So, I Guess I Can Cross "Driving the Get-away" Car Off My List of Potential Occupations

For the past few weeks, I have been marveling at Dr. ___'s secretary's ninja skills. Well, I should have been taking notes because today showed that I clearly need some remedial ninja lessons. Stealth mode: you're doing it wrong.

Let me give you a brief synopsis of the evening:

• Attempted to dress as Julia Child, but got my big-ass arms stuck in the 1950's waitress costume my mom had. Spent 10 minutes trying to wiggle my way out of it. Finally had to get my mom to free me, which took another 5 minutes. Upon seeing me in my underwear, my mom remarked, "Oh my god! You have a gaping hole on the back of your leg!" Is it a bad sign when the only "oh my God!" moment you've had when naked in the past few months involved a) your mom and b) the extreme muscular atrophy surrounding your anti-ass?
• Dressed in my sister's Rainbow Brite costume, which screamed "wardrobe malfunction!" Discovered my mom's cache of '80s cocktail dresses and eventually picked out a kick-ass black-and-white polka dotted mini-dress with a huge train and a bow on the back and dressed up as a cigarette girl. (In my defense, I suspect that even the most cat-like ninja would be impaired by a train made of 2 feet of polka-dotted fabric and a great, big bow).
  
• Called A. to remind him to not let Mika out on Halloween so that she would be safe from fireworks and drunken assholes. As we were speaking, Mika did her own trick or treating by bringing in a dead bird and dropping it on A.'s backpack. (Snickers bar...lifeless finch....same diff).
  
• Went to Cheryl's house for a pumpkin-carving party. Did not carve a pumpkin because, really, the only positive thing to come out of me handling a knife would be a very exciting blog post.
• Finally, after a quick shower and Steph doing my hair and me being totally late, I arrived with Steph at Jay's party.

Now, see, I am not the hugest fan of Halloween, probably because I already walk like a zombie, so I pretty much celebrate the holiday year-round whether I want to or not. Unless you have a comfortable costume, (or you're drunk, which I wasn't considering the got-hungover-without-being-drunk fiasco of last weekend), you're pretty much guaranteed to spend the evening fidgeting around uncomfortably after the initial "like, oh my God, you look great. What are you supposed to be? I'm a slutty nurse/ladybug/witch/sorority-girl-with-devil-horns!" moment. And, let's face it, between the anti-ass and the swollen hip and the gluteus medius muscle detached from my body, "comfortable" is not something I feel on a regular basis, so my tolerance for restrictive clothing is pretty much at zero.

I was dressed as a cigarette girl, which means that I had the dress and little white gloves and a jaunty cap (it was really jaunty) and my hair done up and, of course, my cigarette tray filled with Popeye cigarettes (sorry, Popeye candy sticks). First, the gloves came off (didn't want to ruin them while gorging on chocolate and chips). Next came the cigarette tray (because it kept dumping candy cigarettes in my lap). Then, the hat, which (though jaunty) was giving me a headache. Then, my hair fell down so I took all the bobbie pins out. Within about an hour, my costume became less "cigarette girl" and more "broke-down '80s prom queen whose hair is out of control even by '80s standards because she's been getting it on in the back seat of someone's dad's Buick." It became increasingly clear that either I had to go home and lounge in my sweatpants or else I was going to get sick of the dress' boning and wind up naked.

So, at 11 pm (yes, lame, I know), Steph, L.P. and I tried to sneak out so that no one would give us the side-eye for our lameness. This was tricky for a number of reasons.

1. I was driving my mom's SmartCar, which only seats 2 and there were three of us
2. One of the three was wearing a gigantic polka-dotted cocktail dress with a train.
3. Everyone at the party was surrounding our car and lighting fireworks within a foot of it.

What's a ninja to do? Using our sneakiest of sneak moves, Steph, L.P. and entered the vehicle in a way that was probably more "clown car" than "crouching tiger, hidden dragon," since L.P. was sort of crouched side-saddle on Steph, holding on to her shoulders. Since the fireworks were in front of us (not to mention a crowd of innocent bystanders), we decided to pull a U-turn. Problem was, some middle-aged lady was so engrossed by festivities that she stood in front of my car and would. not. move. Blowing the horn was, of course, not an option, so we made frantic hand gestures. She didn't notice. More frantic hand gestures. Still nothing. I tried inching towards her in an attempt to give her a gentle love tap with my bumper; (I'm pretty sure the only injury you can get at the hands of a SmartCar is that you'll melt into a puddle from its cuteness). She still didn't notice. Finally, she tore herself away from the riveting spectacle of someone lighting one single firework to move the two feet we needed her too.

Next problem: while small, the SmartCar is difficult to turn because you can't crank the wheels when the car's not in motion. We therefore did (in front of everyone) a 96-point turn, trying to turn the world's smallest car around on a fairly big street. With everyone watching us. And me having more blind spots than Fox News because there was a mass of L.P-on-top-of-Steph-ness blocking my side mirror. And Steph laughing hysterically every time I did one more turn. Ninja. Fail.

After dropping both Steph and L.P. off, I went home to the loving arms (okay, legs) of my sweatpants, whereupon I noticed that my stuck-in-a-dress ordeal had left bruises on my arms. That's how stuck I was.

So, yes, happy fucking Halloween and bring on the daylight savings time.