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| That Girl From Shallotte at That Costume Shop in Raleigh |
9/4/12
I'm going to be hanging out at Hughie and Louie's Costumes and Magic on Thursdays, helping people play dress-up. Come see me!
9/13/12
Fluffed feather boas most of the afternoon.
9/20/12
Helped dress a family for a Soul Train party today. Having a blast at the costume shop makes me never want to go back to the corporate world again. Wait, I've felt like that the last 10 years in the corporate world... Sucks being a grownup. :)
9/27/12
Sorted crinolines for a few hours at the costume shop today. Also learned how to spell "crinoline." I can cross that off my bucket list.
10/4/12
Today in things I never expected to happen: I was using a price-sticker gun on two new cases of trick peanut cans. The lids kept popping off and the "snakes" came popping out. And I jumped/shrieked every. single. time. I would have been crying laughing on the floor if it were happening to someone else.
10/11/12
A conspiracy theorist came into the costume shop looking for ideas to help throw off the facial-recognition software the government uses to keep track of us all. No prostheses, had to be something easy to take off when he got where he was going.
10/10/12
At the costume shop, we have women's versions of every men's costume -- sexy pirate, sexy cop, sexy doctor, sexy sailor -- except the one I want to be for Halloween: sexy comptroller.
10/13/12
Today at the costume shop, I got to ask a hot guy to turn around and let me see what he had back there. I didn't get written up, marched to HR, or sent for sexual harassment training and he bought a fake butt a I recommended.
10/15/12
I was regaling my Sainted Southern Mother with funny stories from my adventures working part-time at the costume shop. She was so tickled that I just kept telling her more, pushing the boundaries a little more with each one. She kept laughing, so I kept going and told this one:
A few weeks ago, the owner and one of the funniest women I have ever met, was helping a male customer put together an outfit that wasn't cheap. He said, "I like it, but you've got to make me a deal, though." With his accent, it sounded like he said, "You've gotta make me a dill, dough."
Without missing a beat, she said to her customer, "Poof! You're a dildo!"
SSM: I don't get it. What's a dildo?
Me: Oh, um... never mind.
SSM: No, really. What's a dildo?
Me: It's um, a sexual aid for women.
SSM: What do you mean?
Me: (stammering) It's, uhh, a substitute for something else.
SSM: Still don't get it.
Me: Let's talk about something else... Hey, I sold a fake butt to a cute guy!
(end scene)
Today in things I had the opportunity to say but in a great fit of restraint did not: "Bless your heart honey, I can't help you and your mother look like 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith.' If I had super powers, I wouldn't be working part-time in a costume shop."
10/17/12
Also today in things I had the opportunity to say but in a great fit of restraint did not, chapter two: A 30-something woman was trying to describe her Halloween costume "vision" to me and asked, "Are you familiar with David Bowie?" And I DID NOT let the words, "I don't really follow sports" escape. (That was a tough one, y'all.)
10/18/12
Told the owner I would gladly steam the Henry the VIIIth costume as asked, but I needed to be shown how to work the steamer. She said, "Girl, the only thing domestic about you is you live in a house." I replied, "And the only reason I have a kitchen is because it came with the house." I like her.
10/19/12
We were so slammed at the costume shop today that when I had a choice between stopping long enough to scarf down some cold barbecue the owner had delivered or smoking a cigarette, I chose the cigarette. My feet hurt so bad that it was all I could do to hobble up the steps into my house an hour ago. There was one message on the answering machine: My Sainted Southern Mother saying: "Hey, just wanted you to know your daddy and I are sitting outside eating fresh oysters with fried cornbread and sweet pickles." Thanks, mom!
10/20/12
I have spent time at the Foxy Lady and the Little Bar, but today, I saw the trashiest thing ever. A 20-something girl came into the costume shop straight from having her bikini-line "Special K" tattoo "bedazzled" with rhinestone microdermals and insisted on showing it to Louie and me. That's bad enough, but if you're going to show strangers your bikini area, opt for a wax job over a DIY with a Bic razor.
