And the winner is…

So I’ll pick one of many best halloween tales. One year, let’s say it was about 1983, in early August, the Halloween preparations had begun in Najmah, Saudi Arabia. The Hobby farm, where I kept my horse was creating a float for the town parade. And my mom was perfecting blood recipes for her part in the haunted house that would take place in the school gym. I was drawing out pictures of princess dresses that were to be sewn by the Pakistani tailors that lived in camp. Yes, they could really make a whole dress from a drawing.

I was pretty excited as I was going to be a lovely princess, that would make everyone blind to my mouth full of metal, my honking huge glasses and my general gangliness. I was a very awkward child.

At the hobby farm, we had purchased a palette full of kleenex that was being turned into ruffley flowers by an army of willing pony clubbers. (Each box also came with a mini-bottle of Tabasco sauce but I’ll save the horrors of that thread for another time.) Also, a full size papier mache Arabian horse was being constructed to stand in the middle of of the float. We were using the hay flatbed truck and making side skirts that would have the flowers attached. It was going to be a thing of beauty and really give the floats from the refinery a run for their money.

My mother was still up to odd things in the garage. Oatmeal and red food coloring was regularly disappearing from the pantry. Lots of weird moaning and screaming come from the garage. She was also attending weekly practices at the gym.

My dress was most awesome and I regularly tried it on and swirled about the house being a princess. I even had decorated my running shoes to match.

September had dragged by, but October wizzed by in a flash and finally it was the day before the huge camp Halloween celebration. The Hobby Farm float was perfection in white and pink flowers. A black papier mache arab mare stood proudly on its deck. We were pretty stoked little girls. It was awesome. But then horrors and horrors, security came by to inspect our float before we could put it in the parade.

They proclaimed it was idolatry. (Remember this is Saudi Arabia.) They beheaded our horse and destroyed its papier mache body. Our float went out just with sad, kleenex flowers and little crying pony club girls.

To cheer me up, my dad took us to see my mom at the haunted house. The gym had totally been transformed. There was smoke, and cobwebs and moans and groans. Fake walls had been constructed and the lights were waaay down low. We turned a corner and there was my mom in an ugly green mask and weird whig… And then this horrible reaper dude cut off her head – it totally fell off! Needless to say, I went screaming out of their, crying my head off. Two beheadings in less than 24 hours!

My mom came out to show me she still had her real head. But I was so upset and she was so ugly, that I cried through the picture they took of us together. I’m not allowed to have this picture as twenty years of threatening to destroy it has made my mom wary.