When I was 10 me and another guy wrapped ourselves in shopping bags for Halloween and called ourselves “Diaper Dudes”. Twenty years later I decided to wrap myself in duct tape and the only difference from when I was 10 is that I didn’t give myself a title. Which really perplexed people: “What ARE you?! A mummy? Bee man? Tape man? Hazard guy?”
I bought “Gorilla” brand duct tape, which is super strong and I’d highly recommend it (for household repairs, not costumes). Even though I wore tights underneath I still lost a fair amount of hair at the end of the night. It hurt. Kinda reminds me of the other time I lost hair for halloween.
Traditional laboratory tape usually doesn’t feel soo sticky but even it was able to cause damage (see rash and persistent adhesive).
So, people were generally impressed but, after consulting a bit, some fellow partygoers thought I should lose the skirt. Therefore, to both enhance the costume and avoid indecency I covered the rest of my mid-section in tape. Without thinking very much I slapped a thick band of tape around my midriff. While the costume was enhanced, and I wouldn’t take back this decision for the world, there were 3 drawbacks to this decision: 1) it seriously decreased my sex appeal, 2) it meant I couldn’t pee, and 3) by removing it I discovered a way to feel like you have a sunburn without actually exposing yourself to the sun. Note the main consequences: red band of sunburnt-looking skin, scabs forming 2 days post-removal, adhesive persisting 2 days post-removal. (Gorilla tape – good stuff!)
Addendum! Check this out – a few days later I noticed someone else’s duct tape on the street, at 16th and Columbia. They chose red and black stripes to my yellow and black. Funny thing is I walked this same intersection halloween night. Maybe we just missed each other by minutes. Parallel tape men in parallel universes. Or maybe he/she had vertical stripes in which case it’d be perpendicular tape men in parallel universes.
