Toga! Toga! Toga!

If you follow me on Facebook, you will at least know part of this story.  The part where on November the 13th, or so, we were invited to our first Toga party to honor one of our friends for her 50th birthday party.  It was a surprise party.

I have never been invited to a toga party.  Nor had ThatManILove.  We vacillated about going, but in the end, our love for the honoree won out, and we cowboyed up and decided to take the plunge, as it were.

We live in West Texas, so I figured EVERYBODY would do a cowboy toga.  I wanted to be different.  Saturday morning of the party, I had a brain wave - possibly my first original thought.  We decided to go gothic Toga.  I researched on the web, and as far as I can tell, no one had ever done that, or at least posted pix on it.  

I thought it was a great idea!   We were gonna go goth toga!!  Oh, yes, we were!!  Once convinced (I am a salesperson after all!), ThatManILove let me have my way with him.  I painted his nails black.  Put eyeliner and black lipstick on him.  Died his hair with temporary hair color....black all over, except for red sideburns and at his temples.  He looked quite distinguished.  Earlier in the day, he acquiesced to go shop at Hot Topic to get all the studded bracelets, hair dye, collars, funky earrings, etc.  while I went and got the black fabric, crowns, fake tattoos. The “etc.” ThatManILove picked up at Hot Topic even included a dog chain leash.  (I said, "Honey.  A Leash?  Ummmm...there might be a fine line between gothic and S&M, and you may have crossed it with that leash/collar deal - but we were the hit of the party!)  He even spray-painted a pair of his steel toe boots black so as to further look the part.  He did ALL of this on one condition  - that he would dress up anyway I wanted if I would promise that I would have him back to regular status by Monday, when he had a 5 day frac job out in the field. And I did promise, and deliver.  Well, I thought I did, anyway.

Here are pictures.  Mind you, these were taken at the end of our night, as we were leaving.  Which was imperative because my careful design of my husband's toga FAILED.  Miserably. At first, I wasn't worried, because I thought the pants he had on underneath were ski pants.  He quickly informed me they were the silk underwear you wear UNDER ski pants, and thus were somewhat...revealing.  We gathered our gear to leave post-haste.  Here, he is holding what is left of his toga.  But he's cute, isn't he?

But now, here’s the part two of this story.

It’s been six weeks since that Toga party.  Six weeks, people.  Last Friday, we drove from Dallas to Ardmore to see Elder Son and meet all his cowboy horse trainer compadres.  We decide to meet at a local eatery called Two Frogs.  (It was good, too!)  It was a grey, dreary kind of day, misting a little bit.  We all drive up at the same time, and Elder Son is walking in with us, after we all get the requisite hugs.  

Elder Son:  “Dude.  What’s up with your hair?”  The cowboys are walking up to meet us in the parking lot about now.

TMIL:  “What do you mean?  I just got it cut.”

Elder Son:  “No, I mean, why is your hair pink?”

TMIL:  “My hair is not pink!”

Elder Son:  “Yeah?  Looked in the mirror lately?”

I looked over at ThatManILove, and about busted a gut laughing.  I couldn’t stand up.  I had a hard time meeting the people we were there to meet, because I couldn’t see for the tears running down my face.

People, I live with this man!  And granted, he’s been out in the field a bunch, and home rarely, I didn’t see that his sideburns still carried a tint (though very becoming) of pink...left over from the “temporary” red hair color.  Six weeks later.  And our hairdresser didn’t even say a word about it.  

Six. Weeks. Later.

I kid you not.

And we’re meeting all these rough and tough cowboys, one of them a world-renown horse trainer, for the very first time.  So much for good first impressions.

I absolutely could not quit laughing.  Elder Son was just shaking his head.  So, of course, I had to confess that we went to a (1) toga party, as (2) gothic emo peeps, complete with (3) black nail polish, goth makeup, studded bracelets and dog collars, AND show pictures. 

The first thing they all hooked on?  The dog chain hooked to ThatManILove’s studded collar. 

Well, it could have been worse.  At least they didn’t call him sweet cheeks or something like that.

These rough and tough cowboys could have been like the lady at the Starbucks window the Sunday morning following the toga party.  ThatManILove, every Sunday, goes and gets us burritos, a Sunday paper, and Starbucks.  And when he handed his money through the drive-through window, our  sweet barista, who knows us by name, said one thing when she saw his black-painted fingernails.

“What the hell?”

He was so embarrassed that we went straight to the nail salon and got all that stuff taken off pronto.

It’s never boring around here.  


(PS - Jack, don't you even think about making him some kind of freaking bit/bridle.  This was a one-time gig.  Savvy, senor?)

Yeah, baby, it's all still there.  Now let's get the hell outa Dodge.  Vamanos por las casa, senor!