Costume shopping never used to be complicated. I'd climb the stairs of my house, dig in the closet and pull out either the clown or pumpkin costume: Whatever I hadn't worn the year before. But over the years my brother and I started yearning for a bit more creativity, and we reached out a little bit more. I remember being a tombstone, a bag lady, a witch...whatever we could manage to make with a little cardboard, paint and an old sheet. Besides, we didn't care much about what we looked like: We just needed costumes so we could get candy.
But things have certainly changed. Parties demanding costumes and 'best costume' competitions have replaced the days of trick-or-treating and consuming sweets until I got sick. The stress of the costume has been put upon us even as far as six weeks in advance of the holiday, with shops selling out or renting out everything good and leaving us last-minute shoppers to complain the few days before Oct. 31.
What I didn't know was that there are shops out there that anticipate people like me. One such shop, Mardi Gras, which writer Murphy Herbert takes a look into, says it will do all it can to make its customers happy. The staff gets into it and dresses up, gives ideas and shows you wigs.
And these are the types of places I like to go into when I'm stressed out because the best thing I can think of is being a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle with no crafts or skills required to make my costume. Playing dress-up can sometimes be fun, especially when it's an important day like Halloween.
I honestly wish I would have visited Mardi Gras earlier - with time constraints, I'm worried I won't be able to make it - and hope you readers who have similar issues with this holiday will have the time to head out there. You can swap stories with the Wig Lady while trying on some of her fake hair pieces, bother the laundry guy and overall just have fun. Then maybe you'll get rid of a little stress you've aquired for Halloween and regain the spirit of the season that you had as a child.
It's something I hope to do. And in the process, we procrastinators might find something worthy of winning a best costume contest and maybe even finally enjoy ourselves at 'costume only' parties. Halloween is supposed to be fun and silly. So let's make it that way.
Reach the editor at emily.murphy@asu.edu.
