We were invited to participate in a church youth activity Wednesday night. My ward did something similar when I was a teenager, so I was SO excited about this. Four (only four; should've been more) adult couples walked around a mall (San Tan), incognito, while the 30 or so young men & young women went around in small groups, trying to identify us. The object lesson was "identifying less-active members and potential investigators," I think. Well, Hubs & I were by far the most extremely different-looking; in fact on 3 or 4 occasions we walked directly past teenagers that we know very well and they didn't recognize us! (We didn't make eye contact; trying to stay "in character.") One group followed right behind us for a few minutes as we sauntered along, calling our names softly, and we didn't turn around... waiting for them to run around and approach us from the front. (We felt bad about that afterwards when we found out it had been one of the most shy girls.)
Anyway... needless to say I really got into it, and spent all morning driving around looking for pieces of my costume (but didn't spend too much money on it). It was very fun. I didn't mind looking so weird in public, especially with Hubs at my side... except when I was browsing the sweaters at Charlotte Russe and a saleslady approached me and began talking to me at length about their sale. I wanted to tell her, "The nosering is fake! I don't really look like this! I'm not going to shoplift!!" but I stayed cool, true to character. Oh yeah, and at one point a group of similarly-dressed kids (not part of our YM/YW group) asked us if we had a lighter. Then we knew we must've been pretty convincing.
Hubs' fake tattoo sleeves looked pretty good in the dim lighting of an outdoor mall! Jamie told us to "throw some gang signs" before snapping this picture so I guess I'm attempting a WestSide there...Only about 1/3 of the kids had found & identified us by the end of the evening (they only had about 35-40 minutes to do it) and when we met up with everyone in the parking lot afterwards, at LEAST 20 cellphones (kids' and leaders') snapped our picture. Pretty funny. One girl who I teach piano to, upon realizing my true identity, exclaimed sharply, Sister P*!!! as if she'd caught me doing something terribly wrong. And, we got a disapproving head shake masked by a half-smile from one of the adult leaders. And several of the kids told us that they'll never be able to look at us in church with a straight face again...
What a fun time; I would do it again in a heartbeat! Maybe trying to pull off a different look with the same wig if we did it again. And it's not a Dora wig, for Pete's sake. Everybody knows Dora's hair is dark brown and that she takes her nosering out before going on an adventure.
13 comments:
You guys look awesome! What a great activity idea.
Still laughing. Obviously y'all had way too much fun with this.
Aw, the word verification is "bless."
Bless your heart.
Go see Kristin's baby girl!
You guys are fantastic!! Our ward did that last year, or something kind of like it. I know one woman dressed as a custodian and had one of those dust pan/sweeper sets like a disney sweeper and swept up the floor in front of everyone and no one ever knew it was her.
That is awesome. I wished they would have asked us to do that. It looks like it was a lot of fun.
Oh man! You mean this isn't you guys dressed to go out on a date? I thought maybe it was just a romantic evening with the two of you...
Yeah, this is what we wear to the clubs so we were totally prepared :)
So cute. That same activity is a big hit in our ward every year, but I think that even with two wards combined they only have 15-20 kids. Oh well, I guess that's East Valley (of the sun) vs. West LA numbers for you.
fun! i wish there were more reasons to dress up. remember when you, ginny, and i dressed red, green, and black for some dance? even though we looked silly, it was fun. (i still want those pictures, you know.)
apparently, SP is a gangsta rap rocker (i.e. the thrown gang sign) that was fun, thanks SP.
NICE guys...the funny thing is, both of you could totally pull this off on a regular basis and it wouldn't look TOO wierd. I think you're both gangsta rockers at heart!!
Gabe has talked nonstop about seeing Lucy in a couple days! Can't wait to see ya.
That is so great! You totally win the award of best couple. I showed Pete and he loved it, I didn't tell him what you guys were doing and he was like "who's that!!" totally fun!
Oh, these costumes are as good as Sister A using ace bandages and a green polyester suit to be an old man. (I totally forgot about that activity until this post!)
Shopping for costumes?? You guys totally just pulled all that stuff (including nose and lip rings) out of your attic boxes full of old college stuff. I recognized you guys right away--just like the good ol' days at the CD store!
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