Early Halloween lives on!
As you may or may not already know, last year, I started celebrating Early Halloween on Feb. 14 because, you know, it's not like there are any other major observances on that day.
Well, truth be told, I was also pretty angsty about being single and took great joy in repurposing Valentine's Day. This year? I'm not quite as angsty and I also didn't have a truly killer costume idea, so the future of Early Halloween was looking dim.
I had thought about being a Jersey Shore cast member, but that would've required me to keep my hair all long and gross-looking so that I could attempt some sort of a blowout. And when I began to realize just how many friends from Arizona I was likely to run into in Las Vegas this weekend, I decided that a haircut was definitely in order because appearing somewhat presentable on Saturday was more important than being able to maybe pull off a the guido look on Sunday.
So when I set out for Vegas, I didn't really bring many costume-able items, and on Sunday morning I just put on a T-shirt and jeans for the day's Strip-based activities. But later that day, we unexpectedly stumbled across the best costume imaginable, so Early Halloween was back on.
Now, without further ado, here is...
the story of my Early Halloween '10 costume
Let's flash back to the first time I ever went to Las Vegas, which was on my youth group's way to and from SSP '04.
Before we left, my friend John kept telling us that he was really excited about stopping in Las Vegas because people on the streets handed out free Pokémon cards there. I thought that seemed pretty unlikely since a) Pokémon were not that cool anymore by the summer of '04 and b) unless there was some sort of Pokémon convention there, why would people hand out free cards?
On the way up to the Duck Valley reservation on the Nevada-Idaho border, we stayed at University United Methodist Church in Vegas, which coincidentally is also where I spent a lot of this past weekend at the Relevance X conference. University UMC isn't all that far away from the Strip, but we stayed close by the church on our way to SSP. And John's tales of free Pokémon cards remained the stuff of legend.
On the way back, however, our adult leaders gave in to our never-ending requests to see the Strip. One night, they agreed to drive us down Las Vegas Boulevard in the church van on a magical journey, during which my face was literally pressed up against the window as I was awed by the "sparkly, sparkly" outside.
At one point on our trip, while we were stopped in traffic, I looked down to the sidewalk and saw a bunch of those little cards advertising the services of various female escorts.
I said something along the lines of, "Hey, look at all those stripper business cards on the ground!"
"Yeah, see? Pokémon cards!" John replied.
Well — much to the adults' chagrin, I'm sure — Pokémon cards became one of the hallmarks of our SSP trip. We even made our own out of our placemats from a buffet where we ate:
And ever since then, whenever I've visited Vegas, I've generally had some fun with the guys who stand along the Strip, snapping the cards at passers-by in an attempt to pass out a handful of the ladies.
I've collected enough to snap them back at the guys, and I've asked them a whole host of questions (sometimes in my comically basic Spanish when they say they don't know English) including if they have any cards depicting dudes. One time, I even used the cards to create a display that came to be known as the Skank Bank.
This weekend's Vegas trip was no exception. After Relevance X wrapped up Saturday night, I headed out to the Strip with the Tempe First young adult group and ended up collecting 189 escort cards, which I eventually just had the card-snappers drop in a CVS bag as I asked, "Trick-or-treat?"
At the time, I didn't even realize how perfect it was that I was trick-or-treating on the strip on the eve of Early Halloween. But the next day, as Chris, Amanda and I were strolling past the Citta Delle Luci shop in Planet Hollywood's Miracle Mile, Chris noticed that they were selling shirts that looked just like those worn by the ubiquitous card-snappers. Amanda suggested that I throw one on for a quick photo-op, but I decided that instead, I'd actually buy the shirt and use it for my early Halloween costume.
Since my trick-or-treating bag was far away, sitting in the trunk of my car, we quickly went about collecting some more cards as we went to meet up with the rest of the crew. Then, I put on my new shirt and almost immediately met some girls who clearly needed some GIRLS DIRECT TO THEIR ROOM IN 20 MINUTES:
See more photos from Early Halloween
Then, once we hit the Strip, there was a card-snapper who offered to sell me another shirt for $20, but I told him that one was all I really needed.
Minutes later, we had identified a heavily-trafficked corner where there were a couple real card-snappers who I could snap alongside of. At first, we set up some posed photos just in case the guys took offense to me trying to hand out stripper cards to real passers-by:
That guy in the blue shirt tried to get in on the action, giving Amanda a few of his cards as well. But instead of running me off, he actually was quite happy to augment my stack of escort cards with some of his own. I'm guessing he saw my enthusiasm for my Early Halloween costume as an opportunity to unload some cards and come closer to meeting some sort of quota.
He also tried to get the other guy at that corner to give me some of his cards, but the second guy was wary of the idea. A minute or so later, though, he tried to give me a whole big, rubberbanded stack that was probably a good 500 cards.
Anyway, after I peddled some ladies' services to a couple of the ladies from our group, the light turned green, the crosswalk signal turned to the walking man, and a whole bunch of people I didn't know came our way.
That's when I really got to work, as you can see in this video:
See more photos from Early Halloween
The woman in the car was hilarious, btw. In addition to asking for my escort cards, she said she was going to snap some back at me. Then the guy in the blue shirt came up and tried to get in on the action, but she shut him down, saying, "Ew! Your cards are nasty!"
And I love how some passers-by said my girlfriend would probably be pissed about this little adventure. Although I haven't asked Justine if she would've approved, I'm guessing she'll get a kick out of it.
Speaking of girl (space) friends, my thanks go out to Amanda and Jill for taking some cards for the team. Also, thanks to Dan, who shot the video as well as some stills and can be heard cracking up at the girlfriend comment, and Chris, who helped me collect cards and also took photos. All y'all made it an Early Halloween for the ages.
Oh, and I should also mention that I got a ton of strange looks as I walked around Vegas with my shirt on... as well as when I wore it to Toucans last night. (I just couldn't resist the irony of wearing a "GIRLS DIRECT" shirt to a bar where about 90 percent of the clientele has no interest in women.)
And my card-snapping self will be making one more Early Halloween appearance at the Ace tonight for Sissy Bingo.
Random fact: I ended up making it back to Palm Springs with 425 escort cards. The Skank Bank has become a veritable Tramp Treasury, my friends.