10/20/12
I have never seen "The Hunger Games" or "Pirates of the Caribbean," so I rely on my co-workers at the costume shop to help our potential Katnisses and Jack Sparrows. But when a guy came in today asking for an Afro for a "Warriors" costume, I blurted out "Come out to plaaaaayyy" as I motioned for him to follow me to the wig counter.
10/22/12
If I could get paid half as much to help people play dress-up as I did in the corporate world, or if the corporate world were 1/10th as much fun as helping people play dress-up, I would be set for life!
10/24/12
Today in my costume shop adventures: The bitchy twink who came in last night, ran us ragged putting together a "Romy and Michelle" outfit, complained about prices and left without buying anything came back tonight.
"Show me your boobs," he demanded. "My husband wouldn't like that," I replied. As he cut his eyes and huffed, I fetched the $7 fake ones.
He whined that he didn't want to spent that much and mulled it over, trying to decide if he'd come back later to get them.
"How many boobs do you have?" he asked. "Two," I replied, completely straightfaced. He finally cracked a tiny smirk and said, "I just keep pitching them to you, don't I?"
He bought them and hopefully won't be back again tomorrow.
10/25/12
Every time the prissy Junior Leaguer repeated, "I'm a size zero," I got a little closer to saying, "Ima stick my size 7 shoe up your skinny ass, bitch."
10/26/12
God grant me the serenity to be patient with couples who come into the costume shop tomorrow and say, "We have a party tonight, but we don't know what we want to go as."
10/29/12
Today at the costume shop, a lady picked up a pair of "joke" cat-eye glasses and asked, "Are these the ones you're wearing?" I couldn't even play my snotty imaginary reply of "No honey, mine are vintage" in my head because the company in China made a really cute pair of fake cat-eye glasses.
10/30/12
Preemptively writing a press release. Headline: Bloated, hysterical woman detained after Glenwood rampage. "We're still determining the facts," said Raleigh Police Spokesman Jim Sughrue, "but the mitigating factors appear to be combination of menses and repeated exposure to 'The Monster Mash.'"
10/31/12
Talked a customer into buying a fake beard for her child's Halloween costume by telling her my own tale of woe: In third grade, I insisted on being a pirate for Halloween. While my Sainted Southern Mother was busy getting my little sisters dressed, I drew a mustache and beard on with a contraband Magic Marker. My SSM scrubbed and scrubbed my face the next morning, then gave up and made me go to school looking like a hungover longshoreman.
11/1/12
My little temporary job at the costume shop is winding down. I'm going to miss my baseball calf muscles when they atrophy back to bird-leg normal...
11/13/12
Filled in at the costume shop today and took a call from a woman asking if we carried tape to pull the face up. I am not an expert on the tons of theatrical makeup and supplies the shop carries and sells to local theater groups and drama departments, so I had to ask. I got back on the line and told her we didn't have anything like that but could probably order it in time for her production. "I need it for Saturday," she replied. "My daughter's getting married and I want to pull my jowls back."
11/16/12
Off to hang out with a professional Santa Claus all day.
11/16/12
Today's lessons: 1) Do not get in the way of a Dickensian horde. 2) The Clinton, N.C., community theatre group is very serious about their Dickens.
2/4/13
Hooray! Going back to work at the costume shop!
2/6/13
Met a smokin' hot rabbi.
2/15/13
I really, really love working at the costume shop.
2/17/13
I love my job. :)
Thanks for entertaining our little one while we searched for the perfect outfits :)
2/20/13
I was not in the mood to be proselytized to today. This kid asked me if I belonged to a church in Raleigh and I politely said no and tried to change the subject, as that's a really personal thing. He plowed on and asked me if I had heard of Jesus, so I replied, "Is he related to Santa Claus?" Needless to say, it was an awkward few minutes at the counter of the costume shop while we waited for his pastor to text back approval on the scary, latex Satan mask he sent the kid to buy for the evening's youth program.
