Trunk Those Treats

Naturally, this terrifying ghost has a story. She was eaten by her own car. In fact, you can still see the remains of her legs, only half-digested among the candy. I made the kids reach in and pick their piece, warning those who lingered too long over the decision that the car would get them too (despite, as one of my trunk-or-treat neighbors pointed out, my car’s severe overbite).

I’d like to claim that the entire theme of the car and the costume was intentional, but, truth be told, when I first signed up for trunk-or-treat at my church, I spent three weeks complaining about having to come up with a costume for my car. I finally googled ideas and picked the toothy example because it looked cheap and easy.

The rest of it fell into place out of my continued ingenuity for spending as little time, effort, and money as possible. That bed sheet has been falling apart at the corners for a good couple months now, and Halloween finally gave me the push to buy a new set. Same with the shoes. About a week and  a half ago I discovered (while doing leg presses, of all things) that I could actually poke half my right foot out of the gap between the sole and the toes. Shortly after I bought replacement tennis shoes and bare seconds before I ran downstairs to dump the old ones in my apartment’s dumpster, I realized I could could give them one more run.

The only real effort went into cutting even holes in the bed sheet. Surprisingly annoying. I nearly poked my eye out with a purple sharpie while trying to mark where my eyes were while under the sheet, but it was worth it. You can’t beat a classic.

It was also much scarier to the kids than I was expecting. I forgot how powerful imagination can be when you’re four. A handful of toddlers had to be shown the towel stuffed into the pants and the shoes that kept the whole ensemble together before they’d dare approach, and there were a decent number of older kids who weren’t so much afraid of the legs as they were the possibility that a real person might actually be hiding in them, ready to pop out.

The closest I got to purposefully scaring any kids was this:

See how terrified they are? Of course what really makes this picture is the fact that the eye-holes slipped down to my mouth, unawares. I look like a bush league dementor. Come give your auntie a kiss, kids.

Bookmark the permalink.

9 Responses to Trunk Those Treats

  1. Your Local Friendly IT Guy says:

    The gritted (bared?) teeth just pulls that final picture together.

    And way to go scaring the little kids! Good times. 😉

    • A.L. Schultz says:

      Even better, I think those gritted/bared teeth are actually me grinning, but you can’t tell because the upturned corners of my mouth are hidden by the sheet. Either that or I’m growling (when I really should be “woooooing” as a proper ghost; what can I say, my go-to chase noise for kids is the monster growl) at Isaac just barely visible on the right. He kept trying to throw a string over my head in an attempt to capture me. A tactic that worked better than it should have.

      • Your Local Friendly IT Guy says:

        Hehe, I thought about mentioning it, but I was pretty sure you were actually smiling/grinning in that picture, but the sheet and the angle helps keep the image going of scary monster (see the cheek pressed against the sheet – sure sign of a big smile/grin).

        It’s just too good.

        • A.L. Schultz says:

          I know, it couldn’t really get any better. My church’s deaconess was laughing when she told me to check out Shepherd’s Facebook page, which is where I found that bad boy.

  2. Erin Squashedbanana says:

    Hahaha this is all amazing! I keep giggling. Thanks for sharing!

    • A.L. Schultz says:

      Full confession: I kept giggling too. I was stupidly proud of this costume, considering the 30 seconds it took to make it.

  3. Your Local Friendly IT Guy says:

    I’ve been counting down the days for the past week… waiting… biding my time.

    Boom. 30th.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *