Costume Bowling

Last night was a night I’d been looking forward to for weeks: costume bowling with InterVarsity! I wasn’t able to actually bowl because I hurt my knee on Tuesday, but the event was still tons of fun! Besides, there were so many people there that it was virtually impossible for everyone to bowl, so I didn’t feel left out.

For a year, I’d been planning on dressing up as a 50’s housewife for Halloween. I pulled it off swimmingly, or so I think.

The picture’s a little blurry. Sorry. But you get the idea. My mom lent me an antique dress that was actually from the 1950’s. The dress is a size 14, and although it was a bit on the big side, it fit me pretty well. I usually wear a size 3-4 dress. That just comes to show you how drastically dress sizes have changed over the years. Anyway, my mom gave me a pearl necklace (the one she wore on her wedding day, actually), and pearl earrings. She got me a feather duster, and showed me how to do my hair and makeup. Last night, a friend of a friend curled my hair. When the costume was finished, I looked at myself in the mirror and concluded, “I look awesome!”

It was a lot of fun to see other people’s costumes. Especially my friend, Jonathan; my sister convinced him to dress up as Slenderman (google Slenderman at your own risk). I was going to post my favorite picture of the evening that involves his costume, but I can’t get the picture to show up. On a side note, Slenderman is known to throw technology out of whack. Hmm…Slenderman throws technology out of whack, and my picture is not uploading. Hmmmm…

Anyway, Jonathan, Kelsey (my sister, dressed up as a serial killer escaped from prison), a guy whose name I believe is Jean (a Rwandan exchange student, actually, dressed up as Jason), and I drove to the bowling alley, chattering excitedly. The place was packed with costumed college students. It was definitely a great turn out. There were probably about fifty people there. There were some amazing costumes, too, both single and group costumes. One girl dressed up as the Energizer Bunny. A guy dressed up as a Lego man. Another girl dressed up as the girl from Brave. Two guys cross dressed. One was…I don’t even know who. Another was the girl from Legally Blonde. Oh, college students…

As for the group costumes, one group dressed up as the Avengers. Two girls dressed up as Toddlers in Tiaras. A group of four arrived as a tourist family. A small group dressed up as Scrabble pieces, spelling out the word “worship.” However, my favorite by far was the group that dressed up as characters from the game Clue. One person even played the role of a dead body. As for who killed her, we have sufficient evidence to believe that it was Mrs. White.

This is only a small part of the group. It was about time to go, and I cried, “Wait! I need to get a picture with the Clue people first!” These three were the closest, so I got a picture with them. I wish I’d known they were going to pull those facial expressions during picture-taking, otherwise I would have done so, as well.

There was a costume contest, and none of the people I wanted to win actually won. I didn’t make it into the finalists group, but Kelsey did (rather unsurprisingly). Each person or group had to give a little performance before the crowd voted. When it was Kelsey’s turn, she beckoned for me to come, too. Confused, I did as told and stood beside her. She held her prop—a “bloody” knife—against my throat and said, “Vote for me or she dies!” I did my best to look scared, and I nodded, as if to say, “Please vote for her! Please vote for her! Please vote for her!” A guy dressed up as a Native American won the “solo costume” contest, the girl dressed up as the heroine from Brave coming in second place. I was disappointed. I thought the Brave costume was far more original, but I had to admit it was kind of funny watching the guy dance around, chanting. That’s probably why the costume won. As for the “group costume” contest, the tourist group won. Clue came in second place. I thought the tourist group was the second best group costume, so, although disappointing, it wasn’t that big of a loss.

Finally, it was time to go. We rounded up our carpool group and left. We had an interesting conversation with Jean about the movie Hotel Rwanda, how things are going now in the country (the genocide is over, thankfully), and Rwanda’s language (Jean’s first language is an African language, but he speaks French more than he does his first language. Obviously, he also knows English, and he’s learning to speak Spanish. Wowsers). It was an interesting discussion. When we returned to campus, I uploaded my pictures and stayed up way too late.

And that was my Friday night!