Halloween Schmalloween

                 My every day routine was beginning to resemble the movie “Groundhog’s Day”.  Wake up, shower, work, home, Buddha Belly, PBR, Pool, Sleep, repeat.  One day I woke up and realized that I had a hobby.  Pool is a fascinating game. Once you learn about how to execute the shot you have much more chance of sinking a ball.  I always kind of approached it with the attitude of hit ball, hope ball goes in.  I began, however, to learn something new about the game every day.  Learning English, angles, bank shots, along with practice every day, created an environment for daily mini tournaments.   Before I knew it, I was a challenge to beat.  I began to notice after a while that the guys were starting to get a little bit too much testosterone involved in our little tournaments, and soon, quarrels over rules were common place.   It annoyed the crap out of me.

                Work was getting better; I was finally starting to get into the groove of the routine.  It was actually kind of embarrassing to admit when my co-workers would ask me what I did the night before.  My answer was, without fail, “played pool”.

 Halloween was approaching and everyone was buzzing about what they were going to dress up as and where they were going to celebrate the hallowed occasion.  You see, in New Orleans if there is any reason in the slightest to dress up, people do it.  It doesn’t matter if it’s Halloween or May 2 (random date).  In New Orleans people do Halloween, and they do it big.  So many special events were going on in the city, and I honestly didn’t even care.  I didn’t have any plans on dressing up, and I certainly didn’t have an interest in going out.  I know right? What a fuddy dud I was.  Halloween night came, and it was all hands on deck at the restaurant.  I came in to work the day after and Napoleon was gone.  No call, no show, no more Napoleon.  Apparently Halloween was THAT important. 

                The big night was interesting, and some of the costumes that I saw grown men wearing were shocking to my conservative eye.  Yes. I saw a man wearing the Borat costume, you know , the one where he’s pretty much naked.  I also noticed that Halloween translated into “let me find the skankiest costume EVER” for most of the women.  There is a different air about it in New Orleans, though.  Nakedness is celebrated at times.  One word: Hippies.

                There were literally warehouses dedicated to Halloween paraphernalia all over the city for weeks preceding the big event.  Advertisements for “The House of Shock” flooded the air waves.  The House of Shock is a HUGE production put on by freak shows.  I heard stories of what went on there, and I wasn’t really interested considering I am the biggest chicken I know.  I didn’t dress up. I didn’t go to the House of Shock.  I just played pool.  If I hadn't been so poor, I might have considered attending VOODOO music festival.  But alas, no dinero. 

               The food at the restaurant started making more sense to me as I learned about the culture from where it originated.  It was like I learned something new every time I went in.  A lot of the people on the wait staff spoke Spanish, so it started becoming part of my every day vernacular.  “Permiso” and “A tras”, meaning excuse me and behind you, were some of the first terms that I became comfortable using. This was mainly because that’s what everyone said, regardless if you were “gringo” or not.   Slowly, many other Spanish words started coming into fruition in my brain.  A large part of my learning process was a result of listening to others around me. Considering a lot of the kitchen was Spanish speaking only, it was learn or don’t communicate.  I, of course, had taken two years of Spanish in high school, but I don’t think it really stuck.  I probably shouldn’t have skipped out on Senora G’s senior Spanish class so much my senior year.  You know, I had to go work on the yearbook (aka, I was going to go to Burger King with Nikki).

                We were now in November and slowly the temperatures began to decrease.  I started making plans for Thanksgiving, but discovered that I really didn’t have any money to go home.  I was barely paying the bills still, and the apartment idea was slipping farther from reach.  I opted to spend Thanksgiving with Will’s family.  GG had already started to plan the menu early on, as two sets of Will’s sisters were planning to come to town.  I thought it would be a great opportunity to meet Will’s older sister, and I also couldn’t wait to see A.L. (code for Will’s sister right above him).  Little did I know that something was about to happen that would certainly put a damper on things. Adulthood and everything that my dad had warned me about was about to bitch slap me.