On Holiday From Hogwarts

(In my first year of college, I really ‘gothed out’ after finally finding like-minded friends and retailers in that town. I go home at weekends, so it often shocks a few people in my hometown who haven’t seen me dressed so “intensely” before. My mother and I are in a local discount store that October, where the owners really go to town in their Halloween aisle. A woman has her two young daughters with her, who are nieces of a coworker of my mother’s. They keep sneaking looks around their mother’s legs at me in all my purple-and-black glory, while we both politely ignore them and repress our giggles. When they go home, they burst into the room their aunt is in….)

Child #1: “[Coworker]! We saw a witch in [Shop] today!”

Child #2: “She was a real witch! She had black on her eyes and big black sleeves and everything!”

(I’m still not sure if it’s a compliment that she knew exactly who they were talking about….)