I bought my ticket to this fundraising drive-in event as if my life depended on it.
Since my mental health received a healthy boost of sanity, who’s to say it didn’t.
After all, once I decided to dress up as Anubis, Egyptian god of the underworld in honor of viewing “Pet Sematary,”
I had a fake existential crisis, “Wait, if I’m Anubis…aren’t I already dead? Or immortal?” Actually, none of the above. I dutifully put on a mask like someone who still had good sense.
Originally, I hadn’t planned to dress up.
Yet, since this event was co-sponsored by WIFT Austin, of which I’m the secretary, I rallied to the call for help. One of the event co-chairs asked if another board member could attend to help her.
Turns out, the volunteers from other organizations assisted her,
so I was there in all my costume glory for moral support, which suited me just fine. She made all the announcements for our organization. The only thing I did was give her two hints about my costume in order to get the audience, who were all sequestered in their cars, to guess who I was dressed as.
The first hint was that I wore jackal ears.
The second hint was that I wore a galabeya. I’d told her prior to our bit that I’d bought my galabeya in Egypt although people from other countries also wear them. So, she gave the crowd an additional hint, saying that Egyptians wore galabeyas.
One guy leaned his head out of his driver’s side window and yelled, “Anubis!”
We were so excited that someone knew who I was that my fellow board member said we’d gift him a free beer and skittles. Hilarious since those things were “free” with the cost of the ticket, but at least I’d save him the trouble of walking to the makeshift concession stand to deliver his prize.
Turns out, I received the real gift.
Once I approached the car, I saw that the winner was one of my former science students! And his girlfriend, who was sitting shotgun, was also my former science student.
Unfortunately I couldn’t hug them, but we were all overjoyed to see one another. He said he knew who I was dressed as the moment he saw me. She said that she knew who I was when I spoke on the mic.
Felt like I hadn’t seen them in years, but truthfully, it had been just a little over a year ago when I’d last seen her at a local film festival where she’d entered her short horror movie. At the time of the shutdown, she’d just wrapped up a shoot as a producer, so at least she was in post production.
I told them about my becoming a one-woman production company, dropping the name of my podcast, CBD & Poetry. He looked it up and confirmed it with me. Is it wrong that I got a little thrill that my former students will eventually listen to my podcast? Nah. It’s 2020.
And just to cement the idea I’ve been quarantined for seven months, I was far too excited that get home in time to STILL watch the newest episode of SNL. Baby steps.