Jerks & Irks LIII: I Didn’t Have A (Witches) Ball

Some of you may have noticed that Events tab up there. I’ve been busy this month! Two Saturdays ago my town held its annual Book Festival and I shared a table with the South Jersey Writers Group and last Saturday, I shared a space with fellow author Kristin Battestella at the Witches Ball in Mount Holly, NJ. I have one more event this month (this Saturday), and following that, I plan on posting a three-part series enumerating what I learned from each event. It promises to be super informative. But for now, I’m going to rant about my crooked wig and whale-tail.

It all started with the rain. It had been raining for days here and had also been forecasted to rain on Saturday. The Witches Ball was all but guaranteed to be canceled and rescheduled for the following Saturday. So I got it in my head that I wasn’t going. I didn’t prepare my supplies, choosing instead to work on my short story and read Headhunters by Jo Nesbo. Great book, by the way. Then I woke up Saturday to blinding sunshine and a scattering of rainbows. The clouds eventually closed in (delaying my preparations a bit longer as I still thought it was going to rain), but the event wasn’t canceled and I was left scrambling to get my life together. That’s when tragedy struck.

The email Kristin sent me that contained my parking pass and instruction sheet was gone. I had deleted it accidentally while we were chatting. I was forced to go to the ball blind. When I arrived in the town, I flagged down a cop and he told me I should have gotten there earlier, which I would have known had I had my instruction sheet. I asked him where the vendor parking lot was. He gave me detailed directions…then told me that the vendor parking lot was now blocked off and probably full anyway. I looked at him like he was mad and he looked at me with confusion. Then I parked in the free parking lot…which was five blocks away. Next I went on a recon mission to find Kristin, without my heavy supplies, thinking that if she was too far away, I would just go home, defeated by the universe. I stopped at the Information Tent and inquired about the location of Space 11. They told me their map only went up to Space 8. I looked at them like they were mad and they looked at me with confusion. What do you think they put in the water in this town?

Anyway, Kristin ended up being not far from the Information Tent, so I trekked back to my car and gathered my stuff. And here’s where the fun begins. The event required participants to be in costume. All I could muster was a fire-engine-red-wig, heavy makeup, and a black shirt and pants with a black and red shawl. It was cute-spooky. Anyway, the pants were a little loose. No big deal, until I started lugging my tiny collapsible dolly loaded with my supplies, folding chair, and card table through the crowded streets. My pants kept sliding down, showing the crowded streets of Mount Holly, NJ my black thong undies. (At least they matched?) The wind had also picked up and kept knocking my poor wig askew. It took me FOREVER to get back to our beloved assigned Space 11 because I had to keep stopping to hike up my pants and straighten my fake tresses. And the moment, the exact moment I straightened said tresses, the wind would blow again, the wig would sit crooked, strands sticking to my lipstick, and getting caught in my eyelashes, etc. It was just a mess. Probably, the jerkiest, irkiest  day I’ll have all year.

And after all that, it started to rain all over my beautiful Blood in the Past paperbacks a mere two hours after I got settled and I had to pack it all up and haul ass back through the crowd to my car. Oy.