The HORROR of having to dress up for work on Halloween

Being only four years in to my career as a nurse, I have always had to work the "big holidays". Thanksgivings and Christmases (and Christmas Eves...and even Black Fridays!). Not that I minded so much. I could use the extra holiday pay and, with my family all living in Washington now, I really had no reason not to work and let others celebrate with their loved ones. Sure, I always took New Year's Eve and New Year's Day off so I could have a little holiday fun. But the one holiday I took for granted, the one I thought wouldn't be a problem getting off at all was Halloween. 

God, I'm old.

Halloween is (hello?) my favorite holiday. It's total spookarama. I'm rather broke this year and didn't really get to do much to get in the spirit this season. No Hobb's Grove. No Halloween Horror Nights. True, I did have a lot of travel plans in the weeks before Halloween, but I was generally watching my budget. I was still planning on enjoying Halloween though, if only sitting at home watching scary movies all day and answering the door for trick-or-treaters. When I made out my work schedule, I did not request Halloween off. I didn't think there'd be a need. Instead I simply scheduled myself around the holiday. But, when the finalized schedule appeared, there I was scheduled to work on the 31st. Crap.

I only saw the new schedule a day or two before I was blasting off for one of my trips. I had heard that Halloween was a big deal at work. Our department always had a theme and we were expected to dress up. There is a Halloween parade where patients from other departments come and trick or treat at our nurses station, etc. Ugh. I was not happy about having to do this, nor did I have the time to really think about it. I simply asked someone what this year's theme was (Disney) and went with the first character that popped into my head: Captain Hook.

I jumped on Amazon to get myself a costume and be done with it. While I had been a pirate in years past and still had the costume, that pirate outfit was nothing like Captain Hook's. I needed something more impressive. Voila. I simply entered in "Captain Hook costume" on the search line and the item below showed up. Sold!

You'd think everything you'd need for the outfit would be included. WRONG!

It is a good thing I read some of the reviews before signing off of Amazon altogether, thinking my quick purchase had solved my costume woes. Apparently the wig and mustache that were pictured were NOT part of the costume. UGH! But Amazon saved the day again. Oh, I'd also need a hook. Amazon had that as well. Phew!

The costume and accessories arrived in between my recent trips. I received them, but had no time to try them on really. On one trip, while visiting a Halloween store, it occurred to me (and it turned out that I was right about this) that there was nothing to stick the mustache on with. So, I hastily bought a tiny bottle of spirit gum. 

On my one day home before working the 30th and 31st, I suddenly panicked because I was sure the costume didn't come with a hat. I tracked down my old costume to see if I could use the hat with it. Nope, it had this fake bandana attached to it. That wasn't appropriate for Captain Hook. So, off I went looking for the right hat.

During my travels, I had come down with a sinus infection. I wasn't feeling great, but I had prescribed meds which would hopefully be kicking in soon. I visited Halloween Express. They had nothing. The same could be said at Party City, Walgreens, Kmart, and Walmart. Spirit was my last hope and I found a hat that would have to do. Hmm. Okay--ready or not--I was (hopefully) ready.

I worked the 30th and felt terrible. I would have called in, but I had already been sick so much in the late summer/early fall and/or had car trouble, I just could not bring myself to do it. Plus I needed to save my leave for a return trip to see my family in the spring. But I looked and sounded miserable at work. When someone asked what I was planning on being for Halloween, I told them Captain Hook and someone else quipped that I sounded more like Eeyore. That would have been a much better choice, but who knew I'd be sick?  (When I had mentioned being Hook for lack of a better choice---face it, Disney has a lot of princesses and animal characters. Male humans? Hmm--- and with the trouble I was having getting all of the pieces of the costume together, someone asked why I didn't just go as Peter Pan instead. Oh my, that was so not going to happen. The idea of an overweight, middle-aged man in green tights being Peter Pan would probably have JM Barrie turning over in his grave. Geez!) (I was just struck with a brilliant idea. I could have gone as Prince Not-So-Charming, an overweight, crass and rude totally non-PC,  highly flawed eligible bachelor royal. Ha!  But who would have gotten it? And it's not Disney. Hmm... Never mind.)

Halloween morning, I woke up early surprisingly, even though I still felt lousy. After showering, I started removing the wig, mustache, and costume from their packaging. Amazingly, there WAS a hat squashed in with the costume at the bottom of the bag. Super. I had only wasted $7.99 for the other one I had purchased. I pulled out the ruffly piece that I was to wear around my neck to try out. Uh. It wouldn't fit around my neck. I had purchased the X-Large (largest they had) size of the costume. And then it occurred to me... Yes, Captain Hook was tall and male...but he was also something I am not---THIN. EEK! I had sinking feeling...

