I also couldn't really see all that well. I could recognize faces and see where everything was. Reading was an entirely different thing, though, as the words tended to be blurred by the mask's eyepieces. I also couldn't look down, not without holding the top of my head. The costume itself is made up of the very flexible spandex lycra material. Unfortunately, the zipper going the full length of my spine is not, so I wasn't exactly the most flexible Spider-Girl in that costume.

What was pretty cool was most of the customers at the time I showed up to the store were regulars, so I wasn't debuting the Spidey look in front of a whole bunch of people who didn't know me. That would come later...

I got a lot of compliments on it right away, most were amazed (er, no pun intended) at how accurate and well made the costume was. It had me wishing I had sewn it myself, rather than being lazy and ordering it online. Still, it was nice to hear the compliments on how it looked.

The shop used to have a Halloween store next to it so there were quite a few people walking by the store that normally wouldn't. Right away, there was a mother and her daughter passing by on their way out of the Halloween store and the girl stopped by our entrance and just stared at me with this stunned look on her face. I waved at her and she waved back, then kind of ran away from the entrance. It was very cute.

At least I know Mayday deals with it too...

Unfortunately, most people know of Spider-Man, but not Spider-Girl. (See "Spider-Man has Boobs?") Which means Spider-Girl wasn't the first thing that came to mind when they saw me standing there in the store. In the space of fifteen minutes, there were probably five to ten instances of "Look, it's Spider-Man!", to which I would say "Spider-Girl!" in an increasingly exasperated tone.

Twice parents came in with their kids and their kids excitedly said "Spider-Man!". After I said "Spider-Girl", they seemed to notice that this Spidey had a feminine shape to her (that and my voice helped...). Oddly enough, both times the parents would come back and say something about "Spider-Man" in reference to me, probably something like "Say goodbye to Spider-Man" and the kids would say "Spider-Girl!" Again, very cute. One kid was really polite and actually thanked me for dressing up as Spider-Girl. (Which was kinda weird, honestly...)

One customer heard everything and told me his daughter (who's about my age) had run into the same trouble before. She had gone as Spider-Girl, but was called Spider-Man by those who saw her. He said she was reacting pretty much like I was (getting exasperated and all that) so he told her to let her pony tail show. She did and no one called her Spider-Man after that. It was nice to hear I wasn't the only one (and I remembered that they even wrote that into the Spider-Girl comics). Still, I was too much of a purist. I wanted the costume as it was intended, so I left my hair inside the mask.

After about 45 minutes, the mask was getting to be kind of a pain, so I took it off. It was actually pushing my nose down, and after almost an hour of it, my nose was starting to hurt. Of course, right then one of the regulars who is a big Spidey fan came into the store. The mask went back on, and I inadvertently made the man quite jealous. Apparently he got a store bought Spidey costume, but hasn't had a chance to wear it. I'd shown him pictures of my costume a few weeks before, but he was surprised and how it looked, especially once I put the mask back on. As he left, he said "I'm going to go home, put on my Spider-Man mask and stare at myself in the mirror" in a pitiful tone.

I left the mask on for a little longer, I did like having it on. Oddly enough, with the mask off a lot of people didn't seem to notice unless they were relatively close that I was wearing a Spidey costume. It was also fun to "be" Spider-Girl. With my mask off, I was "Meg in a Spider-Girl costume." While I do share hair and eye color with May Parker, I doubt many would see me as her just on that alone. There are plenty of blue eyed brunettes wandering around.

The store slowed down around 7pm, which was likely due to Halloween itself. One guy kind of laughed as he bought his comics. I don't know if he was laughing at me or at Bill (who was dressed as an Arkham Asylum inmate.) He wouldn't say, and just said that he was laughing at himself for not wearing a costume.

The store closed and nine, and I changed out of the Spider-Girl costume and back into my everyday clothes. Halloween was over for me for another year, which is sad. I love the holiday and I hate getting out of the costumes I've looked forward to wearing for so long. It was like that for the zombie flapper girl costume I wore the week before for a Halloween party. There totally needs to be more Halloweens in the year! Still, it was nice to be in regular clothing, not to mention to be able to actually be able to grip things normally again. Ironically in the Spider-Girl costume, I had less of a grip than usual. It's not surprising, just ironic.