Do you know what I did after work every night last week? I sewed four giant claw-shaped felt mittens, that’s what. For Halloween, of course. My friend and I dressed up as lobsters and it was pretty much the best idea I had since the time I decided to make a grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
“Are they not amazing?” I asked my friend as I paraded around my living room while practicing my jazz hands.
“They are,” she agreed. “But how exactly are you going to hold a drink with those?”
“Carefully,” I told her – perhaps a bit more haughtily than someone who was wearing pajama pants and lobster claws ought to be.
She had a point. I had nearly knocked over a bamboo plant and I couldn’t turn off the kitchen light. I didn’t blame her for moving the wine glasses to the middle of the table.
But I am pleased to report that Halloween in claws went off without a hitch. My friend and I made it through the whole night without a single dropsy. In fact, I got so cocky about my satisfactory drink holding that every time I heard a glass hit the floor, I stopped mid-sentence and said, “Did someone drop their drink? I didn’t!”
The claws turned out to be a really great icebreaker too. Just ask the group of architects we met. For people who design buildings for a living, they seemed pretty impressed by some felt. And as an added bonus, everyone knew what we were supposed to be – which is a major improvement from the last time I dressed up like an animal and several people claimed to be unfamiliar with zebras.
“A what?” someone at the bar asked me.
“A zebra.”
“Oh,” she paused while she scanned me again from head to toe. “Well. Is the zebra from a movie?”
“No, it’s not from a movie. It’s just an animal.”
She seemed unconvinced – though in her defense, most other people were confused too. Apparently a zebra print dress, some plastic ears and a clip-on tail do not a costume make. Fail.
But lesson learned for this year. Lobster claw mittens. Easy win. Great time. Fantastic cab catchers and effective distraction from sloppy salsa dancing. Worth considering for year-round wear – shoveling snow, oven mitts, race-day crowd locators… The possibilities are endless really, and I’m not ready to put them away just yet.
Claws to the wall. It’s Halloween every day.