At any rate, I have to mark the occasion of this particular Halloween because I was witness to - nay, party to, at least in a way - perhaps the greatest instance of an in-office costume I have ever encountered.
I am noted for my monochromatic wardrobe palette - generally all black, with perhaps a splash of color in the tie. I also commonly wear a hat - sometimes a porkpie, generally a beret. The wardrobe choice is just what I do to limit the number of decisons I need to make each day. The hat is to keep my bald head warm.
So today, this happened:
That's me on the right, of course. The taller, fitter doppelganger is a colleague from the building who had apparently been hatching this scheme for some time. He actually shaved his full beard to match mine as well as graying it from its natural dark brown; he found matching eyeglasses on the Internet; and of course he has the beret as well as the black shirt and jeans.
But the piece de resistance of his Walaka cosplay was this:
The sneaky so-and-so surreptitiously took pictures of me during meetings so he could even copy my tattoos!
On the one hand, I am flattered; on the other, I wonder if I should set up a secret code word with my assistant so she'll know it's really me.
All in all, in was a fun day around campus. The aforementioned pro-cosplayer came as a picture-perfect new Dr. Who, there was a gang of Pink Ladies in the business office and the entire Riverdale bunch in Registration. Our budget analyst was Medusa and my assistant was Abby from NCIS.
I wore black.
*Shortly after coming to Bellingham, I was invited to The Halloween Party hosted by my costume-crazy colleague. I was told the bar was high for costumes. I asked whether, if we fell short, we would be openly mocked; I was told no, just silently judged.
1 comment:
This is absolutely wonderful. One feels it also demonstrates the high regard your colleagues feel for you, but, well, that's no surprise.
If it hasn't already been done, someone needs to do a real study of people who choose to wear the same outfit (or slight variations on a basic theme) every day. There are plenty of lifestyle articles about "These Highly Creative People Reduce Distractions By Wearing The Same Outfit All The Time" (Steve Jobs is almost always exhibit A) but it would be great to see the subject tackled in a more substantial way. That it's even a question in the first place is a sign of how ridiculously overloaded with clothing options we are these days. For me it's something more fundamental than simply reducing the number of decisions I have to make when I get dressed, but I struggle to put it into words.
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