Chic! Ago!

While in Chicago, Jennifer and I had the following conversation in regard to a certain item our father provided for us after 9/11:

JEN: Do you still have your gas mask?
ME: I think so. I think it's somewhere in the closet in the Everything Room. I'm not sure. I'd feel weird throwing something like that away.
JEN: [holding a brown box with a black strap attached to it] I still have mine. I don't know what to do with it.
ME: It's not like I was going to throw it in my shoulder bag and take it to work with me every day. And it's bad now, right? Don't they go bad?
JEN: Yeah. It's bad.
ME: I guess you could use it for a costume. Like you could be Dustin Hoffman in "Outbreak."
JEN: I got it!
ME: What?
JEN: I'm going to be a Paranoid American for Halloween!
ME: Best. Idea. Ever.
JEN: I'm going to take duct tape and wrap it around my clothes!
ME: And carry around some canned goods. Like soup. And a packet of water.
JEN: And candles. We need candles.
ME: LOTS of batteries.
JEN: This is gonna work.
ME: When I was working at Real Simple, they gave us an emergency kit. You can use that.
JEN: Cool.
ME: But it's a giant fanny pack with the Real Simple logo on it. So you might just look like a paranoid Real Simple reader.
JEN: Oh. Never mind.
ME: It's a good thing you're not in your twenties. You'd have to stick the duct tape on your bare midriff.
JEN: That would hurt.

Anyway, Jen's Halloween costume is SET.

I have the rest of the week off (huzzah!), so Chicago stories and lots of random pictures showcasing the newfound use of the micro function on my camera are to come. If you're not sure this interests you, keep in mind that one of the photos has been entitled Fry Orgy.