Jen and I went to a Halloween store yesterday to see if we could scrounge up some parts for a Halloween costume for me. We're planning on going as a pair of gypsies, and I was hoping the store had something along those lines I could get.

I didn't see anything. So, I made the mistake of trying to track down one of the people who worked there to see if I could get some help. Whooboy, was that a bad idea.

I walked up to a young lady who had her back to me, and said "Excuse me," trying to get her attention. When she turned around, it was all I could do to stop myself from pointing and saying something to the effect of, "Hot damn, there's something wrong with your mouth." I don't know if people have seen the make-up style, where the lipstick is applied simply as a single, thin (yes, this is emphasized for a reason) line that outlines their lips. Done right, it looks... okay. Not a big fan of it personally, but I've seen some decent applications.

Apparently, someone forgot to mention the "thin" aspect to this girl. She looked like a clown. And no, this was not a costume.

Once I was over my initial shock of how someone could go out in public looking like that and not expect little kids to flock to them and ask for balloon animals, I managed to ask her if there were any gypsy costumes for men, or separate costume parts that I could piece together to look gypsy-ish. She said yes, and to follow her to an aisle I had been down maybe four or five times already. My eyesight isn't that bad, where I'd miss it five times in a row, right?

Right.

She proudly paraded over to the aisle, reached right up, and pulled a package off the hook. "This is a gypsy, right?" she asked, and looked truly hopeful that it was.

It wasn't. Nowhere near. Despite the fact that the picture on the front was of a guy in a King Tut-looking outfit (which consisted of a headpiece, a loincloth/skirt-looking thing, and a chest cover), and despite the big black letters across the front of the package that read PHAROH, apparently this must be a gypsy.

I thanked her for her help, took the package, and put it back on the shelf after she left.

I weep for our future.