2/23/13
Busy day at the costume shop today. Purim, a quinceañera and a sorority's "Old South" formal. I learned about three cultures formerly foreign to me through playing dress-up. :)
2/28/13
A one-armed man came into the costume shop today. That, of course, is not funny. What was funny, though, was that he was wearing a hoodie emblazoned with the logo for Terry's Knives.
3/1/13
While leaving a doctor's appointment, I smiled at two 50-something men chatting together quite amicably in the lobby. It took a couple of beats to realize that they REALLY were a prison guard and a cuffed, shackled inmate in an orange and white striped uniform from Central Prison and that I wasn't at work at the costume shop.
3/6/13
Today in things I really said at work: "Was that the male stripper again? I told him the same thing. He is not going to be able to strip out of that Batman suit."
3/9/13
A woman came into the costume shop and asked me, "Do you have any middle age clothes?" So I twirled around while replying, "I'm wearing them." #lovemylittlejob
3/12/13
Reason #524 I love working at the costume shop: I had the honor of meeting some awesome young people from the Boys and Girls Club's Malkuta Project and helping dress them for the anti-dating violence video they created for Interact. Great job, guys!
3/20/13
Harlem Shake: Culture's bane is a costume shop's boon.
3/21/13
A very sweet woman called ahead to make sure the shop would be open before she drove from out of town to get her daughter's Boss Hogg costume for showing her pig at an upcoming 4-H fair. After she filled out her rental agreement with her address, I said, "If I'd known you were coming all the way from Wilson, I'd have asked you to bring me some barbeque from Parker's." "If I'd known, I would have," she replied. ♥
3/22/13
My day at the costume shop today was a straight, teenaged boy's fantasy. I spent most of my time helping underwear-clad, hard-bodied, size 2 sorority girls into and out of dresses for the upcoming KA Old South Ball in Charleston -- often two or three at the time.
3/23/13
I didn't realize how completely sedentary my lifestyle was. In just six weeks of running around at the costume shop, I've gone down a size and feel great. Happy is good for you! (Cue the "Who are you and what have you done with Leigh Ann?" replies...)
3/24/13
So yesterday at the costume shop, we were desperately searching for a shoe cover for one of the pink bunny suits that was going out. I found a pink shoe cover, but Louie informed me it went with a pig suit. She said, "Girl! You ain't from the country if you don't know what a pig's foot looks like." I responded, "I know what one tastes like." "Ugh. You win," she said. :)
3/27/13
Me working at the costume shop is exactly like Peter Gibbons at the end of "Office Space," when he's happily working construction.
3/29/13
Fun day at work and fun commute home: Heard Biz Markie's "Just a Friend" on my drive home down Glenwood and turned it up to teenage volume while belting out "You got what I neeeed" and busting my car moves. Between stoplights. At stoplights, I'd turn down the volume, shut my mouth and sit still, because I do not want to run across myself viral on YouTube as "Old White Lady Twerking in a Jetta."
4/3/13
I have never seen -- and have ZERO intention of ever seeing -- "The Sound of Music."
4/12/13
A 50-something woman told me today she had never colored her hair. I gasped and informed her it was my duty to take away her Southern lady membership card. She replied, "Oh, but I had some perms in my time, honey." "Whew. You're back in," I said.
4/13/13
Every single day at the costume shop, I answer phone calls that start out, "I have a weird question." And I reply, "Not around here, you don't." #lovemylittlejob
4/14/13
We're doing our taxes right now. Steve asked me what I wanted to list as my current occupation and I gleefully told him, "Costumer!" Nobody ever came up to me at work to tell me I had the best job ever when my current occupation was "Communications Specialist." :)
Click here for Vol. 2.
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