I pulled the rest of the costume out and started to go through it so I could dress. Oh my stars. There was no shirt included with the costume. Now what was I going to do?  I grabbed the shirt from the old pirate costume. It would have to do. I got it on me--just barely. The material was awfully thin and you could more or less see through it. EEK! Who wants to see fat me? A T-shirt maybe? But there wasn't time to find one. The clock was ticking and I had to get going. 

As I was dressing, I realized two things. One, the costume was incredibly hot. Two, there were no pockets anywhere on the costume. To deal with the pocket issue, I cleverly decided to wear a pair of short pants under my pirate pants. That way I'd have access to my wallet, keys, spirit gum (just in case my mustache fell off), and phone wherever I went. I got dressed and left. I looked okay, but was clearly crammed into an outfit that was too small for my super-sized self.

Look at my stomach. UGH! No, that is not a pillow stuffed in there, nor even a pillow case stuffed with trick-or-treat candy. That's just fat, old me. EEEK!

I clocked in two minutes late and raced to the morning huddle in the break room. I burst through the door. Everyone turned to look at me...and I looked at them. Where were the costumes I was expecting? Sure, Dena had on a seasonal T-shirt and Sandy had spiders in her hair, but where were the costumes? Oh my. Although a few people went all out and dressed up in the hospital, most didn't or did a token attempt at a costume. Whatever... I was stuck in my Hook costume (I had nothing else to change into) and had to endure the head-to-toe polyester heatwave that came with it. I hoped someone would appreciate my efforts. I also snapped photos of anyone and everyone who came within range of my camera (phone) who tried to pull off a costume. I don't even know who a lot of these people are. Ha!

Physically, I felt miserable and was I saddled with a nursing student for the day. We had no rehab patients on the floor currently, only medical patients, so I could not farm the student off to watch therapies. She would be stuck with me for the duration. Swell...

As bad as I felt, the day initially seemed do-able. I only had two patients to start off with.

Our director, Mary-Ann Robson is Cruella DeVille and Rosina Barba is Spider(wo)man.

The day started off okay, but... If you have a sinus infection and are taking medication, it's best not to wear a costume with a mustache that needs to be glued on. As your head drains, every time you blow or wipe your nose, your mustache comes off.

Likewise, you may want to think twice about wearing a costume with no pockets. Wearing shorts underneath seemed like a good idea originally, but if you are reaching into your costume pants and trying to grab something from the pocket of your short pants inside, think of how it looks to those around you. I mean, say you are in the cafeteria and you see a middle-aged ponchy pirate rummaging around in his pants. Is he (finger) walking the "plank" or looking for his wallet? Not an appetizing mental picture. Try keeping that in mind all 12 hours, especially when the director comes around or patient families or anyone else really.

Me on the left. I obviously was not feeling very well.

Although I started feeling better (a LONG way from normal though) as the day progressed, it turned into an awful day. Carol, our charge nurse, who had originally said she would consider closing us down and having me give my patients away if I felt the need to go home. She ended up giving me two more patients. NOT that I blame her at all. I told her I would stick it out. Both patients arrived almost back-to-back. Carol said she would deal with the 2nd patient (a baby) until I got the first situated and settled in. That, while juggling my other two patients, ate up so much of my time. I didn't get to lunch until about 4 p.m. and I didn't take on the baby until around 5 pm. From the moment they arrived, I was just behind all day long.

One of my original two patients was very needy and required a lot of my time. The other was related to Carol through marriage and was having pain issues. He lost his IV and Carol had to get another going on him. Towards the end of the day, he had all of these new meds due to be given. I could have held them for the night nurse, but that would have been cruel. So I jumped on it, hoping to have them done by the change of shift. But that didn't happen as one of the meds, which had to be timed when given, hadn't shown up by the time it was due to be given. Grrr.

Harry Potter, er...Elvia showed up. That meant my shift was almost over. Thank goodness.

I finally got to leave just minutes before 8 p.m. I had to stop and pick up my salad for dinner on the way home (having to dig into my pirate pants one more time in front of the bemused cashier). I didn't get home until after 8:30. I got my garbage can in and then quickly went about getting set up to give out candy to trick or treaters. I'd left my costume on just for them, in fact. However, 10 minutes or so into waiting for a knock on the door, I realized I had to go to the bathroom. Badly. So, instead of risking being disturbed while "ocupado", I just shut off the porch light and all of the other lights in the front of the house and did my thing. The costume came off in the process and I spent the rest of Halloween in the back of the house doing nothing.

Happy Halloween.

(I knew I should have called in sick...)