My Love Affair with/as The Zebra Costume

Now, you may or may not know that I am rather a fan of the old fancy dress. Huge, in fact. I regularly spend a lot of a)money, b) time and c)effort on my costumes. I think this stems from my childhood when my mum would throw Halloween parties for me and my friends, and me and my brother would always have incredibly imaginative costumes, (in other words, I was NEVER just a “witch.” Or a “cat.” Bitch, please.)

Now, I tend to repeat the good costumes for different audiences as I love people complimenting me on them. One outfit in particular is The Zebra. I have dressed up as A Zebra on no less than 5 occasions. Each time has been subtlety different, but the core costume involves a white top with black gaffer tape stripes, and black and white stripey knee high socks. Optional extras have included tails, ears, zebra knickers, and varying degrees of facepaint (from minimal stripes to full on face/body/incredibly detailed facepaint).

Zebras. Aren't they pretty?

Now one of my more memorable holidays of my life was when I went to Malia in summer 2010 with some schoolfriends. Waay, Brits Abroad, BANTAH etc etc etc Yes, the place The Inbetweeners went to in their film. They were in fact filming there the week after we left…

Now I’m sure I don’t have to describe this kind of holiday to you in too much detail. They are pretty much exactly as you imagine them:

Wake up
Down some Ibus
Stagger to pool/beach
Sleep
Wake up, eat something, (carbs) go back to sleep
Shower
Eat something else (optional)
Drink
Go out
Drink some more
Kiss someone/thing unsuitable
Eat something else (KFC)
Go home in the early hours
Sleep

Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Ad Nauseum.

Needless to say I had an absolute BALL in Malia. Unapologetically amazing. We’ll have none of that snobbery here thank you very much. One of our favourites bars was one called “Indie Bar.” As you can see Malia bar owners are about as orginial as I am when it comes to naming things. Our first encounter with said bar was being accousted by the “PRs” outside, who are basically people who work for all the bars, stand outside and entice you in with various deals etc.

Or, in the case of Indie bar, physically pick you up and carry you into the bar.

We got to Malia very late at night for some reason so were pretty knackered and all I can remember about first meeting the guys here was thinking, “YOU LOOK ABOUT TWELVE” about one guy who was not unattractive. If a bit short. Turns out he was 22 (I was 23). He was called Mark.

The rest of the people we met we just gave nicknames to. So there was Armpit (had very sweaty armpits), Armpit’s Brother (who turned out to be Frankie Cocooza! Yes fact fans, I met him a year before he was on X-factor….), The Bear, (looked like one), The Hair & His Boy (his hipster hair took over his head), Lizard Man, Brown Nick, (he called himself this…) Rainbow girl, the list goes on and on.

Back to Mark. First proper night out, one of the girls (L) sustained a foot injury and so retired early (another friend going with her), leaving me and my friend…Mouse. Our way home went past Indie bar so we stopped as we went past as Mark was sitting in the front.

From what I remember there wasn’t much of a conversation (we were in Malia, the place for intellectual debate it is not), before he said something like, “Let’s play paper, scissor, stone to see which one of you I kiss,” (!) but Mouse has a boyfriend, so of course it was Old Muggins here who got to kiss him.

Cue kissing. With Mouse about 10 centimetres away going, “Oooo THEY’RE KISSING!” Ahahaha. Soz babe.

Cue the next week flirting outrageously with him. Another highlight was bumping into him coming back from the beach, he was coming out of a house with a massive suitcase and L says,

“Ooo….Are you going on your hols??”

Absolute silence…..tumbleweed…..

“It was a joke.”

More silence…..

I digress. Back to Zebras. We decided we should have some themed nights whilst away and one we decided on was Zebras. (We also had neon night, where we had Cecil the centipede and I lost my camera. Another story). Zebra night took place on the second to last night, and I think I decided that this was The Night. The Zebra costume consisted of the socks, the gaffer tape stripes, stripes on my face, a skinny black and white scarf around my waist (my tail), and ears? Maybe not ears.

So we started off in Indie Bar naturally. And as we were leaving, get this, I GAVE HIM MY TAIL (the scarf)……and told him to “look after it, cos I’m coming back for it later.” Oh deary me. But he worked til like 4am, and we wanted to go out and dance so what else was I supposed to do?

We went to a club called …Zoo or Safari or something equally animal related, that was covered in zebra prints, cue lots of ridiculous posing for photos. I got talking to some couple, and somehow got a polaroid photo taken of me with said people….

(Apparently, later on when my friends were in KFC later that night (when I was absent) they got talking to a lad who complimented them on their zebra costumes, saying, “Oh yeah I met some other girl earlier dressed as a zebra,” and produces the polaroid of me, causing much screaming by my friends of “THAT’S [MY NAME!!]”)

Meanwhile, I’d made my way back to Indie Bar and Mark, and then Mark’s place of abode. We picked our way through one room full of sleeping bodies, and actually managed to get a room to ourselves (very different to the Australian incident). I’d like to just remind you that I AM DRESSED AS A ZEBRA at this point. Obviously this needed to be rectified so clothes start coming off, but of course I’ve got a load of black gaffer tape strapped around my chest which is quite hard to get off and still look sexy. Nigh on impossible in fact.

Eventually I get the gaffer tape off and lash it somewhere and things proceed. Exact details bit hazy. (Not that this is a recurring theme AT ALL. No, siree, not me…) I do however, very definitely remember seeing the gaffer tape on the floor and thinking, “Yes, I can use this,” and using it to tie his wrists together above his head…

I am nothing if not resourceful.

The Stride of Pride home the next morning was possibly the most enjoyable one I’ve ever had. No one else is up, apart from other Stridees. I’d describe it like when you go out running or dog walking early in the morning and do that very English “nod” or “good morning” acknowledgement thing to other runners/dog walkers, except you’re doing it to other people who got laid. ‘Mazing.

We started our last night in Indie Bar (of course), and the verdict from Mark was pretty incredible. Moral of the story: if you can incorporate your fancy dress costume into sex this will only ever get you good results.