Three Blind Drunk Mice

October and Halloween were always  my favorite time of year.  I love bringing out my hazelnut cream candles and driving through the mountains when the leaves change color is a highlight. And thinking up the next great Halloween costume.

In college, Halloween is the one opportunity for the girls to dress like sluts and get away with it. We didn’t get that memo in the 70′s when we were in college. We wore goofy costumes.  I have always been the go-to person for Halloween costume ideas. I honestly have great ideas, and used many on my poor children. That I will save for another day, closer to Halloween. But, in college, on one occasion, my roommates and I found the perfect costumes.

Our sorority had a yearly songfest competition with other sororities and fraternities and one year we wore black tuxedo tails, black hotpants, with high heels. We topped it off with a top hat. They were cute outfits. Well, they were just hanging in our closets, so when it was time to think of what to go as for Halloween, it didn’t take me long to come up with something. “We can go as the three blind mice.”  I made mice ears and put them on headbands and found ugly white kids sunglasses and put black construction paper on the inside of the glasses to darken them even more. I bought long sticks and painted them black with a white line on the bottom. Or maybe it was a white stick with a black line on the bottom. I can’t remember, but the sticks came in pretty handy later in the night. I really wish someone would have taken a picture of us…especially late in the night.

Well, there were three of us, so the Three Blind Mice was a great idea. But, along came a friend who didn’t know what to dress like, and wanted to go with us to the parties (Yeah, we were invited to several parties, and this also will come into play later). Well, I had an idea for our late arrival friend. “Hey,  you could always be the farmer’s wife.” Oh dear God, this was not a good idea. I blurted out that she could get an old dress and stuff herself fat, and carry a fake, plastic butcher knife and carry something that looked like a mice’s tails, like in the song…..

Three blind mice, three blind mice,
See how they run, see how they run,
They all ran after the farmer’s wife,
Who cut off their tails with a carving knife,
Did you ever see such a thing in your life,
As three blind mice?

 Yes, we were quite a sight. We looked good. At the beginning. But, then we had a pre-party before we went to the main parties. We were the talk of the Halloween costumes. People left our house to go to the Grape and Grain party down the street, and we didn’t want to go too early, so we stayed behind and drank some more. Except that we didn’t have much whiskey in the house, so we had to drive to get some more. Luckily, the farmer’s wife came late, and was able to drive the Three blind drunk mice to the liquor store. Which was just closing when we got there. Well, that made the mice mad. We happened to have our canes with us and started tapping on the window to please open back up for us blind mice. The employees jumped because I guess they weren’t expecting to see mice tapping on the window with their canes. Shouldn’t have been any scarier than a Michael Myers mask. But, they wouldn’t open the the liquor store for us. We were like 3 minutes late. We were pissed off drunk mice. I remember yelling, “Come on…Open for us…We are blind….and thirsty…” as I tapped my cane a couple last times…to no avail.

When we arrived at the Grape and Grain party, the farmer’s wife started drinking a little too much and it wasn’t until later that I heard someone say, “Someone better take that away from her.”  I looked, and damn if she didn’t have a real butcher knife, waving it around, singing Radar Love. (I don’t know what she was singing, but that sounds like a good one.) But, she did have a butcher knife and she was a- swinging it. She explained, incoherently. “They didn’t have a plastic one anywhere.”  Someone did take it away from her,and she was mad because she said that her costume didn’t make sense without the knife, and she started crying.  So, we lost her. Slipped away like the three blind drunk mice that we were.

We decided that since we were such a big hit at our pre-party, and the liquor store, (ok, not them), and at the Grape and Grain party, we thought there should be more people who would want to see our costume, the people at the Pub, our college neighborhood bar, and of course, our college president, Dr. Wendell Hardway. Yes, the college president, who lived on campus in a big house up on the hill. It made so much sense to drunk mice. He and his wife would definitely want to see us at 1:00 in the morning. I knew his wife would. “Let’s go up and show the Hardway’s our costumes.” Yes, that was in our itinerary.

By the time we walked to the pub, we were crazy three blind drunk mice..singing the song and swinging our canes. We didn’t see  the farmer’s wife again that night, but we heard she kept repeating that her costume didn’t make any sense without the butcher knife…or the mice..”Wherreeee did they gooooooo?” she cried. We did leave her. We had a hickory dickory dock of a time without her.

I guess something changed during the night and we ended up  carrying cups in one hand and tapping with our cane in the other…Someone wrote, “Please give” on each cup..I guess we turned into blind begger mice some time during the night. Unless it was meant to be a sexual connotation, and then the joke was on us.

We had a blast that night. Our canes were snatched away from us later that night for tapping people too much. We never did make it to the president’s house, because we forgot about it. We all woke up the next morning with our outfits on. Paula still had her glasses on.

And we had a total of $5.35 in our cups….