Category Archives: Fiction

Sally was the first one to hear about the whole fiasco, and she definitely had strong opinions. Opinions that might have been too harsh considering that she’s worn the same costume every year since 1994. To say that it was played out would be an understandment, as far as her friends were concerned. Still, Sally was the first one to hear about the ordeal and to share her perhaps-too-strong-considering-the-circumstances opinion with Michelle.

Michelle was somewhat distracted when Sally was recounting the details of the outfit ordeal. This was probably at least two-fold, Michelle’s distraction.

1. As a general rule, based on decades of friendship with Sally, Michelle typically paid little-to-no attention to her friend and her various stories, rants, admonishments, complaints, and so on. These days, Michelle devoted just enough attention to know when it was expected of her, socially speaking, to acknowledge that Sally had made a point of some such magnitude. This acknowledgement, if in person, typically took the form of a slight nod, indicating agreement. If over the phone, an audible, but not forceful, “uh-hu.” If over text, well it could vary wildly from a thumbs up emoji, to a suprise reaction to the message itself, to a one word response.

2. The season finale of Survivor was on.

Still, Michelle absentmindedly listend while Sally told her all about just how horrible John’s costume was. How utterly insensitive. How surprisingly offensive. How jaw-dropping insane it was.

Since this conversation took place over the phone, Michelle made sure to emit small, but audible sounds that she thought Sally would interpret as active listening, which it wasn’t.

After the phone call with Sally ended and the season finale of Survivor concluded (Michelle was not happy with the results. Brian, really?!), Michelle found herself in a unique state that was unfamiliar to her these days considering how many social platforms she regularly kept up with. In short, Michelle experienced an all-too-uncommon feeling in the digital age. Michelle was bored.

So Michelle picked up the phone and called Carl, who she knew, based on the length of their friendship, the nature of their general conversations, and the knowledge of their shared interest, had also just finished watching the season finale of Survivor.

After a brief but empassioned rant about the results (they both agreed Brian was trash), Michelle switched gears to another mutually shared interest: gossip.

The details of the costume crises were a little hazy for Michelle, due to her aforementioned distracted nature, so she had to improvise here and there and fill in the details to the best of her abilities.

Carl couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Had John really showed up to the party in that costume. Had he really? The nerve. The gall. The total and complete lack of respect for all things considered decent in the realm of social decorum. I mean, had he really?

Carl hung up the phone and paced and paced, his cat watching him with a mix of confusion and concern. He just couldn’t believe what John had done. Could not believe it.

Carl took to Twitter and composed an epic 23-part rant. Rage-fueled and righteously indignant, the rant was. Carl couldn’t remember all of the details Michelle had relayed to him and the ones he did recount weren’t exactly accurate. This lack of recall and accuracy was two-fold:

1. As previously mentioned, Michelle herself could not remember everything that Sally had told her and so she filled in the missing bits the best she could. This mainly meant she imagined certain details and exaggerated others.

2. Carl’s rage was so red-with-tooth-and-claw, so blinding, and the adrenaline of composing such an inspired Twitter-take-down so high, he couldn’t be sure what he was typing, during the drafting itself and even when asked about it later.

Jane was the first to like each and every tweet in the 23-part exercise in costume condemnation. Richard was the first to retweet the entire thread. Howard was the first to comment with predicatble platitudes condemming the accused offender. Rachel followed suit by echoing Howard’s sentiments and upping the ante by posting numerous articles from such sources as Buzzfeed, Vice, Ranker, and the like, all of which took strong positions on various forms of costume faux-pas.

It took little time, in terms of real-world and social media conceptions of time, for the conversation to go viral.

People outside of the small group of friends started liking, retweeting, and commeting on the posts, the retweeted posts, the comment sections of the articles, replying to people who commented on their initial comments, and so on and so on and so on.

The ramifications of were wide-spread and beyond anything anybody had seen before or could have predicted in the first place. The New York Times published an op-ed on the subject. The Atlantic featured an insightful and well-thought article on the nature of costumes themselves. Numerous smaller websites and blogs shut down for a brief period due to the overwhelming traffic the content was generating.

Carl, being the original poster, was invited to be interviewed on various socially concious podcasts, YouTube channels run by influencers in the world of fashion, he even had a small write-up on Spirit Halloween’s website about the do’s and don’ts of costumes.

Eager to generate more content to drive more traffic and sell more ads, these and other media outlets eventually reached out to Michelle and Sally to get their side of the story, an invitation they happily accepted.

While the details of what exactly John wore on that ill-fated night were hazy at best and not exactly the focal point of the debate anymore, the general consensus was lazer-focused and firm.

Whatever it was he did, whatever it was he wore, and whatever the reason, it was wholly and without question, unacceptable. Condemnable. Reprehensible.

Decades later, while talking with some coworkers in the breakroom, John was asked what his costume was going to be for the company Halloween party.

“The last time I celebrated Halloween, I was 12 years old,” John said. “Haven’t worn a costume since.”

When asked why, John just shrugged his shoulders and walked away.