Costume Party…

Many years ago, I attended college, learned very little, majored in the arts, sewing, sand-boxing, and general malaise. Some friends were having a Halloween costume party, well their parents and grandparents were giving the party and they were permitted to invite whomsoever they wished…that was their parent’s first & conceivably last mistake!

These friends invited some other friends and myself and we all wanted to make a great big impression! As the guy that was the father was a big contributor of the college we attended & would be good to have on our side, in case of a problem.

One of the guys invited collected stuff, anything really, old cars, uniforms, weapons, mostly anything relating to the second world war, specifically of the German contingent. So anything that was part of the Nazi movement, he and his family had collected.

He had an old Mercedes, with the open front and the enclosed rear compartment; with flags like that of the nazi flag and an SS flag on the opposite side. It ran like perfectly, and was upgraded to an automatic, as none of us could drive, at that time a stick. He also had all sorts of uniforms, Wermacht, SS, Kriegsmarine, and high-ranking Field Marshal uniforms.

So, yes, we went to the party dressed to the hilt, I an SS Obergruppenfueher, decked out with the nazi swastika armband, my own little Luger pistol, and all the accoutrements therein worn by the guys in World War 2. There were two of us in the front seats, one driving & both as our bodyguards etc. We, another friend and I were in the back as the ranking officers, invited to the party etc.

We pulled into the front yard and circular drive two hours after the party started to get the full effect from all the partygoers. The valet refused to park our car saying we will be leaving very soon, that should have been our first warning, but being young and stuck on ourselves and knowing we had the best costumes, we were ready and dressed to impress. Boy, did we impress, surprising no one impressed our ass’ with the imprint of their foot, but I get ahead of myself.

The two guards went in ahead of us, fully regaled with helmets, black uniforms, and fake Schmeiser sub machine pistols. They went to the main room door, and stood waiting for us to get into the part, we strutted in passing the hired help, who really did try to stop us, I will give them that, but to no avail, we were feeling our parts with all due power. At least for a few more minutes…

When we both and the guards stood in front of the door, the guards threw open the door and all four of us screamed with arms held high in the Nazi Hitler salute, “SIEG HEIL!”

It took only a split second to realize our mistake, our FUBAR to be exact! There hanging over the fireplace, for all to see as they entered the room, was a Star of David flag, all members in the party wearing those small hats that folks of the Hebrew religion wear, the grand-parents, both almost fainted, and the men ushering us out as fast as possible.

Come to find out later, oh my god, the grandparents both had the tattoo of numbers from the Dachau concentration camp during world war two, run by the SS, just the uniforms we all wore.

Giving it a week to calm down, we returned and apologized, tripping over ourselves doing so…

But on the bright side, if you can call it as such, we won the costume contest that night, the parents and grandparents agreeing on giving us the prize, even though what had happened! We did do it very theatrically, the father telling us we missed our calling, should have majored in drama…

All told, we made some good friends there, after the initial shock of course, the grandparents even became our friends, we learned a lot from them on that which we knew very little about…

We also, NEVER went to another costume party, not to this day as far as I am concerned!

     © Copywrited: Ed Matlack - 3/13/04