It’d been three very long hard days, Seventy-two hours of constant stress and looking after my two kids while my girlfriend was away. While she was at a reunion for an old place she worked twenty odd years ago, I was looking forward to a reunion with both my sanity and of course her. I counted down the days, the hours and the minutes until she finally came home. She said, as she appreciated my having to pull three solo days with the kids while she was away, I could pop out on Halloween.
But it came with a catch…
Well more of a dare really. She dared me to go out that evening with a costume she’d bought on her way home. The costume was that of a nun. To be quite honest I had no problem going out for a drink dressed as a nun or a Mexican dancing girl or a lama for that matter. I needed a break and not being exactly a stranger to showing of, I agreed. But it wasn’t what I expected at all. What I figured would happen would there would be lots of other people in fancy dress, mine would be a novelty for all of about ten seconds, then it’d be a new sort of normal until I went home.
But here are some of the things I learned from being dressed as a nun for a single evening.
Hands! Hands Everywhere!
Rule one of being dressed as nun is whatever you do, don’t bend over. I dropped one of my coins at the bar and as I bent to pick it up I suddenly felt four distinct male hands on my arse. The weird thing is all of these four blokes knew I was a bloke dressed as a nun. Not one could have mistaken me for a real woman or a real nun. So there motivations seemed a bit odd as there was definitely a sexual motivation. All four were as far as I am aware normal heterosexual piss heads of the same variety you’d find in any pub or bar in England. But this mystery soon cleared when…
Suddenly people tell you all their sexual fantasies.
Yep, this was another one that caught me by surprise. It seems that the very sight of someone in a nun’s habit brings out the need to share their deepest darkest sexual deviancies. So suddenly it was like I was a priest at a confessional! Unsolicited information was now shared where a number of blokes mentioned that they ‘had a thing for nuns.’ Yeah. Ok I can sort of relate to that. But for a small number the very chance to touch someone when they are dressed as a nun and not get arrested for it seemed to be too much to handle.
Wimples are very comfortable.
I thought that wearing this bloody penguin outfit would have been a bit chilly, and the wimple would make me sweat and set off my psoriasis. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It’s actually fairly functional I found. I didn’t sweat very much, hardly at all in fact which was amazing considering that it was a very warm pub environment full of people. The robes part of it actually let air circulate pretty well. So even though I had my jeans and a T shirt underneath (So no, I didn’t have stockings and suspenders on under it before you ask) I felt exactly the right temperature.
In fact the only thing that drove me clinically nuts was the lack of pockets. Now I know that nuns as a general rule aren’t allowed possessions which eliminates the need for pockets. But common sense would dictate that not all orders can be like this; maybe they’d find something and need to keep ahold of it until it could be handed back to its owner? Either way having to pull this damn thing up to get money out of my pocket to pay for a drink or to check my phone was pissing me off. Yes I could have taken the whole load of gear off and stuck it behind the bar to collect the next morning. I could have got rid of it. But where is the fun in that.
It was an experience, and I was rather worried when halfway through the night I started to notice myself checking if the headdress was fitting correctly. So when I got home many photos later and took it off I was glad to see the end of ‘Sister Mary of the Immaculate Pint Glass.’ I think next time I have to dress up in fancy dress..it may be something a bit more normal.