Ladies, the adage goes, should only have their names in the newspaper three times: when they are born, when they marry and when they die.
I guess getting your picture on the front page as a vampire disqualifies me. I never really liked being called a lady, anyway. It’s very limiting. White gloves, hats and pinching girdles come to mind.
When Nicole Paitsel of The Daily Press sent out a request for adults to wear Halloween costumes for a photo spread in our local paper, I was the first to respond.
I love playing dress-up. Just a few weeks ago I wore a pumpkin costume at church to promote our fall festival, and I used to spend as much time designing my Halloween costume as my boys did theirs. Once I made my husband dress up as a Big Mac while I was a Whopper.
Putting on a mask or cheesy makeup allows you to get a new face when you’re tired of the old one. Without the expense of plastic surgery. And costumes allow a basically shy person to assume an alter ego, giving you permission to act goofy.
Bob would argue that my ego doesn’t need any altering and I don’t need an excuse to act goofy. But there’s something about pretending to be someone – or something – else that inspires you to let down your inhibitions. Put on a cape and fangs, and you can pretend that you’re a danger to society, not a 57-year-old post-menopausal grandmother. Put on a wig with a reverse-mullet haircut, and suddenly you’re Kate Gosselin.
“Who’s Kate Gosselin?” Bob asked, when I told him last week about the second costume I modeled with my friend Chip Booth.
“She’s the witchy half of the Kate-and-John reality TV couple with eight kids who’s very mean to her husband,” I tell Bob, who is TV-illiterate. “I was totally out-of-character, of course.”
“Right,” he says, with eye-roll.
“Congratulations,” said Bruce, my business partner, when I tell him I was on the front page of the DP today. “From the front page of the Daily Press as a reporter to the front page of the Daily Press as a vampire. You’ve come a long way in 30 years.”
As a PR consultant, I’m usually trying to get my clients in the media. This is one publicity stunt that could come back to haunt me.
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