Murder Mystery

Every spring my office has a Murder Mystery party. It was one of the first things people told me about on my first day back in July, and the past nine months have been a slow, steady crescendo of anticipation. It is the Social Event of the Year.

We got our character assignments and backgrounds a month ago - the theme this year was "Cirque du Slay," and I was Tatiana Torovic, Ukrainian Acrobat. The guy who works in the cube next to me was my acrobat boyfriend. Neither one of us wanted to be underdressed, so last week we went out and rented costumes. We also looked at a bunch of pictures of acrobats online and bought facepaint, so we could be adequately made up.

This shows our costumes, but it's hard to see our makeup.

I was a little bit nervous about going to a work party in basically nothing but a swimsuit, but I ended up winning the Best Dressed award so it was totally worth it. I did look like I was naked as I walked there with my coat on over my leotard, though.

Here we are with the Ringmaster! (you can see our makeup better too)

People take the Murder Mystery really seriously, and were in character all night. I did my best to channel my extended Russian family for my accent, and I ended up being just a few votes shy of Best Performer (it went to Crystal Divine, the circus psychic, who held a seance and got possessed my the spirit of the murder victim).

Not the most flattering angle, but it give you an idea of what I mean by "basically a swimsuit."

Cornelius Barnum, the circus owner, had a nefarious plot to flood the Circusdome after opening night so we could leave town with everyone's money and not have to stay and perform. I had to pass messages and bribes between him and the crooked contractor, even though doing so was antithetical to the values of my Ukrainian village, because if I didn't comply he would revoke my work visa and get me deported. When Barnum got murdered I was pretty sure it had to do with this criminal activity, but it turns out the local beauty pageant winner did it - she didn't like the circus being in town and stealing attention away from her. Her past as a florist's assistant gave her all the knowledge she needed to poison the pie a clown threw at Cornelius with Nerium Oleandar. Although I didn't unravel the murder, I was successful in my other objective for the evening - preventing a slew of other circus women from stealing my Acrobat Boyfriend. All in all, a successful evening!