My Ass Looked Terrifying After the Halloween Party

The morning after last year’s Halloween party, I tried to inspect my ass in the bathroom mirror and knocked over a toothbrush holder. That was the first unexplained disturbance. The second was my fiancée, who is also my owner, appearing in the doorway, watching me twist around like a dog investigating its own fart, and asking whether I needed help identifying the suspects.

I told her I was conducting a paranormal investigation. She told me the paranormal investigator had toothpaste on his elbow. Neither of us was approaching the evidence with the seriousness it deserved.

To understand how I got there, you need to understand that when she says, “I have an idea for the party,” I should ask follow-up questions. Instead, I usually say something enthusiastic and catastrophically vague, such as, “That sounds fun.” Last Halloween, that sentence helped promote me from the man putting out snacks to the evening’s main attraction.

Apparently I Was on the Entertainment Schedule

There were decorations, drinks, costumes, and a perfectly respectable bowl of miniature chocolate bars. We could have built an entire evening around those things. People have managed it for generations.

My fiancée had prepared a guessing game involving me, a blindfold, and our friends. We had discussed the boundaries beforehand, and she supervised the whole thing. I knew what I had agreed to. What I had underestimated was how efficiently a room full of women could turn my confidence into a running joke.

The premise was simple. Could I identify the participant from her voice, a clue, or something she said about me? I considered myself reasonably observant. I was also operating under the delusion that people would cooperate with the spirit of the competition.

The first woman used a terrible accent. The second apparently decided that breathing near the microphone, which was imaginary, constituted a clue. Someone else said, “You know who this is,” with the confidence of a person who knew perfectly well that I didn’t.

My fiancée kept score. Naturally, she had made a scorecard. There is something deeply unsettling about discovering that your embarrassment has administrative support.

The Witnesses Were Drinking Punch

The blindfold meant I couldn’t see the expressions around me, but I could hear them preparing to laugh. People think laughter starts when a joke lands. Sometimes it starts several seconds earlier, when an entire room knows something you don’t.

I would offer a name. There would be a pause. Then my fiancée would say, “Interesting,” in the voice she uses when I have loaded the dishwasher with absolutely no reference to its intended function.

Nobody should be permitted to use that voice during a competitive event. It undermines the athlete.

At one point, I confidently identified a guest who had gone into the kitchen. I know this because she called back, “I’m getting cheese, Levi.” That information damaged both my score and my theory that I possessed heightened senses.

The evening included a consensual impact scene, which accounts for the next morning’s evidence. I’ll spare you the play-by-play. The important detail for this investigation is that everyone else went home with leftover sweets, while I went to bed knowing I would have questions for the mirror.

Exhibit A Was Suspiciously Hand-Shaped

In daylight, my grand theory of supernatural interference encountered its first obstacle. Some of the evidence looked suspiciously like it had been produced by people with hands.

Still, I refused to rule anything out. Perhaps our house had been visited by a ghost with excellent finger definition. Perhaps an ancient curse had manifested in a form conveniently associated with last night’s activities. Perhaps I needed coffee before attempting deductive reasoning.

My fiancée leaned against the doorway and suggested the third explanation.

There was also a shape I classified as a paddle-shaped apparition. She asked whether I meant the paddle we already owned. I explained that investigators must avoid jumping to conclusions, especially when the prime suspect is offering unsolicited assistance.

She went to make coffee. Apparently the suspect was confident enough to leave me alone with the evidence.

Photographic Proof of My Own Stupidity

Taking a useful photograph behind yourself is much harder than it should be. The first picture showed the laundry basket. The second featured my elbow. The third somehow included the ceiling, which I can only assume was trying to establish an alibi.

When I finally had a usable image, I stood there considering what to do with it. My first instinct was to send it to my fiancée, a woman who had been present throughout the evening and therefore required no visual briefing whatsoever.

I sent it anyway, accompanied by, “Can you explain this?”

Her reply was, “Yes.”

That was it. One word. No remorse, no elaborate defense, no suggestion that we call a priest. I had submitted evidence to the person best equipped to explain it and then felt annoyed when she could.

I briefly considered assembling a case file. Then I remembered that she would probably correct my spelling and ask why I hadn’t emptied the laundry basket visible in Exhibit One.

The Real Haunting Happened at Breakfast

The physical evidence wasn’t the part that stayed with me longest. It was remembering my own terrible guesses, the cheese announcement, and the fact that I had thanked someone for a clue that wasn’t remotely helpful.

At breakfast, my fiancée asked whether I had enjoyed myself. Without an audience, without the blindfold, and without my imaginary investigator’s badge, I could answer honestly. Yes, I had. I’d been nervous, I’d been ridiculous, and I’d laughed hard enough that several clues had become completely unintelligible.

She checked how I was feeling, and we talked about what had worked and what we would change. That conversation belonged to us. The party had been noisy and theatrical; the next morning was coffee, reassurance, and her listening to me without turning every answer into another joke.

Well, most answers. She is still herself.

That is the part I want other subs to understand. Being the subject of a joke can be fun when you trust the people making it and have a say in the occasion. I could enjoy being spectacularly bad at her game because we had agreed on it together. My ability to stop or speak up was never part of the competition.

Case Closed Until She Buys More Decorations

My investigation ultimately found no evidence of ghosts, curses, or hostile activity from beyond the grave. It found a party my fiancée had planned carefully, friends who were far too good at misleading me, and a man who should never describe himself as perceptive while blindfolded. I have accepted the findings, although I reserve the right to complain about the cheese incident indefinitely. This year, when she says she has an idea for Halloween, I intend to ask several intelligent questions before agreeing. I also intend to move the toothbrush holder.

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