My first thought regarding Halloween 2009 was: “At least there’s no possible way that my costume could be worse than last year.”

My second thought was: “Golly, I sure have a lot of toilet paper in this house!”

My third thought was…never mind, anyone who makes a costume out of two-ply toilet paper and sticky-tack yellow office adhesive probably isn’t thinking that much anyway.

In any case, I kind of forgot that Halloween was approaching until a day beforehand, when Aaron and Jeff invited me to a costume party, which I had to decline because there’s no way that I was going to embarrass myself in front of them two years in a row (I do that enough at work). No, instead, I needed to find entirely new people to embarrass myself for. Luckily for me, Joanna, the first grade teacher at Whitman, was having a Halloween get-together at her house and I was invited. I had 24 hours to think of some sort of costume.

I immediately discarded all cliché ideas, then backtracked and realized I hadn’t used nearly enough cliché costumes in my lifetime. Zombie, Vampire, Ghost (I wasn’t desperate enough to use ghost yet), and…Mummy! Excellent. High(ish) quality toilet paper was in abundant supply in the house, so it was time to put my mummifying skills to the test. The party started at 7:30, I got back from church at 7…shouldn’t be a problem, right?

An hour and a half later, I stood a beaten man, or somewhat of a forlorn mummy. The following pictures are from a series I’m referring to as the “Sad Mummy Chronicles” depicting Zach the Mummy in various stages of modesty. For anyone reaching this page through a search engine, the way I innocently tried last night, I hope you can find this: Do Not Attempt to Make a Mummy Costume From Toilet Paper. It will only lead to sadness, despair, and excessive sweating.

Sad Mummy...with a bandoleer or something? However, this is the best my leg-wrappings ever looked.

Also, making a mummy costume from ripping, tearing toilet paper sheets is difficult when you’re alone; attempting to wrap your arms around your back to properly cover torso. I devised a way to kind of feebly toss a roll over my shoulder and then catch it on its down. It felt like I was TP’ing myself. Also, the previously-passable wrappings on my legs and right arm began to disintegrate as soon as I moved or was hit by air molecules. I attempted to staunch the unwrappage with more sticky-tack but that just bunches of toilet paper to fall from me in clumps; I think it was caused by the added grams of weight from the yellow adhesive.

I'm more upbeat here because I figured out how to use my neck as a wrap-stabilizing device

Finally, through a combination of wrapping, stuffing, tucking, and liberal application of office supplies, I was no longer trailing paper or having it fly off me like some sort of party favor in a strong wind. However, something was still lacking. I had given up my original lofty plans of face/head wrapping within 20 minutes of this project, so my head was un-mummyishly (new word?) uncovered. I spied my black and white Palestinian keffiyeh draped across the back of a chair on the other side of the room – perfect. Using all my mighty keffiyeh-wrapping skills that you acquire naturally in years of Jordanian life, I completed the costume and found the most impressive mummy on this side of the Sinai staring back from the mirror!

The Palestinian Mummy's powers include solemn glaring and preventing runny noses.

Now the next order of business…how to get to Jebel Hussein and Joanna’s house without being attacked? I’ve probably mentioned this before, but Jordan is not necessarily like America…all it would take was one superstitious, grumpy sheikh packing heat, to mistake me for the cursed spirit of his great-uncle and then send me the rest of the way into the next life. However, given the state of this costume and the fact that I looked like a walking pile of used Kleenexes, I figured this wasn’t the greatest of my worries. Instead, perhaps I would be beaten by young men, assuming that I was a deranged criminal who wore the toilet paper of his victims. Time was a-wasting, however, and I had no doubt that my powers (listed above) would save me from any ne’er-do-wells. In all seriousness, the worst that could happen was that no taxis would pick me up on account of my strange garb.

As I left the house, opened the gate, and peered cautiously up the street, two Filipino women came up behind me, and then passed me before I could duck back inside. As expected, they were staring at me, gape-jawed. I waved frantically for a taxi, and as he slowed (very slowly slowed) called back to them, “Come on, it’s Halloween!” Like most of the Filipino population of Jordan, they spoke passable English, and laughed appreciatively in realization. Even though I was sweating profusely by this point thanks to four rolls of paper adorning my chest, thankfully they were marked “Extra Absurbint” so I figured I’d last the night.

The taxi driver was a bland, unimpressed-looking young man who didn’t look like he would turn up a fare if his passenger had been on fire. I had already looked up the word for “Halloween” so I greeted him first with “I’m not crazy, I promise you,” and then “It’s for al-Eid Qudeeseen.” He chuckled at this, and I confessed to him my gratitude that he wasn’t an older person. He did agree with that, and commented that older taxi drivers merely wouldn’t have picked me up if they viewed my costume as insensitive.

There were no problems with the arrival, although climbing the steps up to the apartment caused what was left of my leggings to float down around my ankles like some sort of legwarmers. Since Joanna was dressed as someone from the 80’s, at least I matched with someone else at the party. A couple of her roommates were dressed as Velma and Daphnae, two of the characters from the old Scooby-Doo TV show, which was conveniently loaded with campy cliché bad guys… like fake mummies, for example.

HEREEEEE'S JOHNNY! I mean...Zoinks!

The party games all seemed to involve running around and crashing into each other, as parties are wont to do I suppose, but after spending almost two hours wrapping myself in my costume I was adamant about not destroying it immediately. Instead I became a watchful wraith that set in a nearby chair, made cryptic-yet-helpful comments, and drank Pepsi while sweating. The apartment’s cat, Noosa, was extremely friendly, and playful, and conveniently for her I happened to be covered in long, fluttering streamers. She took great joy in pouncing on me and purring happily whenever I got up to refill on Pepsi. Gradually, my leggings started to look more anklets than anything else, but I was pleased to have found a new calling as a cat toy.

"Joanna, your cat is eating my mortal remains."

All and all, I was amazed that this horrible costume was able to last as well as it did, and it only cost me a dinar for those four rolls of “absurbint” toilet paper. Before bidding my wonderful and generous hostesses farewell, I removed my wrappings (no point in tempting fate with steel-eyed old men twice in one night) and gave some to Noosa as a parting gift, which she seemed quite pleased with. However, I don’t work for a company with the word “Green” in its name for nothing; the rest of the toilet paper promptly went into a bag for safekeeping and later reuse. Even for a single dinar, there’s no need to waste paper in a country with so few trees.

And then I got a taxi home, and the driver skeptically asked me why I was carrying a bag of crumpled toilet paper into his car. I had to convince him I wasn’t an unclean, unstable heathen and that it was for an art project. I just can’t win here!

P.S. – In case you didn’t get the titular reference.