Doompa Dee Dee

Ah yes. As The Little One is a female, she changed her mind about the costume at the LAST minute and went back to her original plan to be an Oompa Loompa this year. When I say last minute, I'm not kidding. We had spent quite a bit of time in our local Party City store picking out the perfect scabs, road rash, and compound fractures for the skateboarding accident. Spirit gum, prosthetics, spirit gum remover, fake blood...we were set. As we headed for the check out she hit us with, "you know, I really think I want to be an Oompa Loompa." *sigh* After clenching my teeth hard enough to give myself a rocking headache, I decided FINE. Oompa Loompa it is. Why sweat the small stuff, right? Back it all went - the scabs and blood, the spirit gum and compound fractures. We ended up buying a green wig and orange and white makeup. Then we were off to the local Mart to pick up the rest of the costume.

4 hours and counting: Our high end french mart, Target, didn't have what we needed, despite several trips around the store. They had some things that "might" work, but weren't exactly perfect. *sigh* I did tell you that we had offered to help her with her costume several times over the past two weeks, right? Why do it the easy way? It's much more fun to watch Mommy's eye twitch. The headache began to throb. We were going to have to bite the bullet and head over to trailer park haven - Wal-Mart.

3 hours, 30 minutes and counting: Wal-Mart on a Sunday afternoon is exciting by any standards, but add Halloween into the mix and the place is packed with more than the usual freaks. If I had had the time, I would have camped out to people watch. As it was, I was on a mission. We had a deadline to meet (suited up and ready to rock and roll by 6:00pm). Despite watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory more than 7,000 times, The Little One wasn't completely positive about the shirts worn by the Oompa Loompas. After much trivial discussion (and pain from my throbbing head), I left C. and the kids to power walk to the electronics section. Surely they would have the DVD so we could check out the box. Score one for cranky Mommy! We grabbed the DVD and huddled up. Everyone was given a quest and we were off.

3 hours, 20 minutes and counting: Women's white sweat pants - check; plain brown shoes (that she will hopefully wear again at some point) - check; What about brown and white pom poms for the shoes? No problem. Mom was a Girl Scout so brown & white yarn - check; Brown and white striped socks equal fancy pant socks in the women's hosiery department - check; White ribbon for the suspenders - check. Then we hit a wall. All we needed was a simple plain brown shirt. Apparently this animal does not exist. C. was in theatre so plain white boys shirt - check; Rit fabric dye in chocolate - check. Cheap white gloves - check. We were ready. All troops moved to the checkout lines. I am not good with lines. I never have been. If I pick the shortest line, inevitably the woman in front of me will have forgotten her checkbook in the car or the register tape will run out. This is a known fact. I don't know why, then, that my family insists on following me through the gauntlet that is known as the Super Wal-Mart check out stands. They're behind me like baby ducks. A smart comment to C. and the situation was remedied. We fought through the lines and were on our way.

2 hours, 45 minutes and counting: Off I went to dye the shirt. Have you ever dyed a shirt using Rit dye? It's a fun experience when you're not surrounded by a 10 year old dancing the potty dance while asking "Is it brown yet?" every 9 minutes. As the shirt was being transformed, I went to work on the pom poms. I learned the trick to home-made pom poms, as I said, when I was a girl scout. Once I learned, there were pom poms everywhere. Since I showed The Little One how to do it by demonstrating the first one, I can only imagine the dust bunnies will have to fight with a zillion pom poms for space around here until Christmas.

2 hours and counting: In case you were wondering what C. was doing all this time, he was cleaning the house. We invited one of The Little One's soccer playing buddies to go trick or treating with us. I certainly didn't want her mother thinking we actually LIVE this way. We DO live this way, but no sense letting other people know we do. The brown shirt was now brown, but I had to run it through another short wash to "set" the color. Pom pom one was complete, pom pom two was in the works. Unfortunately we were all snapping at eachother like a pack of starving timber wolves. It turns out that we were actually starving. No one had eaten. Bless C. for calling Pizza Hut. It was time to move on to the green wig.

1 hour, 45 minutes and counting: It occurs to me, after much searching, that #1 son has used up all his hair spiking glue, which we need for the green wig. It has also occurred to me that I will need to immediately run a solution of laundry detergent and 2 cups of bleach through a hot high load in my washing machine unless I want us to wear brown clothes from now on. I look jaundiced in brown, and I was out of bleach. Damn. Off to the Walgreens down the street.

1 hour, 10 minutes and counting: Back from the Walgreens and the pizza had arrived. Just in time for us to choke down slices of ooey goodness, standing up, while completing our tasks. So much for Sunday dinner. #2 pom pom has been completed. At this point I realize that I had forgotten to put the newly chocolate brown shirt in the dryer. Back to the laundry room. We assembled all the costume components, minus the shirt that was turning in the dryer, to expedite the transformation. It was at this point that we realized that I had picked up the wrong ribbon for suspenders. I got the filmy gauzy sheer roll. Damn. C. swung into action and found a white dress shirt that #1 Son can no longer wear.

35 minutes and counting: Shirt is still in the dryer. This is making The Little One a bit anxious. I assure her that she will be much more comfortable with a dry shirt versus a damp one. C. and I began to cut the ex-dress shirt into strips with dull scissors. Time out to search for the "good" pair. I find those and we're back on track.

20 minutes and counting: The shirt is for the most part dry. On it goes and I prepare her hair to go under a wig. Up go the pants and we proceed to pin up the legs. It took a bit of contortionism to get the suspenders pinned on without drawing blood from either the pinner or the pinnee.

10 minutes and counting: Make-up time! Orange smear everywhere. Her wig went on next and I swing into hair cement mode to get the proper curl in this neon green monstrocity. Simultaneously someone was putting on her socks, pinning up her pants and tying on her pom poms.

2 minutes and counting: The white eyebrow make up goes on and we have, as a family, given birth to an Oompa Loompa. Schew!

I have to say that I thought she looked fantastic. Apparently everyone in the neighborhood thought so as well. I can't tell you how many times I heard that fargin song from passing parents and homeowners as they gave her the loot. People thought it was the coolest, most unusual costume they had "ever seen." She even got extra candy from some people for her "originality," and more than one neighbor asked to see her Oompa Loompa dance.

So, another year, another Halloween passes sucessfully. The Little One is ahead of her time, as usual. After the remake of Willy Wonka starring Johnny Depp comes out sometime next year, our neighborhood will be rife with Oompa Loompas and Willy Wonkas. It will be just like all the Spidermen we had this year. There must have been 11 of them. But just for tonight she was on stage and got to be the most original trick or treater in the neighborhood. She was the center of attention and was praised endlessly for her creativity.

Now if I could just get that damned song out of my head!