’s gotta be a skeevy mass of cleavage and leg? Do you know how many people would actually look appealing in those outfits? The nine people they hired to model the clothes in the first place. That’s how many.
This isn’t a new phenomenon to me. I went to school in Malibu for lord’s sake. I recall in the 8th grade a girl in my class (I’m not going to name names because we just became friends on Facebook and I really don’t want to screw that up) wore a Nurse costume to school on Halloween. Aww, how cute, you’re probably saying. What a wholesome and Florence Nightingale-y costume!
WRONG.
Have you ever been to Hollywood Boulevard? Have you ever a passed a store called Bed Behavior? I believe that is where the girl got her costume. I think the only part of this chick I couldn’t see were her lungs. I learned more about the female body on Halloween ’97 than I did in my freaking college anatomy class. So, she strutted around all day, twirling her plastic stethascope, driving all the other girls to feelings of utter inadequacy.
Meanwhile, I too had given into the pressure to dress at a sexiness level far outside of my comfort zone and was dressed as a “Sorceress.” You better believe I was wearing what I considered a low-cut dress, with a fancy steel-reinforced brassiere. PLUS- a headband made from glow-in-the-dark bones and tusks, a feather boa, AND a custom-coiffed Barbie head with a safety pin stuck through it hanging from a chain around my neck. (I later donned that Barbie head every day for several months in the 10th grade as part of my “Bite me- I’m weird and proud of it” phase. That’s a whole other blog.) Needless to say, I looked freaking awesome. Awesome enough that – OMG! – the most popular boy in school told me I looked “rad.” (Cleverly, I rolled my eyes at him, and as a result, didn’t ever have a real boyfriend until 12th grade.)
But I couldn’t compete with The Naughty Pre-Teen Nurse. It just doesn’t seem fair that a guy can get away with smearing red tempra paint on his shirt and calling it a costume, and the other half of us have to wear skirts so short you can see our “parts.” I just can’t ever seem to make it to that level of Skank. Sure, once I was Tinker Bell On A Bender, complete with hip flask and crooked fairy wings. But I was completely out-sexied by the scads of Slutty Waitresses and Skeevey Bank Tellers.
Of course, I’m still going to give it the old college try and go as some boob-tastic version of a beloved childrens’ book character or something. Though I still haven’t decided on an actual costume, I have purchased a FANTASTIC bra, so I’ve got a pretty good chance of fitting in this year.
My bus route goes by hustler hollywood. They have a display of sexy nurse mannequins showing their hoo-has and pawing at the male doctor mannequin, who’s just in scrubs. It doesn’t make SENSE! I think you should be a ham or a foot for halloween. Or dress as the just about to retire nurse with bunions and a mustache. Maybe I’ll do that.