Back from the ZOMBIE PROM

I realize that these past two weeks of not writing in my blog have probably left you, loyal readers, feeling dejected, depressed, and desperate for more tales from the pawn shop. I apologize deeply for my negligence, but there has been good reason for my abense.

Over the past few months, I had been helping plan a Halloween party for my church. And as the past two weeks were the final two weeks before the party, I was busy beyond busy making sure everything was ready. Halloween is my favorite holiday and there is no accurate way of conveying my obsession with making the party as elaborate and memorable as possible.

The party itself was called ZOMBIE PROM and catered to young single adults of my faith, meaning those who were not married and between the ages of 18 to 30, providing a nice way for us to meet other young people who share the same beliefs. And, of course, we invited those not of our faith, because what horrible Christians we would have been if we tried to keep such a wonderful event such as a ZOMBIE PROM all to ourselves! My other main planner and I did a lot of promotional work, recieved a lot of interest in the event, and found ourselves overwhelmed with the actual planning of the event. Luckily, we know lots of great people and were able to recruit volunteers to help with music, photography, snacks, decorating, and general planning. Approximately 150 people attended, a goodly number of which drove several hours to attend.

Some of the highlights of ZOMBIE PROM :

1) Voodoo Doll : We had an oversized voodoo doll to which people pinned their names on pieces of paper. The person closest to the hidden mark on the voodoo doll won the doll.

2) The Tunnels : The dance itself took place in a gym of one of our church's buildings, but we extended the party to three different rooms by connecting the gym to said rooms by creating a series of tunnels constructed out of oversized cardboard boxes. The rooms were then littered with crumbled newspapers and all kinds of broken things such as smashed televisions, computer monitors, vacuums, and etc (items that the pawn shop was going to throw away but I took instead in preparation for this). The idea was to make the party-goers feel like they had crawled into the aftermath of the Zombie Apocalypse. My favorite room had hundreds of blank sheets of paper taped to the walls. On these pieces of paper were messages or drawings written in ink that only showed up in black lighting. Each room was supposed to have a different theme, but this room's theme was that children had been locked in it for an extended period of time in an attempt to escape the Zombie Apocalypse and had written on the walls out of boredom and cabin fever. We had three blacklights in the room and the primitive, glowing messages combined with the carnage, trash, and random pitched tent combined to create a very eerie feeling.

3) The Thriller Tutorial : A friend of mine volunteered to teach everyone a simplified version of The Thriller dance--a very appropriate activity for a ZOMBIE PROM. The tutorial itself went very well and most people seemed to have a lot of fun with it, even when we almost smashed into each other.

4) The Zombie King and Queen Coronation : Early on in the night, we presented five men and five women who my fellow planner and I felt had the best costumes to the rest of the party. The attendees then voted for which male and female costumes they liked the best. The best female costume went to a Zombie Mary Poppins and the best male costume went to two brothers who had turned themselves into Zombie Siamese Twins. During the coronation, the Queen was given a sash, a bouquet of dead flowers, and a burned Barbie doll as a scepter. The King was given a sash and a severed foot as his scepter. They were both, however, given "crowns" that had been made by stuffing bloody looking spaghetti into pig stomach lining to create what looked like real human intestines. But the coolest part of having these crowns was when I pulled them from my shirt, making it look like I had yanked out my own intestines, and then draped them over the heads of the Zombie King and Zombie Queen.

Overall, the party was a success, and the best part was that there were so many people willing to help clean up afterwards that I hardly had to do anything, which is saying a lot since the decorations were very elaborate. It was great fun planning the event and seeing it through, but, boy, am I glad that it's done and over with. But now my next big project is graduate applications. But, never fear, loyal reader, I will be more diligent in my blogging. I have even been jotting down notes of stories I knew I'd want to share after ZOMBIE PROM had stopped consuming my life, so, prepare yourself.