“On some trees I’d be whackin’, I wouldn’t know how to be actin’ if I only had an axe.”
OK, I’m not a very good songwriter, but I’m also not a very good costume designer. A few weeks ago, the Chester County Chamber of Commerce held its annual banquet and had a “Wizard of Oz” theme. Attendees were encouraged to wear costumes and, boy, some folks really went all out to look like Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, the Tin Man, good and bad witches etc.. There were a couple of semi-Wizards and some very inventive folks who dressed like Dorothy’s uncles seen at the beginning and end of the movie. I don’t remember their names, but they were probably something like Clem or Jed or something Kansas farm-y. No one dressed as my favorite characters, those being the ill-tempered trees that threw apples at Dorothy and friends. The angry, yelling trees were far scarier than Witch or the flying monkeys to me. I mean, you know someone named “The Wicked Witch” is going to be, you know, wicked, so you look out for her. Who suspects trouble from an apple tree? But I digress.
Anyway, I wanted to get in on the fun and I did look up some costume ideas, but I didn’t really have the time to put into doing anything elaborate. So, I decided to sort of decorate a shirt, jacket, tie combo with a general Wizard of Oz theme and decided to sort of go with a Tin Man motif.
My wife bought a pack of silver party hats for a dollar. I snipped the tip off of one with a pair of scissors and had myself an oil funnel hat. Then, I secured a pack of stickers (again, for a dollar because I spare no expense to look my best), which contained a heart. The Tin Man lacked one, but got a pretend one by the end of the movie, so I placed a lavish heart sticker on my chest. Now, all I needed was an axe.
I stopped at about four stores looking for a toy axe but had no luck. Don’t kids play with pretend axes anymore? I found some swords, including some light-up, Star Wars light saber things. Pairing that with a Tin Man hat and heart would have been an interesting twist. I could have pretended to be the son born during a brief marriage between the Tin Man and Darth Vader’s sister or something, but who wants to have to explain that high-concept costume to everybody? So, it seemed my best course of action would be to take my actual axe with me. It would certainly have gotten everyone’s attention and maybe gotten me some extra benefits.
“Hey, can I get two helpings of the barbecue?”
“I’m sorry sir, one per person…oh Lord, he has an axe. Yes, take the whole tray, just don’t hurt us crazy axe man.”
Hmm, that MIGHT be frowned upon, I thought. So, my last alternative was to make an axe out of cardboard and tin foil. So, I found a box at our office and cut it into a super realistic looking axe (not really). The only problem is that an axe blade is not brown. So, on the way to the banquet, I stopped and bought some tin foil (it was nearly five dollars, by the way), wrapped it around my scary cardboard creation and BOOM, I had an “axe.”
The banquet was great as always, though I somehow managed to NOT win the costume contest. I should’ve dressed as an angry tree and thrown apples at everyone. Now, I’m just left to wonder why the Tin Man didn’t cut them down with his axe.
