Trick or Treat drama
*sigh* When I meant I wanted to be ready for trick-or-treat early, I wanted to be ready early. I was setting up our Halloween display (we decorate our garage to give out candy during our trick-or-treat times) over the course of a couple of days. I got help in hanging up the tarps to black out the garage, and then I asked if the rest of the decorations could be brought up from the basement so then I could get them slowly set up over the next couple of days I had off. While our decorations are not hugely numerous, I know setting them up takes 1-2 hours, including several steps that have to wait until literally the last second. (Putting up the lights, because they're strung across and have to be tied to the garage door frame, so once the door goes up, it has to stay up, for example.)
The decorations made it from the back room of the basement to the base of the stairs, but never made it upstairs. So I had to do that. Morning of trick-or-treat, I got the larger bulk of the decorations out. Probably could have gotten a few more things in place, but somehow I didn't want to be the only damn person doing them. A couple more items I couldn't take out because it was at or below freezing and I didn't want the couple things that ran on batteries to have the batteries frozen.
An hour or so before trick-or-treat we got the lights up and a couple of other things placed, and all I wanted was fifteen minutes to cool down after all the running around. I, after asking, thought that the battery-operated stuff would get out there while I was taking my break. Except it didn't, because "it might get stolen." Look, no one is going to steal our five year old jumping spider, because the thing is the next thing to invisible in our dim garage, which is the whole point! We'll be out there in fifteen minutes, and I just want everything in place so we don't have to rush.
Finally I'm cooled down and go to get in costume: robes, full-head mask, wings with lights tied to them, one hand-held prop. Except at the same instant, I need to help get the other person's costume on. Once I've helped them (eating into my own prep time), I need their help getting into the wings. Except they grab the wings roughly, and manage to completely dislodge the lights and ties I had used on them. I start to freak out, because the time it was going to take to fix them was going to mean we would get out there late. My city only has trick-or-treat for 2 hours, and it is one of my hands-down favorite things in the world to dress up spooky and hand out candy; I wouldn't go to all this effort otherwise.
So I'm freaking out, making little moans and squeaks of frustration and dismay as I try to repair the damage, working myself up into a lather and starting to sweat like a horse. The other person doesn't know what I need done and can't really help, and also can't cover our trick-or-treat station because I'll need help to garb myself the second I get done. It takes me far too long because I'm damn near shaking with anger at the situation, but finally I get the wings fixed and in place. The jumping spider still isn't in place, and I abruptly nix the other two battery-operated things we had planned on because that will make us even later. The other person goes to take the spider out while I get my props, rushing so much that I end up breaking the cat tree in the process.
I get out to our display finally and go to sit down, only to realize the other person has already put on their costume hands, so when they brought out our big jumping spider, the connector to the footpad trigger fell off. You need full hand mobility and unimpeded vision to see where the tiny little connector goes, so I have to get my mask off and put my prop axe down to fix it in full view of the street.
Predictably our first trick-or-treaters come up to our display while my mask is off and my prop axe is blocking the candy bowls. I move everything again so they can get their candy, and finally manage to fully costume myself and sit down, still sweating hard in the freezing weather. The rest of the night goes fairly well, considering the cold weather, and we scare many kids before rewarding them with handfuls of treats.
But when the other person started talking about having an even more elaborate display with fancier props, I nearly decked him. He barely put any effort into creating our current display, I nearly had a screaming fit getting this one up and running, and I can't seem to imprint any urgency on him for setting up in a timely fashion. I can run this myself if I need to, but you do not get to request a change in theme or props when you don't even help much. I won't change our theme from "graveyard ghouls" to "evil carnival" just so you can wear an evil clown costume if you won't help set things up.
If the temp is above freezing next year, everything is going to be 95% ready to go a full day before, and I don't care what he says about it.
This message was last edited by the user at 02:23, Sat 02 Nov 2019.