Fit to be Wardrobed ...

I went for my fitting on the Sad Belgium.

It was out in the nowhere land of No Ho. No Ho Costume. Located on Plastic Boulevards of endless Nihilism, as my much-smarter-than-me friend used to say.

They cropped my hair.

They told me they would crop my hair.

"You know you're getting a haircut," said the person at the sign-in desk.

"Yes, it was on the hotline."

His eyes blazed with mischief: "You're okay with that?"

"Si."

The wardrobe fellow came to dress me.

"So they're gonna cut this all off?" sez he.

"So I've been told," sez I.

He was a nice fellow and went about finding boots to fit my enormous calves. I don't know how god misunderstood my prayers, I thought I enunciated pretty clearly, and the word penis and calves really don't sound all that similar, but here I am with enormous calves.

I got medals. I remained an officer of the Belgian army (which my on-set contact told me is where the work is going), and as I left the trailer:

"Man, you're okay with it all coming off,"

"Dude, I had so much hair once, I was sitting in the salon of my friend on a Friday, and all the gals decided to give me a french up-doo. They started flitting about me, singing songs, scattering rose petals and up-dooing my hair.

On Monday and I came in and got a Number One Fade in the very same chair. I'll deal."

"Okay," he sez, "but they are going to put it above your ears for period look."

He sends me to the gun holster dude. Gun holster dude fits me with firepower holsters, and sends me to get digitized.

And it is here, that I meet the ubiquitous wardrobe witch. The one celebrated in story and song. Fast becoming a folk legend on par with the angry ladies manning the Department of Motor Vehicle's windows.

"DID YOU GET YOUR HAIR CUT, YOU KNOW YOU HAVE TO HAVE YOUR HAIR CUT, WHY HAVEN'T YOU BEEN TO HAIR?"

I've perfected this low-tone, one breath & speak delivery for these gals. It jams their signal, and doesn't allow them to cut you off mid-sentence with a scathing admonishment. Slow intake of air and say:

"I've been directed to move here by Smedley in the trailer, and I indeed asked him if I should go to hair first, but he told me to come in and get my picture, just tuck my hair under my hat, but I'll be glad to go wherever you would like me to."

A normal person should be satisfied with this answer. A wardrobe witch is not. She's not looking for a why, or that you are compliant. She really wanted this answer from me:

"I was told by several people to get my hair cut. Fuck them all. I have come in here in brazen disregard and hope by stuffing my hair under my hat that I'll fool a clever person such as yourself."

The, the WW could have brayed at me, making up for all the slings and arrows she's suffered all day from the higher-ups. The shoddy costume held together with so many safety pins the Nazi officer was in-danger of looking more sour punk then kraut. Apparently, she'd been shamed by a fellow co-worker in front of her boss on this, and she was lecturing him to keep his mouth shut when I walked up. When I walked up and disappointed her by not being a punching bag.

So, she changed tack. She started looking at my gun holster.

"Did you do this?"

Thought bubble answer: "Yes, I did. I don't know much about the improper way to wear a leather strap-on (like you do), but I've done my best to fuck it up JUST TO PISS YOU OFF."

Real words that came out of my mouth: "The Gun Holster Guy set me up, I just held my arms up and enjoyed it."

"Did you tamper with it?"

Oh holy hell. Tamper? TAMPER? It sounds so sinister, like I took a bottle of Children's aspirin and put in X.

"ma'am, his table is about 30 feet that way -- [she tries to interrupt here, but I have the low tone and one breath thing going and I focus and keep talking even slower and more forceful] --and I just walked over here after he finished fitting me."

Now, the rest of the crew is watching. The other extras waiting. The people behind the sign-in table. It's not just me and her in a tiny wardrobe truck. You can feel the group lining up behind me, the reasonable extra vs. the rag-hag harridan. Even she can feel it. She knows that she can't prosecute the murder rap she wants to hang on me.

"Well, this period is all about the waist!" and she huffs and puffs, putting my holster in the waist-management position.

Nice wardrobe dude walks in, the guy who dealt with my ENORMOUS CALVES and sez:

"Oh, he looks great Gretta, just snap the damn picture."

She does. But not before she tells Smedley in a sniff:

"It's all about the waist!"

It would be too easy to look at her expanding girth and ask, what does your waist scream? Too easy, but certainly a delicious thought.

All of this makes me wonder: what's the problem with these ladies? No one sets out to be a shrew. And yet, the witchy wardrobe lady threatens to become stereotype of the year. The WW we all roll our eyes about. I'm guessing over-work on a creative person, stuck in a very planning-orientate environment. If you're a really good planner, you don't end up in costumes. Yet planning skills are needed when dealing with the multiplicity of costumes a set demands. Creative people, while genius at getting the collar right on the 1870's dandy, tend to get shrill when overburdened with the cast of thousands needing attention. Where'd those damn medals go? Why are you letting them go on-set with out butting their shirts to the chin (weird WW send-them-on-set jittery tick: buttoning modern-day shirts to the top, even though only nerds do this)? Who lost the ascots? Why are the grips wearing our ascots as sweat bands? Add in overweight, a crappy love-life, and just maybe some of the more tiresome of our extra ilk, and you get the the boiling cauldron that is the WW. Which wardrobe witch, indeed!