Amanda Cobra
When Halloween And Daylight Savings Land On The Same Night, All Bets Are Off.
Sometimes, life presents you the opportunity to experience something so unique and rare that you may one day bore your grandchildren with stories about it.
Where were you when the Blood Moon appeared distantly and slightly orange in the night time sky over North Texas? Can't remember? Well, fret not, friends, as this coming Saturday night presents yet another opportunity to have that unicorn of an experience. Just, uh, maybe don't tell your grandkids about this one.
Saturday night is not only Halloween but it also leads seamlessly into the end of Daylight Saving Time at 2 a.m. on November 1st. And you know what that means? One extra hour that bars stay open. One extra hour to slur at a stranger about how you came up with your super funny, super original Donald Trump costume. (My conservative — get it? — estimate is that 50 percent of Halloween costumes this year will be Donald Trump.) It also means one extra hour to test the limits of your checking account balance versus your bank's overdraft fees and one extra hour to take selfies with a stranger in a banana costume.
Wondering more about what this unholy union of a Saturday night Halloween and an extra hour of bar time looks like? We've sketched it out for you here in an hour-by-hour breakdown, because preparedness is key.
(Also, this should go without saying, but alas: If you drive drunk, you're an asshole. So don't do that.)
10 p.m.: You leave the house in an Uber. Your crew is really nailing it. You've got your current-events-related-costume-wearing-friend (El Chapo, perhaps?), your friend who dressed up as Marty McFly last week and just recycled the bit, and your friend who phones it in and paints her nose black and draws on some whiskers and throws on some cat ears. If under any circumstance you have a friend who is not black and thinks it's cool to go in blackface, please take them aside and explain to them how wrong they are. Seriously, guys. It's 2015. Don't do blackface. It feels gross to even have to type that out. Just don't.
11 p.m.: You start bar-hopping and giving finger-guns and high fives to every clever costume-wearer you see. Yeah, maybe Left Shark was so 10 months ago, but the dedication required to wear a shark suit for an entire night of drinking deserves at least a high five or a complimentary shot. Also, this is the time of night when you can expect to catch a fleeting glimpse of Elsa from Frozen making out with one of the three dozen Donald Trumps in the room. Weep for the loss of innocence.
Midnight: You hit the second or third bar on your crawl. Sexy Pizza Rat has probably at this point just turned into “Carrying Her High Heels in Her Hands Everywhere She Goes Rat.” Things are starting to get loose and the train to Sloppytown has left the station. Tinkerbell is yelling at her friends and calling them assholes as she drunkenly tries to figure out from which angle she should come at her slice of Serious Pizza.
1 a.m.: Uber surge-pricing has certainly begun, but you're far too in the moment to care. Is that guy dressed like Kenny Powers from Eastbound and Down? Yeah, him, the guy with the black shirt, black jeans and glossy mullet? Dude, that's totally Kenny Powers from Eastbound and Down! Take a selfie with him and scream “You're fucking out!” as you walk away, high-fiving your buddies as you do. It's only on Sunday, as you take survey of the collateral damage from the night via the pictures on your phone that you realize that “Kenny Powers” was just some guy from Mesquite who was not wearing a costume and not “fucking out” at all.
1:45 a.m.: Normally, this is where you politely ask your bartender for your tab, quickly pay, tip generously and quietly stroll off to your ride. Nah, I'm just kidding: This is when your friend orders everyone Vegas Bombs and starts calling his best friend since childhood a “pussy” for switching to water. This is where peak drunkenness and maximum obnoxiousness occurs. Only this year, while it will be all those things, people will also be dressed as a Game of Thrones character, which makes it a little funnier.
Daylight Saving Time, a.k.a. 1 a.m. No. 2:: Nothing good at all happens during this hour. You lose your friends somehow. “Carrying Her High Heels in Her Hands Everywhere She Goes Rat” is now “Pizza Rat in a Fight with Her Boyfriend on the Phone.” Something like 85 percent of the cigarettes lit during this hour are lit on the filter end. All drinks ordered at this hour are disgusting. Even if your Dude from The Big Lebowski costume calls for you to drink White Russians all night, stop drinking any kind of dairy products during thing hour. Also, Uber will tell you that it's a 40-minute wait and that your Uber X ride is going to cost you $125. YOLO! You order it anyways and then stare at the driver's picture for five solid minutes before remembering that you were in the middle of telling a story. Deep Ellum will looks like a set from The Walking Dead at this point, but that will have nothing to do with costumes.
2 a.m.: After that bonus hour, all bets are off — unless, of course, you bet that the line at Jack in the Box would be very long and that at least one person in Dallas will pass out on his couch wearing a slightly askew Donald Trump wig while holding a half-eaten 99-cent Jumbaco! That is the safest bet you can place on this most wheels off of Halloween weekends.
Stay safe out there, kiddos.
