Jason’s Travelogue

Three of us decided to dress up for October 30th.

After some discussion, we had agreed on a Super Mario theme earlier in the week. A number of ideas ran through my head- Luigi? Mushroom? Toad? The big flying bullet?

Then it him me. Why not be original? Google searches had netted me images of countless Marios and Princess Peaches, but few objects from the game. I decided to be the golden Question Mark Box that Mario apparently headbutts? (I thought he just hit it with his fist) and gets goodies from.

Getting a cardboard box was indeed a hassle- like everything else in Qatar, I was given the roundaround by  eight different people at the mall. In the storeroom of Carrefour, I managed to corner an employee and he was forced to grudgingly hand over a box as I pointed at the countless stacks of boxes right behind him- he couldn’t even try to deny that any such empty boxes existed! I grabbed some orange spray paint, colored markers, string, and scratch paper to create, lo and behold, a Question Mark box that I wore over my shoulders.

Atsuko came as Super Mario, Becca came as the classic SNES controller, and I was the Q-Box. I had made little shelves in my box to hold candy, a cardboard mushroom, star, feather, candy for the kids, and speakers that blasted out my Super Mario songs I found on the net. We held a little skit for the second-years after their physics lecture… I hooked up the room mic and played the theme songs, as Becca “controlled” Atsuko by pressing buttons. When I was headbutted, I threw goodies into the air- when I threw a star, I hit the Starman song, and Atsuko ran around the room, knocking people over (okay, she didn’t really hit anyone). A great success. We celebrated the said success by eating candy and taking a walk outside- Super Mario, the SNES controller, and the Question Mark Box.