Halloween in the Tropics

A True Story:

Last night, I was strolling along in Downtown Sarasota with a bunch of the theatre interns.  We were heading toward our Mecca: the Block Party.  We're all in costume -- hippies, nun, pirate, snowbird in training, and Sarah Palin (that was me).  We come to an intersection, and as we're waiting to cross the road, this lady walks by in a McCain/Palin t-shirt.  I shout "Woo hoo!  McCain/Palin!"  This lady sees me, stops, and says "Are you being serious or sarcastic?"  In my head I'm going "She's going to punch me in the face.  She's going to break my chic glasses I bought at Claires!"  I calmly reply to her "kinda sarcastic..." and then she looks at me, laughs, and high fives me.  We're doing the whole Oprah/Gale high five with the fingers intertwined...it was awkwardly amazing.  I thought "here's a lady with a creative costume -- she's dressed up as a McCain supporter!"  She starts telling me this story about how someone spit in her face and I'm like "that's horrible!  It's Halloween.  You should be able to wear what you want."  Then she looks at me again and asks "wait...are you being serious or sarcastic?"  I pause, then say "sarcastic..."  She gives me a dirty look.  That's about the point I realized that her McCain/Palin t-shirt was not part of a Halloween costume.  In fact, I think it might have been the only t-shirt she owned.  It wasn't even white anymore.  It was definitely a shade of yellow.  After I had my epiphany, I go to the interns "Let's go find that block party, huh?" and we depart from my homeless, Republican version of Gale.  

Yes, in that relationship, I was Oprah.