Okay, I haven't written in a couple of days and I have a lot to talk about. I went out on Friday night to work as usual and did my normal shift working until the restaurant closes. But while I was there, I found out something interesting: the next night (Saturday), Applebee's would be holding a costume contest where the winner recieves $50 and second place gets $25. A competition. I'm the type of person that will do anything to win, and I'm always looking for competitions to get into, so this was right up my ally. And with a cash prize, I was definently going to go for it. But one thing that I didn't like was that I found out only the night before, meaning I'd have to scramble to come up with a costume that could take home my first place position. I heard about costumes from the past years (men dressing as woman and people dressing as refridgerators) and I'd already been able to find out what other people were going to be this year, so I had the upper hand, knowing what I needed to do to win. First, my brother and I were going to dress as George Bush and John Kerry, and get a person to dress as Bin Laden so we could chase him around. It was a perfect idea, but there were two flaws. Number one was no one wanted to dress up as an Iraqi terrorist (I don't know why!) and the other was because all the George Bush masks were sold out (there were two Kerry masks left). So with that idea shot, I had to come up with something new, quick! My brother picked me up on Saturday morning to go halloween costume shopping. Our first stop was Walmart- 10:45am. He had to work at 4pm and I had to work at 5pm. Walmart was pretty much empty of costumes, and we had to pick around to find the hidden ones. Bobby found his first: a black invisible mask with no visible face and just...blackness! Then I found mine: a scream face (like in the movie) but it had a twist. When you squeeze the hidden heart valve (from inside your pocket) blood starts streaming down the mask, and then the heart valve refills itself by the two tubes that you keep under your shirt! It was perfect. Then we went around Walmart and got the rest of our costumes. We got black sweatshirts and sweatpants but we couldn't find weapons. Bobby had his eye's on a two foot long machete, but that probably wasn't legal to walk around Applebee's with. I was going to get a wooden oar, but decided not to. Our next stop was Target, where Bobby got a black pillowcase to hold candy in. My whole philosopy in buying my costume was to spend a bunch of money, putting together the best costume in order to win the contest, and then I would be paid back. I spent about $20-$30 on my costume and it was great. I was so excited about it, that I could hardly focus on my run for the day, because I kept thinking about other things to put on my costume.....Work time. I had mananged to obtain a large plastic sword to accessorize my costume by the time I got there. But I walked in and people just started staring. No one knew who I was because they expected to see John Kerry and George Bush walk in (our original idea). I just walked in and punched in with people laughing. But it was not a laughing matter. They figured out who I was withing 15 minutes because I started hosting (which is my job!). The night went pretty good, and I scared a lot of people. One of the best parts was all the kids I scared. All the 2-6 year olds that came in would start crying when they saw me! Everytime I walked by they would hide under the table! The best part was walking by them and squeezing the heart valve so blood would start pouring down my mask. I did that probably 150 times last night! One kid's mother had to come ask me for crayons because her child was to afraid to! Even adults got pretty scared once they saw the blood on my face! And if that wasn't scary enough, my brother would walk by in his invisible face mask, just for effect.....They still haven't released the results from the contest yet, but I would say for certain I won. Other costumes were: a cheerleader, an angel, a couple girls with pink dyed hair, and a waiter wearing a cardboard sign reading "Will serve for tips" among others. It was a fun night, but it did get awfully hot inside that mask, especially after 7-8 hours of busing tables going back and forth from the kitchen and seating people. Not to mention the constricted view. But it'll all be worth it after I find out I've won.