Crazy Crap Item #239: The part where I come face to face with carnage

So, some several months ago, my dear friend Mr. Czajka came to visit. He was in town to provide a conference hall of bored holy folk with educational materials to enhance some PBS show on religion that is watched by a grand total of 3 people nationwide. His presentation was scheduled for a Tuesday, so he flew in on Saturday to spend a leisurely weekend with the Dalys and his other Windy City buddies.

The weekend held many delights:

• An arrival during a backyard fete at the Caseys, just in time to roast marshmallows and watch children merrily cavort on my good friend, Lulu the Lion.
• Dinner at the always delightful Pizza Antica with Kristen Freilich, at which we got to ogle the outlines of a naked man showering in an apartment bathroom just across the street.
• A visit to the ever-popular Bong Ho (actually named Cafe Bong) for tunes late into the night.
• A sumptuous breakfast at Walker Brothers Original Pancake House with Ms. Katie Heilman.
• An attempted bus trip to Boys Town, that was stopped by some sort of traffic accident snafu, leading to a leisurely stroll down the Southport Corridor.
• A sidetrip to a resale/retail shop in Boys Town, where I tried on some odd piece of clothing that looked like a cross between a dress and a bathing suit, and would have suited Betty Boop quite nicely.
• Drinks and bar food at Castaways of North Beach (it looks like a boat, but it's a restaurant! Imagine!)
• Attendance at Ms. Freilich's improv show at Second City, joined by Mr. Bryant Dunbar and his sometime swain Rich.
• A trip to Sidetrack, where we enjoyed sights of burly men and '70s disco videos, all accompanied by fruity slush drinks.
• A visit to Northwestern Campus, for a walk down memory lane, and the witnessing of a daring rescue undertaken by a passer-by climbing into the lagoon to free a fish trapped in the rocky breakwater. (It was quite thrilling.)
• Dinner at Gullivers with Mr. Dunbar and the lovely Ms. Carrie Houchins-Witt (one of the ladies from the famed Rochester Odyssey), accompanied by raucous theater and road trip war stories.

But of all these travels -- fascinating and varied as they were -- the most psychologically and aesthetically impressive was our trip to a newly discovered font of all that is fabulous, "Lost Eras." When Mr. Czajka told us to travel east on Howard from Clark to find this fabled storefront, we thought him mad, and we told him as much. Nothing was on that stretch of Howard. Nothing of worth.

But lo to our wondering eyes should appear a remarkable place--a wonderland, really--of vintage antiques, costumes, props, used books, and all other manner of flotsam and jetsam. They rented props, you see, to theater students at Northwestern. $50 to fill a bag with all you can carry.

We perused the front room of antiques; browsed the swords, guns, and other tools of mayhem; examined a wall full of monocles and cigarette holders and pirate hats. Then we wandered through two or three large rooms stuffed to bulging with racks and racks of costumes -- Henry VIII costumes, hippie costumes, superhero costumes, Southern Belle costumes, a dizzying array.

It was only then that we discovered...the downstairs. Rooms and rooms of vintage clothes -- wedding dresses, smoking jackets, christening gowns, tuxedos -- all lining racks in dusty, low-ceilinged rooms. And antique props of every description -- old roller skates, irons, bicycles, and more.

As we perused the ladies' wear, Mr. Czajka and I came upon an alarming rack of white, fluffy suits. Bunny costumes, you see. Scads of them. But the biggest shock was to come, a disturbing vision of horror glimpsed just at the end of the aisle.

I'll never be the same.