Oct 312016
 

We had a Halloween party at work on Friday and for the first time in my six years there, I helped plan it/set up/etc. and I’m here to tell you that JESUS IT’S A LOT OF WORK! Props to Sue (and Barb, Cheryl and Deb S. who used to take care of this back in the day). Luckily, Sue is like a master decorator and she did most of the work Thursday night. My only contributed was taping up cobwebs (and basically unraveling the beauty of Sue’s immaculate Halloween table coverings) and plopping down my nameless Fiji mermaid for a centerpiece. (Which Sue promptly turned into something more eye-popping and elegant by adding a pedestal to it. SUE IS SO GOOD. She should have her own party planning company.)

(MAYBE SHE ALREADY DOES!?)



In an effort to get more people  to participate, Carrie and I decided that we needed to add the element of competition so we promised a prize for whoever brought the most Halloweenish snack.

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Nate and Lauren brought in Starbucks for everyone, which Nate cleverly renamed Cthulhu Coffee and that’s how Nate and I learned that we might be the only people there who know who Cthulhu is, and it didn’t even help when I said things like, “You know….Lovecraft?” to help coax people into recognition. So this was educational, as well! I love when fun things have an educational twist!

In lieu of having Henry bake something, my contribution was making a Halloween playlist on Spotify, which Gayle had to listen to all day long since her desk is in the hallway where all the food was set up, and also procuring a shit-ton of candy so that my co-workers could go trick-or-treating. I set up plastic pumpkins filled with candy that corresponded to all of the work areas I decorated over the last two weeks. So like, Mitch’s pumpkin had snack-sized boxes of pretzel sticks to go with the Blair Witch twigs hanging from his door; Carrie had cherry Kool-Aid squeezits to go with the blood-theme of her Carrie desk; Lori had pumpkin-shaped and pumpkin-flavored candy to go along with her Halloween theme; Catherine had candy corn for Children of the Corn; Lou had a beautiful Asian assortment that related to Ju-On; Todd had the gummy body parts of Sweeney Todd’s victims; and Glenn had ghost-shaped things for Poltergeist:

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Glenn clearly wasn’t happy that his desk was a trick-or-treating station. I went with veggie chips for him because that seemed like something a crotchety old man would hand out to kids just to make them sad.

Sadly, most people weren’t as stoked to go trick-or-treating as I had hoped, and I was having to beg people to just do it because I had to go like four different stores to get this shit!

Henry wasn’t very happy about it, shocker.

Shout out to Lou and Aaron for helping me by providing extra candy and the treat bags used for trick-or-treating!

Not only did Sue let us wear costumes on Friday, she even wanted to have a Halloween backdrop so that people could have their pictures taken, like a makeshift photobooth. I was on board with this until Sue brought over streamers to my desk and I realized that she wanted me to make the backdrop and have you seen me handle streamers? It’s not pretty.

Luckily, Amber1 agreed to help me!

“I was in a sorority, I’m really good with streamers,” she said, and I felt very confident that I chose correctly.

We took our supplies into the conference room and thank god Amber did most of the work because I was like, “WHERE DO WE START WHAT SHOULD WE DO HOW DO WE DO THIS OMG HELP.”

After we got all of the streamers cut down to size, it was time to staple them to the thingie that we were using to hang them on. Amber was holding down the top of a streamer, and as I was moving in with the stapler, she panicked and said, “You have the sweetest face, but I just don’t trust you with a stapler so close to my fingers.” And that’s how I got out of streamer duty and Amber basically did the whole thing for me!

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Amber and Erin, Streamer Specialists. I did a major cop-out and just brought part of an old costume from when I was Fatal Attraction a few years ago for one of the Trundle Manor Halloween parties. Shout out to Carrie for knowing who I was immediately!

Glenn and Chris exchanged very concerned looks when they saw me pull the pot and bunny out of my purse Friday morning.

“What?” I asked, forgetting that this isn’t a normal work accoutremant.

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I don’t know how we got any work done, to be honest.

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Amber2, f/k/a Mean Amber, as Fay Wray. This costume is so great!

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Sandy had a whole Starbucks of Horror theme going on at her office. She’s the best!

By the end of the day, everyone was in sugar shock. We had to vote for best Halloween treat, and Sue decided there would be two winners. She made really adorable baskets with Halloween wine glasses, a bottle of wine, and a bag of Pittsburgh Popcorn. I grudgingly voted for Colleen who made the cutest mummy pepperoni rolls, which I couldn’t even EAT because I’m a vegetarian. She apologized to me for that and I said, “That’s OK….but I’ll never forget it. You’re basically the New Glenn.”

She laughed but I think she was scared.

SHE SHOULD BE.

Colleen was one of the winners, as expected. I figured most people would vote for her because her mummy rolls were so cute (and apparently tasted good, too, ugh). But surprisingly, the second winner was ME.

I was so confused. I didn’t bring anything in!

“You won for your trick-or-treating candy,” Shannon said, looking like a deer-in-highlights because, as part of the party committee, I wanted to know who won before she sent the email out, and she clearly wasn’t prepared for me to standing inches away from her, demanding to know. “Now you ruined the surprise for yourself!”

After she sent out the email, Wendy immediately emailed me and all it said was “RIGGED!!!!!!” Ha! She’s probably not wrong! I swear I wasn’t even soliciting votes because I didn’t even think I was eligible!

“Seriously, did you have something to do with this?” I asked Carrie. And she said that while she did vote for me, she swore that she didn’t discuss any poll riggings with Sue.

It was such a great feeling! All I ever want to do there is make my work friends happy, maybe get them to have a little fun every now and then, and to be recognized for that was so overwhelming. I love Halloween, and I love my work friends! What a fun day. <3

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