Halloween Vampires
	One Halloween my friend Paula and I decided to dress up like VAMPIRES! We were magnificent. Paula was a young southern woman from Georgia of astounding beauty that worked for Delta Airlines. When she walked into a room all heads turned. She and Sharon and I were best friends. They were like two peas in a pod although there wasn't any pea in any pod that could keep up with Sharon and her antics. The two of them reminded me of Scarlet O'Hara and Bette Davis. Several weeks before Halloween, just to make sure they'd be ready on the big night we got started making our vampire costumes. In making them I knew they had to have around ten inch high collars and capes that came all the way to the floor and spread out about ten or twelve feet, flowing as we walked. I knew what they needed to look like and what needed to be done but I couldn't sew. So again we called upon the help of my little white haired seventy year old mother. She followed what I said to do saying "I hope you know what you're doing because I don't. The vampire costumes came out perfect. At one point when I wanted to make sure that the bottom of the cape was completely level, because my eyes were young at the time and her's weren't, I had my mother put on the cape and stand on top of a dressing stool. She was only about five feet tall and her little white head barely reached the top of the collar. It was hilarious! I was tall and trim back then and after the costume was finished including a black tuxedo I had gotten at the Goodwill, white dress gloves, my hair died black and pointed in front, face whitened and vampire teeth, I looked in the mirror and it actually scared me a little because there looking back at me was literally DRACULLA! Paula's costume was just as convincing. She hadn't seen my costume yet so even though it was weeks before Halloween I got completely dressed right down to the black patent leather shoes to the black cuff links the size of quarters encircled with rhinestones and got into my old broken down station wagon and went over to Paula's apartment. She put her costume on too and we took some fantastic pictures. I left that night at around 11:00. On my way home, as I rounded the corner of Hillsborough Avenue and Central, one of the busiest street corners in Tampa, my old station wagon ran out of gas. "And me in this costume?! Oh NO!" I got out and started pushing. I had to. I was blocking traffic. Horns were honking and the car lights were SO bright. My cape was dragging and the slick soles of my shoes were sliding all over the street. When I turned around, looking over my shoulder at the cars behind me, mad and scared, I know the expression on my face must've looked like "Oh no, the sun's coming up! What will I do?!" Fortunately there was a gas station on the far corner and I managed to push my car into it and next to, actually past, a gas pump and the hose would barely, barely reach the car. The station man came out. Now keep in mind that this was not Halloween. There was no way in snowball's hell that this man was going to acknowledge in any way that I was in this costume. First, we had a hard time getting the nozzle out of the gas opening then when I went to pay him all I had was a bunch of change in my pocket. I dropped the coins all over the pavement and he just stood there with a tolerant look on his face without moving an inch while I hunkered around on the pavement retrieving the scattered coins which had mostly rolled under the car. Once I did I stood up and the guy just held one hand out without saying a word watching me trying to count out the right amount while wearing those white gloves and the top of my collar almost poking him in the face. After I paid him I said "Goodnight." as best I could with those fangs and he just looked at me stone faced as I drove away with part of my cape hanging out of the bottom of my car door. Lash Out Loud